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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Guide to digital music synthesis stands the test of time,
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This review is from: Musical Applications of Microprocessors (The Hayden microcomputer series) (Hardcover)
This book, published in 1985, is definitely showing its age. It is obvious that it was written at a time when home computers and personal electronics were patched together by determined geeks and that standardization of hardware and software was something of the distant future. However, that being said, much of this book's contents are still relevant with details being given on individual filters and what makes a synthesizer produce the sounds you desired that are simply unpublished in any other individual volume.
The first five chapters are background information. The chapters on music synthesis principles, sound modification methods, and direct computer synthesis methods basically comprise a first course on music and sound synthesis in general that any beginner to the field will appreciate. You simply need to ignor the sections on microprocessors and electronic devices, due to the age of the book. Section two of the book is about the application of microprocessors to controlling conventional analog sound-synthesizing equipment as it existed in 1985. This section is interesting primarily from a historical standpoint. Section three, chapters 12 through 18, is the real meat of the book and the part that best stands the test of time. This section is about digital synthesis and sound modification. Chapter 12 discusses the conversion of audio to and from the digital domain. Chapters 13 through 16 have details and explanations of the z-transforms of individual filters for various musical applications that can be transferred into modern synthesis programs. Chapters 17 is less interesting to the modern reader, since it basically talks about how to run down to Radio Shack, buy the electronic parts you need, and solder together a musical microprocessor system. Chapter 18, on software, would not be valuable either if it was not for some of the algorithms on display there, even though they are in FORTRAN and assembly language. The final section of the book talks about applications. Although the implementations are prehistoric, the block diagrams and over-all ideas presented are very interesting and still relevant. Overall, I would give this book a five star rating for breadth and depth of content and subtract one star only because of the fact that it shows its age in the implementation sections. I highly recommend it to anyone who really wants to understand digital audio signal processing. To get the most from this book you should have some knowledge of math at the level of trigonometry and algebra, prior exposure to electronics and microprocessors, and some knowledge of music. If you need more background on digital signal processing than this book provides, I highly recommend "A Digital Signal Processing Primer : With Applications to Digital Audio and Computer Music" by Ken Steiglitz. It is a very readable introduction to DSP for people interested in audio processing applications. This book is also a great companion to the much more modern and highly recommended "Digital Audio Signal Processing" by Udo Zolzer. Do not confuse that book with the book "Digital Audio Processing" by Doug Coulter. Coulter's book is pure garbage, even at the bargain basement price at which people are selling their used copies.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book for signal processing with small microprocessors,
By
This review is from: Musical Applications of Microprocessors (The Hayden microcomputer series) (Hardcover)
I bought this book in 1985 when it was published. It was useful then and I'm so amazed as to how useful it still is. Whenever I need to design hardware/software around something like a PIC processor, I generally refer to this book at some point as 9 times out of 10 I'll get an idea for a new algorithm or cheaper circuit to implement some signal conditioning or digital signal processing. I've also found it useful for understanding some higher functionality in video processing (Namely the use of sinc functions to analyze sampling).
The book is aged, no doubt, but it's a must for any budding engineer. If you are new to Engineering, it will be especially useful. When the book was written, PC's were only just being invented and most software was one on mainframes. At the time it was useful for sound or music generation. It can be useful for waveform generation but mostly general signal processing is what you will find it most useful for. All the algorithms and techniques we used to invent to work with mainframes, now apply to $2 chips like the PIC, 8051 or MSP430. This is why this book has stood the test of time. It isn't for the non technical (so most engineers will go whew!), but I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone involved in embedded development. Even the state variable filter in software is credited to Hal Chamberlin (the author). I keep awaiting for someone to come up with a modern version with as much useful information, but have yet to see it. My copy has many dogears. Enjoy. -Donald
5.0 out of 5 stars
Antique yet still inspiring educational reading,
By
This review is from: Musical Applications of Microprocessors (Paperback)
Ancient, decrepit, hopelessly useless with modern technology, no doubt! Yet the clear explanations of filtering concepts, the sinc function's importance in sampling theory, the broad view of music synthesis encompassing analog, digital and mathematical ideas - is timeless.
The material is within reach of hobbyists who know some electronics, some low-level programming especially assembly level, and not scared of math at then undergraduate college level - though a music synthesis or electronics geek could enjoy most this book just fine without the math. Plenty of diagrams, clear plots. It's not for those wanting how-to hands-on construction advice, or wanting extensive code samples. You will have to suffer reading a bit of BASIC! Note that this book was written before MIDI was widespread, so there is no coverage of this now vital technology. The review of then-current 8-bit microprocessors will take you down memory lane if you are old enough, or serve as an eye-opener to the primitive state of things as of the early 1980s to the younger readers. Hal Chamberlain's articles in the long-gone Byte magazine were wonderful and clear; he's a great technical writer. The best thing i can say about this book is i've never since encountered a better explanation of cepstrums and their use.
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