Creating Digital Music and Sound: An inspirational introduction for musicians, web designers, animators, videomakers, and game designers. [Paperback]

Chris Middleton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2006

. Write and record music. Learn studio techniques. Record location sound. Make your own podcasts and Internet radio shows. Add music and sound to videos, movies, and animations. Make music on your cellphone.

'Creating Digital Music and Sound' is an illustrated introduction to the creative challenges and techniques of making music and recording sound digitally, for anyone interested in making, sharing, or publishing music and sound across any media.

From the basics of setting up a home studio and using a variety of software and hardware, to practical hints, tips, and creative strategies for adding soundtracks to videos, collaborating online in real time, and making and sharing podcasts and Internet radio shows, this unique book will instruct but also entertain and inspire.

'Creating Digital Music and Sound' also demystifies the technologies and features interviews with top musicians, studio engineers, filmmakers, DJs, Web designers, and videomakers.

The book offers a unique insight into the immediate future of music and sound-making, from making music on mobile phones, to digital rights, media players, file formats, and Blu-Ray disks and HD-DVDs.

This feature-packed book offers a creative introduction to music and sound making on Mac, PC, Linux and non-computer platforms, from budget tools and freeware to the most comprehensive studio suites.

* Learn the complete process from switching on your computer and connecting devices to producing professionally mastered soundtracks and publishing and sharing them
* Be inspired to create by interviews with top industry professionals, well-known musicians and composers
* Learn from the non-technical, easy to understand hints, tips, and expert work-throughs

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This fully illustrated, 4-color handbook examines the basic principles of digital music-making and sound...Exploring how to create podcasts and Internet radio broadcasts, the author looks at film soundtracks, videos, and animation as well as how to add audio to Web sites..For practical hints and tips plus interviews with professionals, the book describes music-making for beginners and more advanced users in the home studio and on location." - J. Audio Eng. Soc., July/August 2006

"Middleton provides a rundown on digital creation basics such as hardware, workstations, loops, beat matching, microphone usage, multi-track recording and mastering...From there he moves into focused applications, including...podcasts, Internet radio and Flash..." - Animation Magazine, Aug. 2006

Book Description

The one-stop, non-technical guide creative artists need to master music and sound for video, websites, animation and games!

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press (June 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240808320
• ISBN-13: 978-0240808321
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,233,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars awesome book for noobs, April 30, 2008

By 

GameMaker (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Creating Digital Music and Sound: An inspirational introduction for musicians, web designers, animators, videomakers, and game designers. (Paperback)

No doubt there are a lot of people who get to the point where I was recently. They have an idea that they want to create digital music, but it isn't at all clear where to start. I only wish that I had bought this book *first* before making the plunge into buying equipment and tools and such. I would have done things differently, and it would have saved me a lot of money and frustration.

The book starts off with a really good (but brief) overview of sound concepts. Concepts like amplitude, phase, waves, sampling, bit-depth, and a lot more are explained. Then there is a chapter on computers where it talks about vital topics like: "how much computer do you need?", "what capabilities should your sound card have?". Then it starts broadening out into topics like connecting instruments and other peripherals to your computer and how to accomplish that. It includes diagrams and lots of pictures. There's also a nice section on MIDI, what that is, and how it should be integrated into your system. There is even a section on cabling, that includes nice pictures and explanations on the different cables that you are likely to run across. That is followed by a longer section on software, where it discusses different options and capabilities that you may want.

The second half of the book is dedicated to discussing different aspects of music creation. Things like podcasting, creating music for video, digital rights, and all sorts of other similar topics.

I really can't say enough good things about this book. It's the only one like it that I could find. It's pretty well up-to-date in terms of the latest peripherals and software products. And it puts all the relevant "getting started" types of topics together into one well written package. The book is filled to the brim of really high quality color photos of all the different software, hardware and evenything else that is discusses. And because the information is organized so well, this will occupy a spot on my bookshelf for a long time to come as a valuable reference.