07-20-2024, 05:54 PM
One of the difficulties with a Cookbook in this case is NerdSEQ development can progress so fast that when more things like that are produced, they could quickly become outdated.
I think the Cookbook idea is something the user community could maintain since it wouldn't strictly be part of the manual, and that could take some of the burden off of Thomas. When he spends his time on the manual he should be able to focus on clear and direct explanations of the functionality. The rest, how to turn those technical details into musical creativity, we should be able to work out and explain to each other.
I recently revised a very complex document (unrelated to Eurorack) and it went from around 64 pages up closer to 90. But, the people using it praised the change because most of the updates were better spacing, standard sized fonts (12pt instead of mixtures that included 9pt in some places in the old version) clearer directions (less assumptions), and better cross-references, as well as a system of End Notes and Appendix material where some of the detail and "rabbit trails" could be moved out from the main body of the work and referred to there instead.
Sometimes the length of a document can only seem intimidating if it is also messy. I don't think NerdSEQ's manual is "messy" but it is very feature rich. Thomas, you have done a good job with the table of contents, diagrams, and included some very nice extra touches such as a Decimal to Hexadecimal explanation in case any non-nerds try to use NerdSEQ
It is a lot of material, and a daunting task. What you have created requires something more similar to a Dungeons & Dragons Handbook than the manual of a typical Eurorack module. I struggled at first to wrap my mind around some of the concepts, but I'm using it now and hardly ever have to ask for help at this point.
The YouTube demonstration videos are also amazing, and an important supplement to the manual.
As for the paragraph suggestion, I think many parts of the manual are already divided up pretty well into paragraphs. But, due to the nature of the product, sometimes the manual gets to a section where many codes need to be explained all in a list (for example, the trigger values for ratcheting and trigger lengths, or another example, the FX command descriptions.)
Comparing once again to Dungeons and Dragons, this is like when they have a Spellcasting class, and suddenly there is a need to document a tedious list of spells. In the case of D&D, (at least in the 3.5 edition i'm most familiar with) they have decided to relegate Spells to a chapter later in the handbook, that way the class description for a Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, etc., can just refer you to the Spells chapter for that material. Because not all spellcasters have the same spells available they even have per-class lists (like, 2nd level Sorcerer Spells) near the front of the Spells chapter, but then all the spells are in alphabetical order after that.
NerdSEQ only has a few things like this, not a lot, but the ones it does have are very lengthy. I'm not sure if migrating them to a later Chapter would be helpful, but it might be a consideration to keep things as simple as possible in the main Chapters (for example where the Pattern screen is explained) and then for the FX column to explain what an FX column is, and then say for complete list of FX for this track type, refer to page x. That way it would keep the instruction moving along and not become bogged down by tables?
I don't know if that would be an improvement or not, though.
I think the Cookbook idea is something the user community could maintain since it wouldn't strictly be part of the manual, and that could take some of the burden off of Thomas. When he spends his time on the manual he should be able to focus on clear and direct explanations of the functionality. The rest, how to turn those technical details into musical creativity, we should be able to work out and explain to each other.
I recently revised a very complex document (unrelated to Eurorack) and it went from around 64 pages up closer to 90. But, the people using it praised the change because most of the updates were better spacing, standard sized fonts (12pt instead of mixtures that included 9pt in some places in the old version) clearer directions (less assumptions), and better cross-references, as well as a system of End Notes and Appendix material where some of the detail and "rabbit trails" could be moved out from the main body of the work and referred to there instead.
Sometimes the length of a document can only seem intimidating if it is also messy. I don't think NerdSEQ's manual is "messy" but it is very feature rich. Thomas, you have done a good job with the table of contents, diagrams, and included some very nice extra touches such as a Decimal to Hexadecimal explanation in case any non-nerds try to use NerdSEQ
It is a lot of material, and a daunting task. What you have created requires something more similar to a Dungeons & Dragons Handbook than the manual of a typical Eurorack module. I struggled at first to wrap my mind around some of the concepts, but I'm using it now and hardly ever have to ask for help at this point.
The YouTube demonstration videos are also amazing, and an important supplement to the manual.
As for the paragraph suggestion, I think many parts of the manual are already divided up pretty well into paragraphs. But, due to the nature of the product, sometimes the manual gets to a section where many codes need to be explained all in a list (for example, the trigger values for ratcheting and trigger lengths, or another example, the FX command descriptions.)
Comparing once again to Dungeons and Dragons, this is like when they have a Spellcasting class, and suddenly there is a need to document a tedious list of spells. In the case of D&D, (at least in the 3.5 edition i'm most familiar with) they have decided to relegate Spells to a chapter later in the handbook, that way the class description for a Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, etc., can just refer you to the Spells chapter for that material. Because not all spellcasters have the same spells available they even have per-class lists (like, 2nd level Sorcerer Spells) near the front of the Spells chapter, but then all the spells are in alphabetical order after that.
NerdSEQ only has a few things like this, not a lot, but the ones it does have are very lengthy. I'm not sure if migrating them to a later Chapter would be helpful, but it might be a consideration to keep things as simple as possible in the main Chapters (for example where the Pattern screen is explained) and then for the FX column to explain what an FX column is, and then say for complete list of FX for this track type, refer to page x. That way it would keep the instruction moving along and not become bogged down by tables?
I don't know if that would be an improvement or not, though.