Basic Mixers

Rating:
Summary: Look Elsewhere
Review: Paul White has a nice little earner going with these titles. They actually tell you very little specific, practical information about each subject. They do however contain a lot of generalisations which anyone with a slight understanding of audio engineering could come up with. The book on digital audio didn't even include a means of calculating how much disk space is required for digital audio files, something that is very important as well as fundamental to the subject. Every book also contains between 50 and 70 pages of the same glossary.

Rating:
Summary: A must-have for the budding home studio owner
Review: Paul White has written a small format, straightforward, up to date, no-nonsense book about mixing audio signals either in a studio environment or for live sound. Despite its diminutive size (this book will actually fit in any pocket), there is a lot of information presented in a logical and concise manner, with illustrations, a table of contents and a helpful 44-page glossary section at the end. It feels decidedly British in sentence structure and spelling ("equaliser" instead of "equalizer" etc.) The lack of an index is almost unnoticed, because of the logical flow of information; the table of contents helps in zeroing in on the precise location of the information being sought out. Being a part-time home recording hobbyist, this book has clarified several concepts in mixing for me. For just a little more than the price of a magazine, I wholeheartedly recommend this 207 page book to anyone interested in mixing live or studio sounds. By the way 1) the title of the book is actually "basic mixers" and 2) this is only one of a series of books from the same author on several topics in modern audio recording and production techniques (published in 1999-2000 by the British Sound on sound magazine). I am seriously thinking about getting a couple more of these guides...

Rating:
Summary: Everything I my mixer manual didn't tell me.
Review: This book is great. I am a home recordist. I have just recorded myself alone even though I have this big 48 track recording console. I had a few questions about the way stuff worked. How do you use the monitoring/auxiler channels to set up a headphone mix? This book answered that question and many more. It didn't seem boring, it was a 2-3 hour read, going from interesting topic to interestic topic. The book just seemed to explain everything I wanted to know, and touch up on it enough times to drill it into my ADD-injungled (is that a word?) brain. Like it had a little bitty live section that explained what engineers are doing when they ring out a PA, explained pink noise, and just about everything you could expect to see on any console. This isn't a book for those "wanting" to buy a console, or people who "think" they know the basics, you'll be lost and bash it. But if you already know quite a lot about signal flow, and CARE to learn more, you will absolutly love this book. I plan on reading again in a few weeks, there are a bazillion little tips that I am happy knowing before going into my first session with a band. This little-bitty book is supurb. NOTE: I found a lot of the material in this book at...The author is the leading writer for that magazine. For [$$$], you have no excuse why not to give this book a shot though!

Rating:
Summary: Everything I my mixer manual didn't tell me.
Review: This book is great. I am a home recordist. I have just recorded myself alone even though I have this big 48 track recording console. I had a few questions about the way stuff worked. How do you use the monitoring/auxiler channels to set up a headphone mix? This book answered that question and many more. It didn't seem boring, it was a 2-3 hour read, going from interesting topic to interestic topic. The book just seemed to explain everything I wanted to know, and touch up on it enough times to drill it into my ADD-injungled (is that a word?) brain. Like it had a little bitty live section that explained what engineers are doing when they ring out a PA, explained pink noise, and just about everything you could expect to see on any console. This isn't a book for those "wanting" to buy a console, or people who "think" they know the basics, you'll be lost and bash it. But if you already know quite a lot about signal flow, and CARE to learn more, you will absolutly love this book. I plan on reading again in a few weeks, there are a bazillion little tips that I am happy knowing before going into my first session with a band. This little-bitty book is supurb. NOTE: I found a lot of the material in this book at...The author is the leading writer for that magazine. For [$$$], you have no excuse why not to give this book a shot though!