What's a manual?
 
Is that like a juan?

More like a twoo.

Software's complexity may lend itself to this type of behavior and rant ....
Drunk , funny or not , the dude would not last 10 mins in the real world if he made videos just like the one he did on SONAR if he used Gibson , Fender or Ibanez guitars as his rant material
Think about it for a moment .....a few possible story lines ..
 
I'm really angry with Gibson guitars because I bought a Les Paul and it didn't come with a manual that shows me how to play Stairway to Heaven ...wwaaa waaa waaa ...that company sucks because I don't want to have spend my valuable time learning how to play ...I have songs I want to get out there ....
I know I'm an a$$hole but ...If Gibson doesn't get their $hit together I'm gonna go out and buy a Fender Guitar  ....
hhmm ,
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Anyone know Gibson will also have subscription models for guitars ?
I'd like a one year 'Sonar like subscription' to a faded honeyburst Les Paul Standard or something like that.
Hope someday Dodge will one day be a Gibson brand, will subscribe to a Dodge Charger surely.

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

craigb
Personally, I rarely used Cakewalk's own manuals.  I always used to get Craig Anderton's instead.  That said, now that Lynda.com exists, the vast majority of the tutorials I watch for all subjects come from there.  I simply don't have time for books anymore and I can make VLC show faster much easier than I can speed read.
 

Do you pay for your Lynda access or like me are you able to gain access for free with your library card? 

I've done it both of those ways, plus had a business I was part of pay for it.  Now it counts as a business expense. 
 
I need to learn a LOT of new things for my new job but, just like at the library, just because you go in needing to get one thing, it doesn't mean you won't find several other things (albeit on completely "unnecessary" topics) that interest you!

Yeah the very tempting thing about Lynda.com is that they now have these "learning paths" you can follow, e.g. "Become a graphic designer" and "become a 2D animator" in which they've curated a whole series of videos to set you on that path. That's great because there are so many videos up there it can be quite hard to find relevant ones for what you want to learn. Having an intelligently selected playlist puts it all in your lap. 
 
What really sucks is when you get an instructor who annoys you for one reason or another. Perhaps it's their voice, or their tendency to skip over details or go too fast. I really like Deke McClelland's Photoshop and Illustrator videos but sometimes he goes to fast and he's just saying "Then I'm gonna click here. Then I'm gonna open up that dialog and put in a value of 50.7. Then I'm gonna move this point to here, drag this over here and chance the color of this to green." 
 
Of course the other danger with video courses it that it's very tempting to watch a whole bunch of them without actually going along with what's on screen. Big mistake - you get 5 videos deep and think damn, I have no idea what I've just learned. 

With all learning in general, it's best to take in a certain amount (varies by individual, test to see what works best for you), then relax and maybe put on headphones with music (while reviewing in your head what you just learned).  This allows all the stuff you just crammed into your short term memory to make its way into your long term memory.  Sure, an isolation tank is THE best thing for this, but I doubt any of us even have access to one let alone have one.  Basically, you want to avoid adding too much new information (or distracting information) into your memory because it will naturally drop off some of the older information to make room (or assume that it wasn't important enough to save).
 
Of course, as with all muscle memory activities, repetition and actual use of what you just learned help considerably.  Even just closing your eyes and visualizing the activity is beneficial because, in most things, your mind doesn't distinguish between imagining and actually doing something.  You see this a lot with athletes and race car drivers, etc.

Yes I always take frequent breaks when learning new stuff. 
 
Having said that, a certain method of learning comes naturally to me. If I'm learning a new program for instance, what I find helpful is to first of all see how far I can get without any instruction. I'll just blindly grope around and try and work things out myself. This of course formulates all kinds of problems and questions in my mind, and I find that when I go to watch the tutorial, it makes more sense to me because it's answering questions I've already formulated from my own exploration. What I'm looking at in the video makes more sense because it's stuff I've experienced already.