<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: a must have!
Review: I like this book so much!!! An invaluable reference for people interested in computer music composition with detailed explanation on digital synthesis methods, digital filtering, spacialization, etc... but what i like most is that in every chapter there is a section dedicated to compositional examples with very interesting info on structure, techniques, instrument designs... used in the development of each of the pieces. Also a chapter dedicated to live electronic performance. I love it.
Rating:
Summary: should have been my first book
Review: i've been making computer music with supercollider and before that
with a commercial graphical patch up package for several years now,
and i wish that this had been the first book i had read.
the first book i did in fact read was roads' 'computer music tutorial',
which is a great book which i also highly recommend, but is more of
a reference than a tutorial, both in its layout and style. the dodge/jerse book
is so clearly and pedagogically written, that even though i already knew
a great deal of the material, it solidified quite a lot of it into place for me.the thing i liked best about it is that the authors invariably direct you
to compositions made using the methods just described. in other words
the methods are not just described in a vacuum. expect to learn from this book the basics of acoustics and psychoacoustics,
digital audio and sampling theory, and a slew of sound synthesis techniques,
as well as about composition. who should buy this: the serious computer music student, who does not necessarily have any
experience yet in computer music, but who is not afraid of some hard study. the computer musician using either a graphical patch up system ( max/msp, reaktor, pd etc... )
or using some Music-N derived language (supercollider, csound) would both benefit tremendously
from a thorough study of the contents of this book. the mathematics level required for this book is not high. your algebra should be strong
with a solid understanding of exponents and logarithms, and some basic trig wouldn't
hurt either. a note about the C++ source code. first off if you don't program, there is nothing to be scared
of, the source only appears in the chapter on composition, and if you do program in C but not C++,
then you should know that you will be fine, because the code snippets are effectively written in C.
aparantly the first edition included fortran code for ugens and was quite a different book. if you want a book on ugen internals, you won't find it in this second edition, but Moore's is terrific, 'Elements of Computer Music'.
Rating:
Summary: I (heart) Computing
Review: If you're looking to get a good fundemental understanding of sound this book is the way to go. It's the book you read after spending hours randomly turning knobs on a synthisizer and realizing that you have no clue how to describe or control the knob-to-sound beaviors that you hear. There's a heavy price to pay -- both in money and in hours of trying to wrap your brain around mathematical descriptions of sound waves -- but it's worth the gains.
Rating: 
Summary: Technical and thorough
Review: If your intent is to create music *by synthesizing the tones with a computer*, with a program such as Csound, this book is invaluable. It is *not about sequencing*, looping, controlling synthesizers or samplers with MIDI, etc. That said, the serious treatment of various types of sound synthesis is more than adequately technical, with lots of flowcharts, diagrams and a little algebra. The flowcharts illustrate generically how sounds can be synthesized, without getting into the specifics of particular programs. You must be able to leap the gap between the concept and the realization in a particular computer music program. Other chapters nicely introduce psychoacoustics, fundamentals of digital audio and the use of sound processing methodology. Warning: For a person with little technical (engineering-type) background, the book will be tough going in places, possibly overwhelming. It is not an introductory-level text.
Rating: 
Summary: Program independent, but falls short
Review: The principle credit I could give to the authors are to stay away from one particular program, however, after reading up to FM synthesis so far, there isn't anything spectacular that I'd say about it.
The math support is spotty. It gives the spectral distribution of a white noise generator, but I couldn't find the basic FM synth equation. Although I could derive the equation from the diagrams of a simple FM, but I would assume that this equation is important enough for a square-inch of space.
Another noticibly annoying thing was that I was trying to generate triangular waves. The book said that you need odd harmonics, and their contribution is the inverse of the square of the harnomic, ie k = 2i+1, i>=0, contribution would be 1/(k^2). However, they neglected to say that to really get the triangular wave, you alternate the sign, ie k=2i+1,i>=0, triangular wave = sum i=0 -> infinity, (-1)^i*1/(k^2)*sinusoid is the correct way to generate such a wave.
Also, it assumes the reader has a strong music background, and certain chapters, namely chapter 2, would be hard to follow. The music jargon was not explained well, and make it hard to understand. Mind you I did have classical piano training up to Grade 9, and still it was hard to follow in that chapter.
Perhaps this book is good for people who want to compose digital music, but it is, in my opinion, insufficient for those who wants to know how it works.
Rating:
Summary: Great introduction to computer music.
Review: This book is an excellent introduction to computer music. It has been my reference and textbook for a year-long University course on computer music, providing many explanations that were in-depth enough to understand what is going on and how methods work the way they do, yet does not tie the reader down to a specific software or architecture. This is defintely a good read on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: if you are serious about electronic music, read this book.
Review: this book is used as the textbook for electro-acoustic music courses world-wide, if you are an electronic musician, or a musician interested in sound synthesis and other electronic musical applications then this book is for you. if you want to learn more, buy this book. if you're happy twiddling virtual knobs on that shareware program of yours, don't even bother.
Rating:
Summary: Tutto sulla sintesi musicale e pltre
Review: Uno dei più completi libri sulla computer music attualmente disponibili sul mercato. La sezione sintesi è sicuramente il piatto forte, essendo applicabile a tutti i tipi di programmi e sintetizzatori in commercio(Digitali e analogici).Le sezioni sulla composizione e performance sono buone ma inevitabilmente rese lievemente datate dalla continua evoluzione informatica (mancano i riferimenti ai nuovi programmi di editing e composizione). Un libro che non può mancare in una bibloteca informatico-musicale aggiornata.
<< 1 >>
|
