Customer Reviews

PC Audio Editing: From broadcasting to home CD

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I don't know who Roger Derry is but he seems like someone who has been in the business (audio engineering) for a long time and is less than accepting of those who are new to audio; those who are using modern technology instead of "razor blades" from the past (that's how audio tape used to be spliced). I really don't know what is going on, but I do know:

He spent several paragraphs explaining how to choose a password. He spent several paragraphs telling how to make an interesting special effect that sounds like what might be an alien voice. (record the text, play it backwards, write it out phonetically, speak the phonetics, reverse the recording) and...

This is what he stated in one section (the kind of material I think most of us would be looking for) eg:

"FFT FILTER: FFT stands for Fast Fournier Transform. It is nothing less than a techie's dream of designing a totally bespoke [sic] filter. Great fun if you know what you are doing. Totally confusing if you do not! Probably best avoided if you did not start your career as a technician."

That was everything he said about FFT. You be the judge. I thought the book was padded with obvious and marginally useful information and very short on details about the nuts and bolts of audio editing.

As for the Syntrillium software. I have used a simpler version and love it and the people at Syntrillium are really helpful. You can get a demo like the one on this disk on the net. Use any search engine (amazon doesn't allow url's in these reviews).

I returned this book, thanks to amazon.com 's fair policy and am looking for an alternative.

Ben Hoff (goodidea1950@hotmail.com)

Unlike the other reviewer, I found this book to be helpful. I am already a Cool Edit Pro user and I have integrated this program into my audio recording program of Sonar XL by Cakewalk. Together, these programs are a powerhouse. I did think that there were subjects that I would have liked the author to elaborate on (i.e. more about music audio than voice), but all in all, I thought it was well written and informative. I would have also like to have seen more tricks covered, but I have learned the art of audio editing basicaly on my own with trial and error. To listen to some good examples, visit my mp3 site at mp3.com/rsumner. "Rock Slide" was edited with Cool Edit Pro. This is actually the only book that I have seen covering the subject of audio editing on the PC. I do expect to see more in the near future though.
I gave the book a 4 star rating.