The Art of Digital Music: 56 Visionary Artists and Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets (Includes DVD) [Paperback]

David Battino (Author), Kelli Richards (Author), Stewart Copeland (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2004

This inspiring volume gathers the wisdom and groundbreaking techniques of 56 visionary artists, producers, programmers, provocateurs, instrument designers, label executives and industry leaders. Hear firsthand how the masters wield technology to create their amazing music - the enclosed DVD features highlights from each interview. You'll learn studio setup tips, secrets of sampling, creative quantization, ringtone tricks, production strategies, insights from video-game composers, insane distortion recipes, how to squeeze expression from loops, how to overcome software option anxiety, how to exploit happy accidents, and much more. Derived from a year's worth of in-depth interviews, this book is a richly detailed journey into the heart of computer-aided creativity. Contributors include Glen Ballard, BT, LTJ Bukem, The Crystal Method, Chuck D, Thomas Dolby, Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Jam, Alan Parsons, Phil Ramone, Todd Rundgren, Don Was, and many more. The bonus DVD also includes: over 25 complete songs * live-performance videos * interactive Flash movies * royalty-free samples and loops by the artists * behind-the-scenes photos * and more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kelli Richards is the former manager of music and entertainment marketing for Apple Computer. David Battino, a lifelong musician and founding editor of Music & Computers magazine and the Desktop Music Production Guide. Most recently, David was Technology Editor for Revolution, the biggest launch in music-magazine history, where he also designed and produced the monthly CD-ROM. His sound design appears in a series of Lazer-Tron

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books; 1st edition (December 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879308303
• ISBN-13: 978-0879308308
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Battino, a lifelong musician, majored in philosophy at Oberlin but spent most of his time tormenting synthesizers in the college's electronic music studios. That led to his designing sounds for arcade games and Ray Charles's album My World. In between, he spent a year in Tokyo as a Henry Luce Scholar, playing synths, producing Japanese teen idol singers, and studying koto and shakuhachi.

David is the founding editor of Music & Computers magazine, the Desktop Music Production Guide, and the O'Reilly Digital Audio site. He has covered music technology for Keyboard, MacAddict, MacHome, Make, Maximum PC, and Productopia.com. David was also Technology Editor for Revolution, the biggest launch in music-magazine history, where he designed and produced the monthly CD-ROM. Music Tech magazine called The Art of Digital Music, his 2005 book and DVD with Kelli Richards, a "jolly good value."

David currently writes gear reviews and the monthly "Option-Click" column for Electronic Musician. With his wife Hazuki Kataoka, he also writes, publishes, and performs Storycard Theater, an award-winning series of Japanese picture-card stories for children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some interesting interviews, thin on practical advice, lackluster DVD, August 12, 2005

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J. Padgett - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Digital Music: 56 Visionary Artists and Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets (Includes DVD) (Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book after reading all the reviews. And I must admit that some of the interviews are quite interesting. However, almost all of the 50+ interviews are limited to just two pages, with each interviewee answering just a couple of questions. The latter portions of the book are dedicated to some light advice on music production and the business of music, as well some speculation on the future of the music industry. Perhaps there are just too many topics to allow any one topic to receive a satisfying treatment. Many of the interviews read like an article you would find in Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician or such magazines (that's a good thing) but are even skimpier on content and cover a far-reaching range of topics. This biggest disappointment, however, is the DVD. It mostly contains audio excerpts of the telephone interviews and after a while you just lose interest clicking around on them. There are only a few performance-oriented video clips, but these are not the best quality and their content is of questionable interest. All in all, I think the book has some interesting elements but I'm not sure there's enough there to justify the space on your bookshelf. My advice would be to flip through it at a bookstore, read two or three of the interviews before ordering it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Insights are the Big Value, October 18, 2006

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G. Estes (Saratoga, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Digital Music: 56 Visionary Artists and Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets (Includes DVD) (Paperback)

I liked this book quite a bit; not because it gave me step-by-step instructions on how to create music using digital technology, but more to the point because it didn't. Any book on music technology can become dated quite quickly, but when one concentrates instead on hearing a very wide variety of artists, producers, technologists and industry executives talk about how they *think*, then you have something that if not timeless is at least fresh and interesting for some time. Knowing how Todd Rundgren approaches producing or songwriting is way more valuable than knowing which button in ProTools does pitch correction.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Andrew Keen, March 18, 2005

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Andrew Keen (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Digital Music: 56 Visionary Artists and Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets (Includes DVD) (Paperback)

I think this is a great book. The authors have done a tremendous job tracking down such an eclectic group of music visionaries and I found the majority of the interviews to be really interesting. High points for me were the interviews with Steve Reich who really gets to the core of the digital music phenomenon. I strongly recommend this book to all musicians and recording engineers who want to learn the creative secrets of the masters. The value of this book is worth many times its cover price.