[A6] Alesis support

[Chris Pickett]

Susan Baird wrote:

>If nobody minds, I'll try to do the update to the T&T document. Is there
>somebody who would be willing to read the new T&T as I write them to make
>sure they make sense? I don't know Andy that well and there's a lot of stuff
>that is over my head. I'm sure I'm sure I would need to ask a few questions
>here and there too. I would also be more than happy to maintain the document
>so that we don't ever have to go back a year or two to catch up. What do you
>guys think??
>
>Robert, I love what you did to the document. It made it much easier to
>navigate and looks really good.
>
>Thanks Georg for the archives as a download. That makes it easier for sure.
>
>  
>
Hi Sioux,

I don't think anybody ever minds a contribution to a project, as long as 
old versions are still available if it's really that terrible (that's 
not particular to you, but just in general).  It's a lot better than 
sitting around talking about it.  So, that's great!!!  I am sure people 
won't mind clarifying things . . .

If I were to update the T&T document, I would:

1) Read the existing one from cover to cover (does not necessarily 
involve comprehension).
2) Find out what dates on the mailing list it supposedly covers.
3) Look for new info outside of that date range to add, that isn't 
already in there (or update something).  Go back and check the old date 
range after if you feel like it (ugh!).
4) Cut and paste liberally

Particularly (4) is important, because it's a large task, and you don't 
want to rewrite things too much.  It also saves you from worrying about 
the individual T&T making too much sense -- look at the organization of 
the old T&T and you'll see -- it's typically, "X says that Y is a good 
method to get Z".  Usually people aren't going to post wrong answers to 
questions, or it will at least get clarified if they do.  Additional 
things that would be nice to see:

(5) A short FAQ that has nothing to do with actually designing patches, 
but more "how do I save a patch?", "why don't I get multiple effects in 
Mix mode?" "what's the best flight case?" "what's the best memory card?" 
kind of questions (again, cut-and-paste answers from the list).

(6) A section on existing bugs and requested features, in the unlikely 
event that Alesis feels like releasing a new OS, and also so that more 
people can be aware of current limitations.

(7) A section detailing all the different places on the internet where 
stuff about the A6 can be found.  Links to the different Alesis 
documents, different OS's (or just the latest), Boele's (scd's) patch 
archive, the T&T document, the A6 case mods, the Yahoo groups stuff 
(including Cyril's SoundDiver module ...), the code404 stuff, the 
different ML archives, the A6 banker, different songs people have 
posted, samples of different A6 patches, etc. etc. -- there's quite a 
lot of stuff spread around.  People are still buying this machine, so 
it's nice for new or potential owners to have access to all that stuff.

I started work on (6), but gave up after going through a couple months 
worth of archives (May, June, part of July, 2003 I believe). 
You can find it at 
http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/~cpicke/music/a6-bugs-and-features.txt

If you put together (7), I will make a deep copy of all of it, in the 
event that some of it goes down.  I can put it up on my account for a 
while too, so that everyone can grab it (although I can't mirror it all 
indefinitely).  After that time it would be nice if we tried to keep (7) 
updated, and asked people to contribute to a central location (easier to 
track changes), or at least let us know if they weren't going to.

If you're additionally volunteering to maintain the T&T after all the 
old info has been gathered up, that would be even more fantastic ...

Cheers,
Chris