Just checking...Drambo documentation is still a bit sparse, right?

Seems like the documentation has lagged far behind the software, am I right?

I surely would understand if that's the case...I just want to stop looking for it if everyone knows that documenation doesn't exist.

The manual seems like it's still at version 1.1 even thought we're now at Drambo 2.2 (see https://www.beepstreet.com/public/downloads/Drambo%20manual.pdf)

A few of the modules have some detailed explanations, but, for at least half of them, the text reads "No module help yet."

The AudioBus wiki has a list of module, last updated Feb '20, but no links where one can find instructions on how to use or connect them.

The Drambo Cookbook is a great idea, but is little more than an outline at this point (see https://wiki.audiob.us/doku.php?id=drambo_cookbook).

Seems like we need to rely on the numberous videos out there, which are great but often gloss over what know X and Y actually do.

Am I missing something?

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Comments

  • No, you’re not missing something at all.

    Normally we create a thread and talk about said modules and projects.

    There has been a lot of changes since version 1 and development is rather rapid.

    We are trying our best in trying to keep up with demand but there’s only one person

    doing the heavy lifting and the rest of us are volunteering our support.

    What are you specifically interested in? and there’s also an FB group you can join.

  • Yep, beepstreet is a one man show and what @giku has done so far completely on his own is outstanding imo.

    But yes, as of now, the many available videos are likely the best source for learning.

    I think we all agree that documentation could be better, especially module help but there have been several updates at least of the module help texts and if you say that "at least half" of the modules have no help, there's clearly something wrong here.

    Thanks for reporting.

  • I concur. Just pop any question on this forum or the Facebook group and I guarantee you’ll get the answer promptly.

    I think most of us don’t bemoan the sparseness of documentations because we know that Dev’s valuable time goes towards other parts of Drambo.

  • edited April 2023

    I would happily contribute the best documentation I can to a community effort if there was an organized way to discuss, refine, approve, and maintain it. Especially if approved module texts could end up being incorporated into the app with each release with the absolute minimum effort / distraction on giku's part.

  • Number37 has a great idea...perhaps those of you who know this forum can suggest the best way for us users to

    1] contribute a paragraph or two at a time about a module here and there, and then

    2] curate the redundant contributions down to an "official" blurb to be added to the help files.

  • I'm already at the module help texts with @giku.

    What's missing is an updated help file that also includes the more recent additions - which have added up to a substantial bunch - and ideally gives Drambo newbies an easier time to make their first steps inside the app.

    Videos are great but they're not for everyone. Some just prefer to go through a written manual chapter by chapter.

    Contributions are highly welcome! ❤️

  • recrec
    edited April 2023

    Probably a sensitive topic... :) ...and sorry for the critical tone...

    I started writing a more complete help/manual before v2 release... in the mindset of ‘there is no point in another half baked’ the deeper I dug the more inconsistencies (and often bugs present since the first day) came up... we simply learned to look the other way when these questions asked (not often enough to warrant action/fix, but necessary to paint a full picture).

    I agree, it can only be achieved by coordinated community efforts... a bit sceptical about maintenance, considering the pace and the way D grows.

    My hope is that v3 comes as a separate app, which may allow (even if late) a better documentation for v2 (with known issues), which then can be expanded for v3 at some point or to some degree.

    edit: btw many existing module helps got included this way... if you see a missing help and can come with a description for the module, feel free to post it, it will likely make its way into the next update

  • edited April 2023

    I agree, it can only be achieved by coordinated community efforts... a bit sceptical about maintenance, considering the pace and the way D grows.

    That's my hesitancy too. If the flow was effective, I think I would maintain my own contributions but would probably not review other people's submissions unless I stumbled across needed changes.

    edit: btw many existing module helps got included this way... if you see a missing help and can come with a description for the module, feel free to post it, it will likely make its way into the next update

    Is this thread an appropriate place for that? Or somewhere else? Randomly posting documentation update suggestions isn't up my alley. I'd like to think that there's at least some informal place where they should go.

  • 1) imo even these open threads can be used to discuss these things... users may learn a lot from these discussions... but DMs to beta testers or emails directly to giku should work too... he is off for some time now but we can ask him the best way to receive these, to avoid unnoticed attempts.

    2) you should definitely be in beta team :D

  • edited April 2023

    hm, documentation of modular is difficult,

    I still see people throwing stuff together that makes me think, oh wouldn't have thought of that, thats kind of the fun of it (?), everyone is building his own little legohouses

    from my experience - nobody looks into wikis not worth the effort

    videos ppl do on YouTube are nice but far away from being "quick"



    what could help are tooltips, me thinks

    like

    • feed the fdn with the impulse generator
    • try modulating the decimator with key follow
    • try modulating with the audio input
    • "that kind of thing"


    cookbooks have varying worth

    usually its lets do fm or lets do samples or lets do subtractive

    they never seem to combine schools of thought, thats kind of boring if you have seen your share of things

    like pff, lets mix supersaw and samples and amplitude modulate the output ...

