Real World Digital Audio

By Peter Kirn

Comprehensive reference takes the mystery out of making music with today's digital audio tools! This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0321304608
• ISBN13: 9780321304605
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Length: 615 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.5" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

John Goforth, President; Covered Bridge Records

Many of us out here have been working with and around audio for many years. As well, most of us have resisted the "I/O" demon, ha! After updating my equipment, a little at a time, I found myself in the digital domain; like it or not. Upon review of this book "Real World Digital Audio" in EQ Magazine, I immediately purchased it, and got what I asked for; more work. Good work however, in that the author placed me in the driver's seat, gave me an easy to understand road map (I brought the cheetos)and it's been just great! Something I can use to honestly understand where I'm at with newer and evolving technologies, and put them to work in a positive and productive manner. Bravo!

Excellent guide for musicians on creating digital audio content

This is a book for musicians who need to understand the science of sound as well as the principles of digital music production including equipment, computers, and software. There is even an entire chapter dedicated to MIDI. If you are a musician who is interested in getting involved in computer music, this is a great place to start learning as well as getting your hands dirty with the actual business of creating digital music. Chapter 1. Understanding Digital Sound - Covers the basic physical concepts of analog sound - the sine wave, pitch, amplitude, and perception. Next the book discusses how these concepts translate into digital form. Chapter 2. Choosing Your Tools - Surveys the available hardware and software you'll need to produce digital audio. Included are photos of typical devices, their uses, their price ranges, and examples of some name-brand products. This section even tells you how to select a computer that is best for your needs. Chapter 3. Setting Up Your Equipment - Discusses all aspects of connecting the physical hardware you selected in chapter two. This includes a discussion of the desirable acoustic properties of the room you'll be using for your studio. Chapter 4. Preparing Your Computer for Audio - Discusses setting up your computer to optimize your audio productivity. This chapter gives detailed instructions on the installation and configuration of drivers and plug-ins, copy protection schemes, disk storage space, operating system optimization, and other tips on making a computer most efficient for the production of digital music. Chapter 5. Quick Songs with Patterns and Loops - Shows you how to quickly and easily turn your ideas into music using Kinetic and GarageBand's pre-built musical components. Chapter 6. Recording Instruments and Sound - This chapter is all about the different types of microphones and how they work. Discusses microphone characteristics and what types of sound they are best at capturing, how they affect sound coming from various directions, strategies for placing your microphones at various distances and in various arrangements. Also shown are microphone strategies for different instruments and the use of Audacity and Ableton Live, which is recording software included on the DVD. Chapter 7. Processing and Effects - Without getting over-technical(i.e. mathematical), this section discusses the various effects you'll need to know about to complete most digital audio projects. The chapter begins discussing what signal processors are and then goes on to explain equalization, dynamics processors, time-related effects such as delay and reverb, and specialized processors such as distortion and modulation. Chapter 8. MIDI: Notes, Rhythms, and Physical Control - Discusses how MIDI enables you to express digital music in a form that seems natural to musicians. The chapter discusses when to use MIDI, how to connect MIDI devices, MIDI's data structure and messaging system, and how to put everything toge

Essential

This is a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute study of the digital music world that is unparralelled in accessibility. Read this book cover to cover and then enjoy the freedom to go any direction you like in the field, knowing that you have the fundamentals. Peter Kirn has managed to explain the concepts in a way that is clear and concise without ever being misleading or confusing. Read this and you can know that the next audio text you pick up you won't get stuck on concepts that are taken for granted by so many authors. College level "Introduction to Music Technology" classes (that so often fall short of expectation) would do themselves a favor to make this required reading.

Extremely Useful Book!

This book is a great compendium of explanation, tutorial, product reviews, and software. In fact, for once the included disc has programs that are actually useful - not just time-limited demos of whatever software was new at the time of publishing. The author also utilizes the included software (PC and Mac alike) in his explanations and tutorials, so you're buying a multimedia learning package. Newbies and old pros will be sure to get their money's worth!

Great in-depth book

I want to say that I couldn't have gotten a better text book for my community college audio production class. Great in-depth book."