It's all very well to say RTFM but I think at this point, many companies are starting to wise up to the fact that it's just human instinct to hate reading huge manuals. Not everyone does well with that style of learning - many people are far better at taking in information when it's presented to them both aurally and visually.

The problem with manuals is that you don't feel much of a connection with what's on the page and what's on the screen. Most manuals feature heavily cropped images of the GUI, often in black and white. When looking at a page of text interspersed with small labeled diagrams, it's easy to feel disconnected with the actual software and become lost. Add to this the fact that most manuals hyperlink the crap out of themselves and it's easy to get very confused very quickly. You don't feel like you're getting a solid overview, you feel like you're picking your way through a vast, overgrown forest with no compass in poor visibility.

To be honest the Sonar manual isn't the best and is probably awful to someone who doesn't respond well to written tutorials. I know I get frustrated and overwhelmed with it sometimes.

Contrast this with a good video tutorial. The whole interface is there on the screen, just as you see it yourself. A mouse pointer is moving around, just like the mouse pointer on your screen. And someone is actually talking you through it just as if they were a friend showing you around. This is why companies like Groove3 and Lynda do so well - people prefer to learn from videos. Admit it, where would you rather learn the basics of Kontakt - from NI's dry and hard to read manual, or from the friendly, no-nonsense voice of Eli Krantzberg?

The guy in that YouTube video is right. A "getting started" video should always be approached by getting into the mind of the average beginner and thinking about what they really want to know to get them started. Dragging an audio track into the DAW and setting up a guitar track seems like a good place to start. The thing about teaching beginners is that you have to hold their interest immediately otherwise they have a tendency to drift and lose heart. This means teaching them something that gets them a tangible result almost immediately.

bitflipper
Are you saying maybe it was intended as satire? 
 
 

I don't think the star of the video was mature enough to employ satire. Sometimes, what you see is what you get.

Monthly subscription on a Gibson Les Paul Honey burst over a 12 month cycle as compared to a Dodge Charger ?
Well you can lease a Dodge Charger if your credit is good ...
Hmmm the Gibson Les Paul subscription ? that one may cost as much as the Doge per month
 
Kenny