  • edited April 2023

    Anything you want to know is like answered almost within minutes, certainly within the day

    heck, the dev might even fix it before you ask twice and check the thread lol

    PS I think FWiw DRambo 3 should go full DAW, and I think it could take out everything (besides Cubasis 3 due to its power and huge team of Steinberg coders)…I’ll test that to death , if you need an extra set of very interested and loving hands lol lol

  • Perhaps we could have a module-of-the-week thread, where people would post explanations, doubts, ideas etc. Without it being a formal wiki, but if it got enough traction it could later be compiled into a wiki, a drambo book of bad ideas or whatever.

    I’m not suggesting creating 208 threads (by my count), many related modules could be bundled together, some would perhaps deserve sub-threads.

  • The sparse access to documentation is the most frustrating part of using Drambo for me. Many modules are still entirely without documentation, and very few if any modules have complete documentation. I wish every module had a page with info about each knob, button, input and output that it contains. This is exactly what the wiki for AE modular has. It's got a list of all modules in the AE ecosystem, and clicking in any module from the list opens a page with a main description of the module and detailed information about all the ins, outs, and controls on the module. The AE wiki is a crowdsourced project by the community. I think it's good inspiration for what we could do. At this time I can't be the one to launch and admin the project, but maybe somebody here could take the lead on that front.

  • Agreed the documentation for dRambo is a bit "sparse" for sure however I view things a little bit differently.

    Many of the modules in dRambo have real world equivalents such as the Filters, Amp modules, Env generators etc

    and this proved to a very useful resource in that sense;

    https://learningmodular.com/glossary/

    However crowdsourcing a wiki would be very useful longterm for the dRambo commmunity for sure

    especially as Giku is only one person and most of the dRambo Beta Team are providing

    free support for users here, on the LoopyPro forum (formerly known as the Audiobus forum) and on Facebook.

  • If the Audiobus and Loopy Pro Wikis are any indication, they're a great idea but very few people contribute when it comes down to it.

  • Agreed.

    We tried puttng together a dRambo Cookbook wiki a couple of years ago and we simply didn't have the time,

    Giku, the Beta team and I that is, because we were so focused on user support and our own designs.

    Crowdsourcing a dRambo wiki would be a good incentive to get one happening.

  • edited October 22

    I was talking about crowdsourced wikis. If you look at the enormous Audiobus (Loopy Pro) forum user base, then at the tiny number of contributions with the wiki open to all to contribute to, it's pretty discouraging.

    Ya never know until you try though. 😉

  • I hear you on that.

    I've had a look at that myself.


    Very true.

    We shall see if this picks up attention and if it does then why not. ;)

  • I posted something similar on the Flexi timestretch thread but, yes, this is a problem with Drambo.

    Were it not for the excellent tutorial videos available by others on YouTube, so much of Drambo would be a mystery!

    Yes, it’s more fun to code and talk about/test new features but ultimately, surely it’s only a couple of days work to give all of the modules a full description in the ‘?’ help mode? It’s an oversight which would benefit so many users were it done.

    Do beta testers ever point out to @giku when things are actually quite complicated and are going to need some explanation for non expert users to get a grasp of?

    As i said in the other thread, i say this only because i really admire and love using Drambo. It just frustrates me that i can’t use it to it’s fullest potential and the lack of documentation certainly plays a big part in that. Would it not be better for Drambo to be as accessible as possible to as many as possible?

  • An updated set of help texts is on the way.

    Please feel free to list modules in which you find the help text lacking in detail or clarity.

    Thanks!

  • edited October 22

    That's great to hear.

    In terms of modules which lack detail or clarity, I’m afraid most do. By this i mean that they mostly seem to be written for people who already know about such things, not for users who have little or no previous experience.

    For example, I’ve just had a look at the Filter category.

    Now, i know what an audio filter is but if i didn’t I’d appreciate a definition of a filter to start with. It should also, in my opinion, list the 9 filter modes and what they do in comparison to each other (i know what different filters do but not everyone does). And an explanation of what it means for a filter to have x amount of poles.

    Again, this assumes an amount of knowledge which simply might not be there. Fair enough if you know that LPF stands for Low Pass Filter, BPF stands for Band Pass Filter and APF (presumably) stands for All Pass Filter, and you already know what those filters do, but if you don’t, it’s not going to be very helpful.

    ’ Audiorate modulate…’ - great suggestion but how?

    It also has, presumably, missing punctuation in the first sentence making it that little bit more confusing.

    Ok, great…but what do the controls on the module do in relation to this emulation process?

    Got it…so the Bandwidth (BW), Shift and Dry knobs don’t do anything worth mentioning, right? Likewise the Slope - not important?


    That’s just glancing through the definitions in one category chosen at random. It could be any of them though.

    In my opinion, these definitions should be written so that they truly help complete novices and shouldn’t assume that people are already au fait with all things audio and modular. Sometimes experts don’t make the best teachers because they can only really communicate successfully with other experts. We all know how many people struggle with Drambo initially and give up rather than persisting which is a huge shame.

    Some of the individual modules in Drambo are easily the equivalents of full apps - if the format filter were released as a separate AU plug-in, is that really all that would be said about what it does and how to use it?

