You need your information in a form you can read on your LCD in front of your face, ALL the manufacturers publish electronic versions of the manual.

The difference between a defibrillator and an arranger is that a defibrillator is designed for ONE function. An arranger can be used a myriad different ways these days. SMF's, MP3's, synced audio loops, styles... OK, so your old Yamaha had more than 30 styles... big whup! It probably had a tiny fraction of the different options you have now. Multiple fingering modes, multiple splits, multiple insert effects, multiple ways do do the SAME thing!

A tutorial would be incomplete until it was the size of War and Peace!

Look, there are people that apply themselves, and figure out from a manual what can be achieved, and there are people that want to sit there and have it spoon fed to them, one tiny concept at a time. But those that choose the spoon fed system rarely grasp the concepts behind what they are doing, and rarely advance any further than the tutorial. And usually never use 90% of even what is explained to them.

Arrangers attract a HUGE range of players. From the noobiest of noobs, to the studio professional, used to using gear FAR more complex. How is any manufacturer expected to deliver the appropriate level of hand holding to ALL of them..?

The truth is, if you REALLY want to know how to do anything on any arranger, there already ARE resources where all their questions can be answered (here is one of them!). If anyone doesn't make us of all this, why is it the manufacturers' responsibility to give them a tutorial they are unlikely to use?

The only reason I put that responsibility on the manufacturers is it's THEIR PRODUCT! And, THEY are the beneficiaries of the funds derived from selling THEIR PRODUCT to the consumer.

About 40 years ago I designed a coronary artery flow meter to be used during surgical procedures involving a pump-oxygenator, also known as a heart/lung machine. It provided pulsatile flow of oxygenated blood to both the right and left coronary arteries, and provided the technician with an instantaneous readout of the flow to each artery. It was highly accurate, very easy to use, but did require some training in order for the cardio-pulmonary tech to know exactly how and where to connect it to the pump-oxygenator. Unfortunately, because I was an employee of the university, and I designed and constructed the device at their facilities, I could not benefit monetarily from the device. The company that eventually manufactured and distributed them contracted me to provide a detailed instruction manual for the flow meter, which I did, again without any financial gain. However, that company did benefit financially, and because of this they felt compelled to provide a highly comprehensive manual to their consumers. I'm not sure if they were compelled to do this by law.

Now, I can't think of a single reason why an arranger keyboard manufacturer would not feel compelled to do the same thing. If I were the manufacturer of an arranger keyboard, or any product, for that matter, I would provide such a manual. I would want my customers to have detailed instructions of how to get the most out of MY PRODUCT(S). I would want them to be repeat customers who know they can rely on MY OWNER/USER MANUAL for answers to those difficult, technical questions, and those answers would be in plain language that everyone, at every skill level, could easily understand.

I don't want to search throughout every, unknown page in the operating system to find something as simple as setting a foot pedal. I should be able to look in the user manual's index under Foot Pedal/setting and find that information on page 81, turn to page 81 and see:

To set the keyboard's foot pedals:

1. Press the Function Button, located on the lower ride side of the LCD display. This opens the function page.
2. Select Pedals from the menu by pressing the "I" button on the lower, right side of the display. (This opens the foot pedal setting page.)
3. Select the desire function(s) of each pedal from the menu.
4. After selecting the pedal functions, press button #6 (Save).
5. When the save window opens, using the numbered buttoms at the bottom of the display, provide a name for these settings, then press the bottom of the #8 (OK) button to finalize the save function.

How difficult was that to understand? The option you offer, Diki is to look in the online features list, which says "You can save the pedal function." Wonderful! Now, all you need is an hour to find the correct buttons and pages to select from in order to perform that task.

Yes, there are lots of resources on the Internet, including this forum, that can provide you with that information. Of course, that's if you know where and how to search for that specific information. Not everyone does. Not everyone has your level of expertise when it comes to searching the Internet for a specific topic, and many have little or no technical expertise at all. When I was a young, aspiring journalist, which was longer ago than I would like to believe, an internationally known outdoor writer, Lefty Kreh, said to me "In order to communicate with people you need to use the least amount of words with the least amount of syllables to get the point across." He was right on the money! Lefty has authored more books than any outdoor writer in the world, his books have been published in several languages, and every one of them is a how-to, where-to instruction manual that is easy to read. If the arranger keyboard manufacturers only followed his lead I suspect their sales would far exceed their current level.

I think we are both pretty much saying the same thing, but we tend to communicate somewhat differently.

Gary

In the old days manufactures could spend time on writing an instruction manual as the instruments were simple, and the costs involved where not great, (They could also easily charge more for their instruments as competition was minimal, (No Internet or online sales)) however these days instruments are so comprehensive it would take a lot of hours (And cost) to go into every detail, however this additional cost could not be passed on to the consumer as if they did it would no longer be competitive with their competition, (Consumers these days want the cheapest price they can get) thus there is no incentive.

Printing cost and paper are also expensive, this is why most manufactures no longer supply a printed manual (Except a quick start guide) and provide the manual on a disc or make you download it online.

Before the internet, communication between owners was small, now any owner can get help from any other owner, which again reduces the incentive to the manufacture.

Finally (And only the consumer can take the blame for this, in spite of all the moaning they do) while some users would be prepared to pay a little extra to get a comprehensive manual, (As an add on) it would in a very short space of time be uploaded to the net so that nobody would have to pay for it, thus all the work done by the manufacture would make them no profit, which is a big disincentive to anybody. (The same happened with styles (Bought or manufactures styles) which are banded about free of charge on the net (The users saying I’ve bought it so I can do what I want with it) thus creating a disincentive for manufactures to produce more. (These same users also complain that manufactures are not producing enough styles for their instruments, whereas in reality they only have themselves to blame)

Bill

I guess maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. I can do two things that others seem to find hard. The first would be to look in an index, and if I need information about the footpedals, look under the letter F and lo and behold! There it is... Pretty difficult, I admit, but once you learn the alphabet, and to read, not all that difficult. And secondly, to TRY things out. If you back up your memory (probably the very first thing I look in a manual for information about), what's the worst that can happen? Push buttons... press things. See what happened.

Just like a baby, if you never progress past NEEDING to be spoon-fed, you are dependent on others your whole life. And you never discover something new, something your spoon holders never knew, maybe even something the manufacturer never knew!

Nobody's life hangs in the balance operating an arranger. No-one will die if you don't follow a proscribed step by step to achieve a specific goal. Truth is, the same people that can't figure out an arranger from the manual can't program their DVR's or figure out how to book a flight from their cell-phone.

But most people can.