Diki, almost everything you stated above is right on the money. Almost! Many, many years ago I wrote technical manuals, and they were just as I described - step by step instructions on how to do something with a particular piece of equipment. These were not tutorials - they were clear, concise user/owner manuals, which in this instance, was for the use of certain medical devices. A defibrillator comes with an owner/operator manual - not a tutorial. A pacemaker comes with an installation manual for the surgeon to follow step by step. A cardiac catheter is shipped with a manual that provides clear, concise, step by step instructions on how to use the various devices that are safely inserted through the catheter. (Gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that your surgeon had to read a manual in order to perform a certain, life-saving procedure. )

One of my first Yamaha arranger keyboards had a very well written manual that allowed the user to sit down with the manual next to the keyboard and go through the various features - step by step, and with photos of the screens and buttons on the various subject pages. That was more than 20 years ago. The keyboard had more than 100 styles, more than 100 voices, and a lot of neat features within various menus. It took months of going through that manual sitting next to the keyboard to find out what each and every feature did, and how I could utilize those features to their fullest extent for what I was doing. It was a lot of work, but worth every minute I invested.

Your NEW car DOES come with a very well written manual with lots of step by step instructions. The one that came with my Dodge Grand Caravan has detailed instructions and photos of how to change the serpentine belt, oil filter, tail-lights, headlights, cabin filters, interior lights, the locations and types of fuses, and dozens of other things that owners should know. There are detailed instructions and photos of how to jack up your car, remove a flat tire, the amount of torque required for the lug nuts, how to access the spare tire (doughnut), where the jack and lug wrench is stored, etc... And, if you took the time to read the manual that came with your car, which most people NEVER DO, you would have noticed there is a section on starting the car, putting it in gear, buckling your seatbelt, adjusting the mirrors, adjusting the seat position, filling the gas tank, load capacity, and driving in hazardous conditions. There's a section on using the cruise control, detailed instructions and photos of what each button does, and there's even instructions and photos on where the horn button is located. This is not a TUTORIAL - it's in the owner's manual that came with the car. The difference is that car manuals and medical device manuals must follow certain guidelines, while there are likely no guidelines for manuals pertaining to musical equipment - BUT THERE SHOULD BE!

Unfortunately, in this wonderful world of instant gratification, damned few people ever make an effort to read anything unless it's on an LCD/LED screen directly in front of their face, and even then they tend to browse over things instead of really reading them. Two decades ago, music gear came with well written, well constructed, concise, detailed owner/user manuals. A decade ago, manufacturers discovered it was a lot less expensive to put that manual on a CD and ship it with the equipment. Today, the only manual you get seems to have been created well after the product was created and produced, thus a garbage, poorly-written, vague, nondescript, poorly bound book comes with your very expensive musical equipment. If you want more information, you can go to the manufacturer's web site and download additional manuals in PDF format, manuals which were apparently written by the same eggheads that produced the one that came with your musical device.

Of course, you can call customer service, which in many instances results in being put on hold listening to elevator music for hours on end while waiting for the next service technician to answer. Of course, there's that nagging, computerized voice that comes on every 30 seconds that says "All of our service representatives are currently busy helping other customers. Your call will be answered by the next, available technician. Or, you can go to our website at www.bull$hit.net." If you go to the website you will search through endless pages of meaningless crap that never answers your questions, or just takes you to 10,000 other, garbage links.

When he or she does answer, which sometimes never happens because you get disconnected, you discover that person doesn't understand a word you are saying for a host of reasons, not the least of which is they don't speak the same language, or they have no knowledge of the subject matter and must put you on hold so they can ask their supervisor. Had that information been spelled out in clear, concise terms in the user/owner manual you wouldn't have been on the phone, on hold, in the first place. You could have found the information in the index, then went to the pages that provided the instructions you needed to get the job done.

I need a Margaretta!

Gary