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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-have for the budding home studio owner, April 15, 2000
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...
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything I my mixer manual didn't tell me., August 29, 2003
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!
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2.0 out of 5 stars
NOT for recording with Basic Mixers, May 13, 2010
This book seems to have some decent mixer information. I wish I could give the book a better rating, and the author seems to be making a genuine effort to pass along good information. Unfortunately there are errors and omissions which make it critically confusing for the reader. The author uses terms such as "punch-in" and "punch-out" without bothering to explain what they mean. I am a complete novice regarding mixers, so if you already know something about mixers and the recording process, you may be able to get past these errors. But if that's the case, you probably wouldn't be reading a book with the title "Basic Mixers".
Chapter 1 has some solid foundational mixer information, but right off at the first figure, 1.1, it states that it shows a schematic of a mixer with separate mic and line gain controls, and separate sockets. This is wrong. The reader is left staring at the page wondering what is wrong with his eyes that he cannot see what he is being told is there. It is befuddling and it stops you in your tracks. Since you're a beginner reading this, you don't know it's wrong, and you wind up wasting time trying to fathom what cannot be fathomed. It's not a good start to have the reader told something IS, when it definitely is NOT. This is not a critical problem, but it is an annoying one.
Unfortunately at Chapter 2 things get more problematic where the author addresses multi track recording and tape monitoring. The author mentions these are two of the more difficult topics to address, unfortunately he doesn't remedy the problem. In the third paragraph the author states:
"When the recording is complete and you're mixing your recorded tracks, the input channels are free from the output from the multi track recorder."
First, the author has not explained the difference between recording tracks initially and mixing them later.
Secondly, suddenly he's made a jump whereby he's now talking about having outputs from a multi track recorder plugged into channels in the mixer - something he has not previously discussed. This is a procedural pedagogical error. The author has suddenly jumped ahead in the subject area leaving the reader scratching his head wondering "Wha-Huh? Tape machine plugged into mixer channels? When did this happen??"
In this same chapter the author discusses setting up a "monitor mix" using the "monitor section" of a mixer. A monitor mix is used to play back tracks that you previously recorded so that you can play along to as you record additional tracks. For instance you may record yourself playing a guitar track, then subsequently record a vocal track to accompany it. You'll need the monitor mix in order to hear the previously recorded guitar track so that you can record the vocals in sync with the guitar.
I surmise that most people buying this book are home recordists using basic units. Mine is a Beringer 12 channel unit, which seems pretty advanced for someone at such a basic level as I, as the most basic units start out with only 6 or so channels. It doesn't have a monitor section. Basic units don't have monitor sections. I've gathered from other sources that there is a way to set up a monitor mix using my mixer without a monitor section, but the author does not describe how to do this. So, even though this book is titled "Basic Mixers", it doesn't describe how to accomplish this essential task with a *basic mixer*!
To summarize, if you're trying to get a first start with a basic Beringer or Mackie mixer with 16 or fewer channels, this book will describe recording in a way that doesn't apply to your situation at all - recording with a monitor section - because your mixer will simply not have a monitor section. This will leave you frustrated because you won't be able to set up a monitor mix in the way the author describes, and he doesn't describe how to do so on a basic mixer without a monitor section. The book is geared towards those with access to more high end professional equipment with features not found on basic units. It should have been titled "Professional Mixer Basics", not "Basic Mixers".
For what it's worth, I'll add as a footnote that I tried to contact the publisher about these problems and found that the web site listed in the book, Sanctuary Publishing dot Com, was inoperable.
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