Reference Guide

[Tbob]

I would love to see a reference guide that could actually be used as a reference. dmlabuda makes a great point that there should be a glossary of terms. In addition to said glossary, there should be some additional terms listed to clarify the Pro Tools terminology. For example, if I'm trying to figure out how to edit 'envelopes', it should be easy for me to figure out that they are called 'automation' in Pro Tools, instead of having to fish around for an indefinite amount of time reading various chapters.

I find stumbling through clunky documentation to find what I'm looking for very time-consuming, and makes me want to move to a more intuitive platform like Logic or Vegas. The power in Pro Tools is immense, and although I've been a home user for 5 years, I still have much to learn. I would love it if the next few years of learning more didn't have such a steep learning curve. Making it easier to learn with, say, a great reference book with pictures and examples, would undoubtedly bring in more base-level users.

As someone taking the Pro Tools certification courses, I'd also love to see more effort put in there to those training books: at the very least, editing (large numbers of typos and some incorrect information), and also a more comprehensive index and/or glossary. The 1.5-page index for a 254-page book is rather pathetic.

[filosofem]

All documentation can be found Win \Program Files\Digidesign and Mac /Applications/Digidesign.


filosofem

[pezking]

Originally Posted by Tbob

I would love to see a reference guide that could actually be used as a reference. dmlabuda makes a great point that there should be a glossary of terms. In addition to said glossary, there should be some additional terms listed to clarify the Pro Tools terminology. For example, if I'm trying to figure out how to edit 'envelopes', it should be easy for me to figure out that they are called 'automation' in Pro Tools, instead of having to fish around for an indefinite amount of time reading various chapters.

I find stumbling through clunky documentation to find what I'm looking for very time-consuming, and makes me want to move to a more intuitive platform like Logic or Vegas. The power in Pro Tools is immense, and although I've been a home user for 5 years, I still have much to learn. I would love it if the next few years of learning more didn't have such a steep learning curve. Making it easier to learn with, say, a great reference book with pictures and examples, would undoubtedly bring in more base-level users.

As someone taking the Pro Tools certification courses, I'd also love to see more effort put in there to those training books: at the very least, editing (large numbers of typos and some incorrect information), and also a more comprehensive index and/or glossary. The 1.5-page index for a 254-page book is rather pathetic.

It seems to me what you are wanting is a tutorial book - not a reference book. The reference book as it is, lets you know how a certain feature works and what parameters do what etc. I find it very quick to find what I need by searching through the PDF. Provided you know how to use your PDF viewer it's pretty fast.

I would also suggest your use of the term "envelope" is somewhat wrong, and that the term "automation" is a much more universally used term; so the fact that Pro Tools doesn't call it an envelope isn't that much of a surprise.

Finally I couldn't agree with you more about the Pro Tools Certification books. However I think they laid off a lot of the people in that department, and it won't get better any time soon.

[flommer]

Admittedly, I haven't had hands on Logic for a long time...

But I don't recall it ever being described as "intuitive"...

[digitalaudiogeek]

I think it's only useful as a PDF as long as you know what to search for - is there any way to get hold of the 101 book as a PDF (legally, of course)?