NO. Fix this please!

The manual. I love reading manuals, and referring to them instead of being frustrated.

Studio One’s manual is a more frustrating experience than just closing your eyes and randomly clicking until what you want happens.

Contents

No forward/back

The only way to go forward/back is to right click it seems. Extremely annoying.

Poorly Organized

There’s quite a few examples of this, but I stopped logging them. Simple things like automation, which has information scattered all over the manual. “Control Link” which is an integral feature to automating things isn’t mentioned in the automation section, but has its own section with its own strange name that no one would think of searching for.

There’s editing information in the arrangement section, arrangement information in the mixing section, automation information in the VCA section, mixing information in the recording section etc.. No section seems to have all of the information that is relevant for that topic. It’s apparently organized to reduce redundancy, which is not good technical writing. Information needs to be presented when it is topical.

There are relatively few links between sections as well. If there is a topic that crosses in to another territory, it should be linked. This is rare.

Difficult to find PDF

Good luck finding the PDF. You probably want it because you’re already really frustrated by the lack of search and the back/forward fiasco.

Welcome to another layer of frustration as you try to find the PDF manual. I finally figured out how to get to it by going to my Presonus Account page. A google, about a dozen clicks later and finally I can search like a 21st century human.

Poorly Formatted

Blocks of text everywhere. Just blocks of texts with a header. Like this blog. Not good. There is basically no formatting, just images with wrapped lines of text. Hell, you’re lucky to get an image.

Lightweight font on some weird coloured background. Ick

Inconsistent spacing, but it least fits in with the inconsistent layout and presentation!

The menu system is fantastic, if you are still using Mosaic and browsing the yahoo index. The drop down menu system is frustrating to use with no grace period for mouse movement and lots of flickering as you move.

Missing information

What’s an Instrument Part? No clue, the manual doesn’t explain it, but it does talk about the unique instrument part automation! Can’t figure out what an instrument part is though, so…

I ended up just having to search the Presonus Studio One forums for nearly everything. Youtube was a help sometimes as well.

Even when I could find the information I wanted, it was a pain in the ass to read because of the poor formatting.

NO SEARCH PAGE!!!!

In the built-in manual, there’s no way to search the current page! Holy what. This is absolutely idiotic. Nearly reason enough for me to not use Studio One. It makes using the built in manual very frustrating.

Conclusion

Easily the worst DAW manual I’ve seen. The manual is second-home to the frustrated. You are there because you couldn’t figure out something on your own, and with Studio One you are put in another level of hell where you can perfect your raging frustration.

Seriously, it’s awful. There was not a single time I had an issue where the manual gave me the information I needed, and every single time it left me annoyed.

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