    My guiding principles would be: what does the module do; what do the available parameters do in relation to this; assume i know nothing when you explain it to me.

    I state again - because i really don’t want to piss anyone off or have anyone mistakenly thinking this is coming from a complaining place when it isn’t - i love using Drambo and just want it to be as good and accessible as possible. I hope some of this post is helpful in that regard. Cheers.

  • edited October 22

    @Robin I feel what you say about explaining briefly what the controls do. As to explaining whst a filter is (to pick your 1st example), well some user homework required. There must be some balance between succinctness and information. Some modules you mention would require several pages to document in detail

  • Don’t mean to sound like a fanboy but D is like an answer to 1000 questions. Each user brings their own knowledge as well as their own expectations. So an answer that suits your current needs would likely be useless for others. Unfortunately up to this point no one had the time to write an extensive documentation - which we all agree would benefit everybody - and I’m fairly certain that even if it would exist no one would read it.

    this forum exists to address this issue in a most efficient way - ask, and if there is an answer it will come.

    You will soon realise that D is deep enough that even asking the right questions can be a challenge sometimes, yet answering all hypothetical ones :)

  • @rec well said

    and the problem isn’t even writing the documentation, is maintaining it

    Drambo is a living entity and we love it just like that

  • @rec Yeah, i get it. But, from what i see (which isn’t everything so i happily admit i may be wrong), this forum isn’t that widely used by people wanting basic advice about things so the forum may exist to do that but the message isn’t getting out there. People just give up on Drambo instead it seems.

    @pedro ‘An audio filter filters out part of the audio signal and lets the other parts of the signal pass through to be heard’ - one small sentence that might save a complete novice from having to do some user homework and not much effort for the person writing the help sections - i wasn’t meaning to imply a full scale essay on what an audio filter is should be included. I do get what you mean about succinctness though, of course, but currently some of the descriptions are succinct to the point of being useless - I’d argue that the balance between succinctness and information absolutely hasn’t been found in most of the texts.

    Anyway, all i did was try to give some constructive advice - after it was asked for by @rs2000 - and all I’m hearing in response is defensiveness and effectively ‘ain’t no problem here, we like it this way’. And that’s cool. I feel Drambo could reach a broader audience if it catered to less experienced users in its help texts but if it’s not deemed to be required then so be it. I tried.

  • edited October 22

    @Robin

    "@rec Yeah, i get it. But, from what i see (which isn’t everything so i happily admit i may be wrong), this forum isn’t that widely used by people wanting basic advice about things so the forum may exist to do that but the message isn’t getting out there. People just give up on Drambo instead it seems."

    There are 1.9k users in the dRambo Facebook group.

    Not many ask questions and when they do they dissappear again.

    I've been saying to them head over to the Beepstreet forum

    for more answers however not many FB members will head over here.

    Maybe it's because it's their preferred platform.

    I don't know.


    "Anyway, all i did was try to give some constructive advice - after it was asked for by @rs2000 - and all I’m hearing in response is defensiveness and effectively ‘ain’t no problem here, we like it this way’. And that’s cool. I feel Drambo could reach a broader audience if it catered to less experienced users in its help texts but if it’s not deemed to be required then so be it. I tried."


    Though we like it that way that doesn't necessarily mean

    that it shoud stay that way if it means we're losing dRambo users.

    In regards to our comments, we've each memorised huge amounts of dRambo

    through our own creations and exploring so dRambo is 2nd nature to us and that will not change now.


    On another note why not, when you have the chance, create a thread or threads that focuses on one module at a time and write about it.

    It will benefit the dRambo community greatly and provide succint information in regards to how to use the modules.


    By the way some of our comments are tongue in cheek. ;)

  • @Robin

    I can totally see how we come across a bit defensive.

    My brain switches to suspicious mode when I see a sentence starting with ‘trust me’ :)

    Trust me, every single person who responded here tried - both individually and collectively - to improve on things, but it is a thought nut to crack - even if/when time is not an issue - and we all ‘failed’ to come up with something workable.

    I write a page explaining a module. 10 users will be happy but another 10 will ask for a second page and it goes on and on.

    We are not asking for questions out of laziness. It’s more of a case of ’help us to help you’ - to a specific question it is much easier to provide a helpful answer. There may be many correct answers, but at least it’s a start.

    The way I see it based on past experiences, in order to ever have a somewhat decent documentation two conditions will have to met:

    • a more or less finalised version that only receives fixes - at the pace D has been progressing, often by the time we have a decent grip on something new, the description is already out of date, and we don’t want giku to write a manual, his time is much better spent fighting 0s and 1s.
    • questions here, wiki - not sure if this forum supports such thing but I could see a semi automatic wiki generation. When a question receives a satisfying answer it can be marked as useful and automatically the question and the answer gets moved over to wiki. Some basic moderation may be needed to categorise things but it could work on its own - imo.
  • Thanks a lot @Robin, these some very useful comments!

    Sure the intention is to keep the help text compact but I agree that some background information here and there doesn't hurt, and module help is much quicker to open than finding specific information in a manual.

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