K.I.S.S. - keep it short and simple - but make sure simple (and short people) will understand it

Do you ever find yourself asking yourself if you're stupid?

Imagine if you will, that you've made a choice to take control over your musical future. You don't play any instrument, you can't write sheet music and you've no idea what key or note your song is in (and chords were what your dad wore on Sundays).

You've just got the latest Cubase or whatever and you open it up with great anticipation and ...... what do you do? Visual overload. Yep, you go to the help. Wow, impressive pdf with a few hundred pages. Ok, speed read the intro because you want to know how to make this amazing piece of software crank out your top 10 hit. Sorry, configure the PC, Midi interface, sequencer or device and other VST and VSTi plugins. I just want to lay down the trax and vocals. No one told me I had to go back to Uni to get a degree in sound engineering. What with pan, tuning, compression, modulation, sampling, sound effects, phrases, scratches and whatever else.

So now you're thinking you need some kind of midi keyboard sampler thingy to plug into your pc via a mixer what its name along with a couple of wow and reverb foot pedals. Wow indeed, this is complicated. What happened to Band in a Box? Well I can give you that answer - I'm a Pro. I'm not playing around here. I'm serious. But so is the help pdf. It's so serious that by page 5 it's sending me to sleep, asking myself if I'm stupid not to be able to understand a DIY help manual for a piece of software that will make me rich and famous.

Then I start to dream of conspiracy theories and how the music industry and especially those that make the software, knowingly dupe us into believing that with their appz, we will become stars in no time, it's as easy as reading a help manual that's of no help at all except for making us feel dumber than dumb. They told and sold us on the basis that we didn't need any musical knowledge, that we didn't need anything other than their software which would instantly and telepathically, once installed, suck out of our brains all our musical compositions and transform them into platinum albums.

I saw on a 2ndhand board tonight a "Novation ReMote 25SL Compact" that was going so cheap I got excited without even knowing what it is, what it's for and if I need it. I'd have bought it too if it hadn't already been snapped up. I went to the website hoping to learn something about it. But of course I was hoping for something that doesn't exist. The brochure explained how this piece of high tech equipment had been made by artists and studio producers and would return pro studio results within my very own home right out of the box, once you had configured the PC, Midi interface, sequencer or device and other VST and VSTi plugins .......... BUT YOU TOLD ME I ONLY NEEDED YOUR SOFTWARE, aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhggggggggg.

When you go to buy a car, do you then have to buy "in addition" the engine, wheels, pedals, doors, steering wheel etc?

So how does a non-musician with music pouring out of their heads make music in this age of technology? Beats me. And how do you get in good old plain and simple English the understanding of how to make all this stuff work. I'm clueless.

I dare anyone without any knowledge whatsoever to install Battery 3 from Native Instruments as a stand alone app, read the help book and get a beat playing from various instrument sound clips "together" within an hour. I hope someone can and does and then has some time to do a step by step tutorial with screen shots. I can load a kit, I can hear an individual cell noise (took a while) but create something ................. I can't even find the play button. Now how dumb am I (that's a rhetorical question thanks). And does the help file show me where the play button is - nope. Here's a few quotes from the intro of the help file; "Just load a kit and play through it." ; "And just before you think you’re feeling lucky, activate an Articulation from the cell setup page. And then, make music!"

I'm sure some knowledgeable and kind person will explain to me that Battery 3 isn't that kind of app.

Ah well, BiaB (Band in a Box) here I come.

If anyone has been or is in this position, I hope you'll leave a trail of links for those of us struggling with our creativity, to finally understand what we need to do, what we need to get and where the play button is ..... please