via SOMA Laboratory
"Mastering the interface of a complex semi-modular synth with hundreds of controls and functions onboard is not an easy task even for the most seasoned producer. It’s too much to memorize, and continuously checking the user manual gets annoying and interferes with the creative process. Even with using the search function you still end up scrolling up and down dozens of pages and going back and forth to understand how related features interact, a process that is more fiddly than convenient.
Why does it have to be like that? Instrument manuals - even for complex machines - are still just plain linear text with a structure that doesn't reflect the actual interface or workflow of the product it describes. Despite all the technological advances of our digital age, user manuals are still based on the same principles of how information was organized and accessed in manuscripts from over 2,000 years ago.
It's high time someone changed this! SOMA Labs designed a new and more user-friendly approach to synthesizer manuals that we believe should become the new industry standard, offering unparalleled efficiency and immediate access to relevant information through a visual (touch) interface.
What really is a synth's interface? You can compare it to a territory, like a town or a forest, where we have various objects placed in space. If each control has just one function we can compare it with 2D space, if we have multifunctional controls or menus we can speak about a 3D space. How do you best describe a space to someone else? Of course, with a map! What should a 21st century map be like? Interactive!
SOMA is therefore proud to present its new interactive manual for the PULSAR-23 drum machine, SOMA's most complex synth to date. It consists of a map of the synth’s interface where each element is clickable.
Just click on any button, connector or knob and get its description along with highlighting elements that are connected to or depend on it with the immediate possibility to check what they do.
As PULSAR-23 is a semi-modular instrument, all patching points have suggestions about which other patch points you could connect them to (about 1,000 patching tips!).
So it's also a kind of light patching tutorial.
The concept of interactive manuals can be developed much deeper and better, and we therefore invite our industry colleagues to further develop and refine this approach to user manuals for musical instruments. Let’s make synth manuals more user-friendly, easy to learn and more efficient, lowering the learning curve for new musicians and freeing up users' minds for pure creativity!
Welcome to the world of PULSAR-23!"
Seems analogous (pardon the pun) to the likes of Bitwig’s interactive manual within the DAW. Bit of a stretch to claim much originality, but yeah, good to push for this kind of model, I’d certainly prefer learning this way on a new machine. And it’s a means to supersede a physical manual, which I’d personally otherwise prefer.
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