Members groovetube66 Posted October 31, 2006 Members Share Posted October 31, 2006 Anyone out there with leads? I'd love to change careers and a manual writing or tech writing gig involving music or audio gear would be awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gtrbass Posted October 31, 2006 Members Share Posted October 31, 2006 I have a friend who did this for many years. He is now a marketing mgr for Mackie. If you have the pedigree for this type of work (BA in English, past experience as a technical editor) you can go to most of the major MI mfg's websites and search their open positions. Many of these jobs are in So Cal. as a large number of US MI operations are are based here. Go to their corporate page and check employment opportunities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted November 1, 2006 CMS Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 Originally posted by groovetube66 Anyone out there with leads? I'd love to change careers and a manual writing or tech writing gig involving music or audio gear would be awesome. I've been trying to find a gig like that for years. I actually was approached by Mackie back in 2000 and invited to head up their Technical Documentation department. I tried it (under a contract) for six months, decided that it wasn't really what I wanted to do all day every day, and that I didn't really want to live there (it was a cross country move for me) so I retired again. Nowadays, most of the companies large enough to need some help just do it under contract. Every once in a while they throw me a bone. I've been trying to break into TASCAM for years and have had no luck. Craig gets more bones than I do, but then he's been famous longer than I have, and has less free time. But if anyone from a Southern California company is listening, I'd be willing to move there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doug osborne Posted November 1, 2006 Members Share Posted November 1, 2006 Most of the companies in pro audio or MI - if they are not Loud, Peavey, or Harman-ized - are small privately owned businesses. These small companies don't generally have one person assigned to this kind of duty. It gets split between marketing, technical, or outside contractors in some fashion. Or if it's Roland, probably one reuirement is that English is your second or third language :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groovetube66 Posted November 1, 2006 Author Members Share Posted November 1, 2006 Thanks for the info. I've done a fair amount of tech writing as well as instructional design and educational development. One thing I have experience in is cleaning up English written by Asian writers. Years ago in grad school I tutored ESL students at a Japanese university via email... a really early form of e-learning I suppose. You would think there would be a market for that type of editing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted November 1, 2006 Members Share Posted November 1, 2006 Originally posted by MikeRivers I've been trying to break into TASCAM for years and have had no luck. Yeah, sorry about that. - Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groovetube66 Posted November 1, 2006 Author Members Share Posted November 1, 2006 I should have mentioned I am stuck on the East Coast (Carolinas) due to family reasons so I'd probably be hoping and pipe dreaming for a telecommuting gig. If only Moog in Asheville would like a tech writer, manual or tutorial writer etc. I have family in Black Mountain and could relocate there with no worries. Ah well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 1, 2006 Members Share Posted November 1, 2006 Well I've written a ton of manuals, so here are a few observations... First, I couldn't support myself writing manuals. Companies don't want to pay that much, nor are there that many "openings." The main reason I do them from time to time is to keep current and get to know a product in real depth. However, since starting the Pro Reviews, that gives me the chance for in-depth product exploration so I've basically stopped doing manuals unless the product is really interesting or ground-breaking. The other thing that drives me crazy is changing software environments. It takes four times as long to redo something as it does to do it in the first place. You can end up in situations where you've done 20 screenshots and the company makes one small cosmetic change, and you have to start all over again. I highly recommend charging by the hour! And sometimes it's in the best interest of the company not to use an outside contractor, and I'm upfront with them about that. I used to do a huge amount of manual writing for E-Mu back in the 80s. But when they came out with the Emulator III, they were literally overnighting a new EPROM to me every other day. Trying to cope with that rate of change, with a couple days' latency, simply did not work. I strongly suggested they get someone in-house, and they did. Riley Smith has been doing their manuals ever since, and I must say, he does a fantastic job. E-Mu was much better off having him in-house than hiring me, although I was useful to have around for a while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted November 1, 2006 CMS Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 Originally posted by Anderton First, I couldn't support myself writing manuals. Companies don't want to pay that much, nor are there that many "openings." It helps to have another source of income that leaves you some time (or to be retired like me) The other thing that drives me crazy is changing software environments. It takes four times as long to redo something as it does to do it in the first place. You can end up in situations where you've done 20 screenshots and the company makes one small cosmetic change, and you have to start all over again. I highly recommend charging by the hour! While we had a target price in mind, I always kept track of time when I was writing for Mackie, and that's how they paid me. I used to do a huge amount of manual writing for E-Mu back in the 80s. But when they came out with the Emulator III, they were literally overnighting a new EPROM to me every other day. Trying to cope with that rate of change, with a couple days' latency, simply did not work. There's a couple of principles about writing manuals. One is not to write the manual until the product is done, but that's always three months later than they wanted to ship the product, so you never have time to do it that way. The other is to start writing as soon as the specifications have been written. If the spec is good, the manual practically writes itself. The thing about music products (and a few other things I've worked on) is that the pepole who write the specifications aren't very well disciplined so the specs aren't very well detailed. Plus the engineers are always having "better" ideas, and the final product ends up not working much like it was originally supposed to. E-Mu was much better off having him in-house than hiring me, although I was useful to have around for a while I think I applied tor that job, but they wanted someone with more keyboard experience than I had. Probably a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groovetube66 Posted November 2, 2006 Author Members Share Posted November 2, 2006 The other thing that drives me crazy is changing software environments. It takes four times as long to redo something as it does to do it in the first place. You can end up in situations where you've done 20 screenshots and the company makes one small cosmetic change, and you have to start all over again. I highly recommend charging by the hour! Thanks for this and if I ever get into this field I will definitely remember this! I am thinking my best bet will be to just start finding all the manufacturer's sites for software and hardware related to music creation, send resumes, and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members groovetube66 Posted January 9, 2007 Author Members Share Posted January 9, 2007 Just wanted to give this a bump in case any industry lurkers have any positions open.... tech writing, manual writing, etc. Still keeping my fingers crossed. Doesn't someone wanna talented dude like me? JazzKetBlog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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