Am I the only one who wants a Protools Hard Copy Reference Manual?

[Kasper]

Sorry dude, it does work that way.

They can sell it for $1 or $1K. What you're talking about is profit margin.

But thanks for the economy-of-scale 101 lesson.

kasper

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Kasper

Sorry dude, it does work that way.

They can sell it for $1 or $1K. What you're talking about is profit margin.

But thanks for the economy-of-scale 101 lesson.

kasper

Before profit, there's expense, and to make profit you need to cover the expenses. If there's not enough sales to cover the expenses, then you do not make profit.. Which you'll agree with me, if you're a company that has stocks, and or simply want to remain active.. it's not a good thing.

So while I do agree with you that it would be nice to get it for free.. it's absolutely not feasible. One way or an other, they will have to recoup on the production cost of the books. Either by selling the book the required price (determined by the cost of printing vs quantity vs % that needs to be sold at that quantity to become solvable), or by raising the price of the software or hardware. And they wont do that, because they know that not every one wants a hard copy of the manual.

You might need to brush up on accounting

P.s if you ever had to do the pressing of an album, then you know what I'm talking about Same principle in the printing business.

[panamajack]

You can buy the Protools Training guide for PT101 without registering for the course. Used manuals from the other, more advanced courses, are sometimes available as well, on places like Amazon or Craigs List. Or, take some of the PT courses, Berklee has them online.

Both Logic 8 and Protools 8 came with thick, printed, reference guides. They still have utility, even with the newer add-ons. For me, the online index for Logic 9's pdf file is like grabbing for spaghetti: it finds matches for whatever word you type, so you get 100 possibilities. And I am pretty down on paging through pdf files, so I agree, a hard copy is definitely nice.

But, with the number and frequency of revisions, I think hard copy manuals have become impractical for the vendors. Maybe buy a pad computer (I have a 24" portrait [pivot] monitor, 1920x1200). On the other hand, Avid does sell a manual for Sibelius. So, go figure.

And there are also teach yourself books for PT that come in several layers of usefulness. It's not like you have no choices.

[Kasper]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Before profit, there's expense, ....

..... yawn .... crickets....yawn....

Now back to the OP ...... Real manual?

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Kasper

..... yawn .... crickets....yawn....

Now back to the OP ...... Real manual?

You can disregard it all you want, but those running a business with those kinds of budget, they don't, and in the end, it's their decision.

[Dism]

Man, I don't get anything paper anymore. In this country, you have to jump through hoops just to get your phone company to send you a paper bill. Hell, my tax forms didn't even get mailed to me.

Paper is going away, and it's a good thing. Change is scary, but there are plenty of options outside of bright monitors. Get yourself a nice eReader with PDF support (ie Kindle). Easier on the eyes than a big glaring screen, and you can put all of your manuals for everything on it.

As was mentioned before.. Saves shelf space for more gear.

[madgt621]

Emcha`s on the money with this one.

And it really is all about cutting costs. Think about it, Logic went app store only, and sure enough, they cut the price in half. Does that necessarily mean that the price of all software will be cut in half if there are no boxes and manuals? Of course not. But taking into account the firestorm that came with the PT10 pricing, do we really want to give them another reason to jack up the price even 1 cent?

Also, we must take into account the production of manuals in different languages. Printing a large amount of manuals (especially one that is 1500 pages) in multiple languages, and having them readily available on request, is a monetary sinkhole. Any self-respecting business man would see this as a cost that is all too easy to eliminate.

Most major companies will be heading in this direction anyway, if they haven`t already. Many major banks have already gone paperless, and your average bill is hopefully less than 10 pages.

My personal opinion, and probably Avid`s, is "here is the ultra-convenient pdf. if you want a paper version so bad, print it yourself."

And seeing as the title of this thread poses the question, "Am I the only one who wants a Protools Hard Copy Reference Manual?", I`m thinking that not having a paper version available isn`t going to be much of a problem.

[C]

Have you tried the Pro Tools Help menu item? Much more convenient than the Pro Tools Reference PDF or a printed manual. Better searching too.

[JFreak]

Logic price went down 50% because they suddenly realised people get 50% more bang for buck because it's 64bit okay, a very bad joke...

[sonixstudio]

AVID bring back the dang reference maul please. He has a point $15,000 and no paper manual. Thats cheap Avid it really is.