Hi Jason, I'm glad you've been able to learn some stuff from my posts. I'm happy to share whatever I can. Here's the dilemma I face:
as you can imagine, the requests for my time far outweigh the amount of time I have. Further, to spend time with one person, for example, is not at all an efficient use of the limited time I have and, for that matter, even spending time with a few people is still inefficient. What is perhaps much more efficient is a series of tutorials that can be accessed by anyone at any time. Of course, such an undertaking is massive and extremely time-consuming. It can be done in a very half-ass way or done the right way. Both take time but the better way takes a truly enormous amount of time. Pro Tools training for the masses is something that is actually a lucrative business. People pay thousands of dollars for such training even when there are free manuals available that detail everything you'd ever need to know. As you can imagine, the "market" for blind users is a fraction of that bigger market and there's just no financial incentive on that front. That said, I've been approached by a company to do one-on-one training in New York which I would consider doing as it would be treated as straight studio time for me. Anyway, this is all basically to say that I personally would rather spend some time doing a tutorial specifically on the subject of audio editing in Pro Tools which, to me, is it's biggest strength and least understood facility. I know that there are others on this list who are more than capable of getting beginners up to speed and I'd encourage them to share their knowledge and experience if they have the time to do so. I wouldn't blame them if they felt exactly the way I do about efficiency and decide to do a little tutorial about whatever subject they choose. In the mean time, I have to reiterate the importance of reading and studying the manuals. I say reading and studying because there's a difference. One needs to just read through the manuals the first time and then study them which, of course, means reading them again but, during the second reading, one needs to sit down in front of a Pro Tools system and try the steps outlined in the manual. This naturally assumes that one knows VoiceOver inside and out and, by that, I don't mean just knowing how to press Control and Option and an arrow key. With all that said, one will undoubtedly encounter road blocks and have questions about how to accomplish something. You know what? When I learned Pro tools, I didn't have this list and I had to learn by figuring it out on my own. I read, I experimented and, yes, I did compare notes with some other users, albeit not online, but it was ultimately my own personal training and that's what made all the difference for me. Now, of course, new users have it a lot easier. Not only are pdf manuals accessible (and they weren't when I was starting out), we now have the benefit of having online conversations where others can benefit from shared knowledge. That sharing, however, is far, far more efficient if it's either a well thought out tutorial or a series of direct and specific questions. For me to answer a question like, "I'm thinking of switching from Sonar to Pro Tools. What can I do in Pro Tools?" is simply an impossible thing to answer. No, actually, it's not impossible but it would take an enormous amount of time and, quite possibly, frustration and, you know what? A new person will come along two months from now and ask the same question. Nobody reads Frequently Asked Questions posts and they're also a hassle to keep up to date so, obviously, there's an inherent dilemma which I don't know how to solve, especially in an open-source environment like this one. Jason, you've spent 3 days with VoiceOver and I'm sure you feel ready to conquer the world with Pro Tools. Believe me, I can sympathize with your eagerness to just dive in and learn it. Well, it just won't happen anywhere nearly as quickly as you would like, I'm sure. It's going to take time—an enormous amount of time. I did nothing for six months but read the manuals and experiment with Pro Tools when I first learned it and that was a full time job. Beyond that, I spent another six months working on my technique and work flow so that I could be as efficient as possible. With clients paying for my time, I needed to be as good as I could possibly be and I took full responsibility for my learning. Sure, it would've been great to have someone sit down and teach me but I'm better for having been in the position of having to learn it on a granular level. Anyway, I will certainly attempt to attend some of the conference calls in the future. The current slot in the evening is not at all good for me most days but, if I can, I will be there whenever possible. Best, Slau On Mar 15, 2011, at 7:47 AM, studiojay wrote: > Hi Slau, > It's amazing reading your posts on pretty much every topic. Is it > possible that you can hold a confrence call with us new users to walk > us through a small session? I think this will be the best way for us > to get started. Please let us know if this is possible, and if > necessary, I don't mind paying a fee for this. I would really like to > get up and running soon, and it would be great to be able to not do > every thing by trial and error. Please let us know if this is > possible? Thanks a lot. > Jason
