A Comprehensive introduction to digital sound and music-making
The Complete Guide to Digital Audio
A Comprehensive introduction to digital sound and music-making
By Chris Middleton
Ilex Press, 2004
ISBN: 1 904705 14 6
Whether we work with video, Flash, animations, multimedia, games, digital slideshows or even pure audio, working with digital audio is part of almost all our futures, if not already our present.
This 192-page book is divided into the following chapters:
* Introduction
* Be Careful Mr Beethoven
* Basic Theory
* Ring Those Decibels
* What is Digital Recording?
* So Where Am I Now?
* Audio in the Digital World
* Do I Need a Computer?
* Help Me, I Want to …
* Software-Only Solutions
* So What Are the Packages?
* An Introduction to Midi
* The Battle of the Xs
* Home Studio Setups
* Effects and Processors
* Monitors, Monitoring and Mastering
* Future Views and Views From the Top
Digital audio in all its facets is a complex area and has many aspects that are difficult for a non-audio person to get their head around at first. This book is not a step-by-step walkthrough of a piece of audio software but rather a higher level look at how digital audio works, what tools you need, what you can do to manipulate audio digitally, how all the pieces fit together and to setup a great studio.
The book is well illustrated and despite the date of publication is highly up to date. It is packed with solid information and you would not go wrong to follow it. I think the discussion in the book about the issues between software only and mixed hardware/software solutions is well put despite the complexity of this topic.
If you start with this book you will get a solid start on digital audio. From there the addition of a book of two about the particular software you are using and lots of practice will get you into an excellent position and producing good work. I’ve used this book as a teaching reference for my multimedia students and it has worked well. A great book.