A Plea to Steinberg...Let us have a printed Manual

Just bought WL8 and was astounded that there wasn’t a printed manual. I have to say, even the PDF was extremely poorly written for a first time user. The entire architecture of WL8 on first open made no sense to me and I’ve been using DAWs since they were introduced. I had never heard of an “audio montage” - particularly when what it REALLY is is a “project”. And it doesn’t open to a blank one by default. And even though the hierarchy for work is clearly “AM” on top, with file editing (aka “Sample editor”) underneath, the icon for the file editor is ABOVE the AM editor in the task bar? I had to simply have some one explain the workflow to me.

I went crazy before buying WL trying to find out why SO many established mastering engineers don’t use it. It made no sense to me considering the feature set. Now I begin to see why. The default screen ISN’T where you do the work and you’re confronted with about 50+ icons bending all the way around the frame of the screen. It looks like a programmer threw up on my screen.

These are WL-specific gripes, but to the point at hand, if you’re going to sell an expensive, powerful software tool that is definitely less than intuitive, you OWE it to your users to not only provide a printed manual, but one that clearly explains the narrative of the workflow right up front. A job that would be MUCH easier if the workspace actually HAD a clear narrative. Nuendo is at least worlds better than WL in that regard. Either way, a workflow IS a narrative. It’s a story of how to get from raw material to finished product.

May I recommend Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for summer reading at SB?

And yes please…printed manuals. I can refer to an index and back to the relevant page faster than anyone can type in a search into an ipad.