A Programmer's Guide to Sound [Paperback]

Tim Kientzle (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201419726 | ISBN-13: 978-0201419726 | Publication Date: October 27, 1997

Author appearance "I just wish this book had been available years ago." -Bobby Prince, composer and sound designer for computer games including Doom and Duke Nukem 3D "This is the kind of book that will stand as one of the defining works in the specialization of audio programming." -Gene Turnbow, senior programmer and game designer for Sound Source Interactive, Inc. "I'm amazed at the breadth and depth of Tim's coverage." -George Wright Information Systems, Loyola College, Maryland A Programmer's Guide To Sound provides detailed technical information about audio storage, processing, and compression, and includes tested C++ source code. Developers who want to add sound technology to their applications will find all the details they need to: *access low-level sound services on Win32, Mac OS, and UNIX *decompress MPEG, IMA ADPCM, and A A -Law data *read from WAVE, VOC, AIFF, and AU file formats *play MIDI and MOD music files. This book also includes accessible introductions to related topics, such as instrument synthesis, musical tuning, human sound perception, digital filtering, and Fourier Transforms.Developers will especially appreciate the emphasis placed on practical details. For every topic, the author provides complete source code to demonstrate the principles involved. The source code from the book compiles into a sample program that reads and plays a wide variety of different sound files on Win32, Mac OS, and UNIX. The CD-ROM includes all 40,000 lines of source code from the book, in addition to project files for popular compilers, sample sound files, and contributed software and related information. Whether you are an audio professional who wants to learn more about programming or a computer programmer who wants to know more about implementing audio, this comprehensive resource will be an invaluable reference for years to come. 0201419726B04062001

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I just wish this book had been available years ago." -Bobby Prince, composer and sound designer for computer games including Doom and Duke Nukem 3D "This is the kind of book that will stand as one of the defining works in the specialization of audio programming." -Gene Turnbow, senior programmer and game designer for Sound Source Interactive, Inc. "I'm amazed at the breadth and depth of Tim's coverage." -George Wright Information Systems, Loyola College, Maryland

From the Back Cover

Author appearance

"I just wish this book had been available years ago."
-Bobby Prince, composer and sound designer for computer games including Doom and Duke Nukem 3D

"This is the kind of book that will stand as one of the defining works in the specialization of audio programming."
-Gene Turnbow, senior programmer and game designer for Sound Source Interactive, Inc.

"I'm amazed at the breadth and depth of Tim's coverage."
-George Wright
Information Systems, Loyola College, Maryland

A Programmer's Guide To Sound provides detailed technical information about audio storage, processing, and compression, and includes tested C++ source code. Developers who want to add sound technology to their applications will find all the details they need to:

• access low-level sound services on Win32, Mac OS, and UNIX
• decompress MPEG, IMA ADPCM, and µ-Law data
• read from WAVE, VOC, AIFF, and AU file formats
• play MIDI and MOD music files.

This book also includes accessible introductions to related topics, such as instrument synthesis, musical tuning, human sound perception, digital filtering, and Fourier Transforms.

Developers will especially appreciate the emphasis placed on practical details. For every topic, the author provides complete source code to demonstrate the principles involved. The source code from the book compiles into a sample program that reads and plays a wide variety of different sound files on Win32, Mac OS, and UNIX. The CD-ROM includes all 40,000 lines of source code from the book, in addition to project files for popular compilers, sample sound files, and contributed software and related information.

Whether you are an audio professional who wants to learn more about programming or a computer programmer who wants to know more about implementing audio, this comprehensive resource will be an invaluable reference for years to come.

0201419726B04062001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (October 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201419726
• ISBN-13: 978-0201419726
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #655,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An introduction with a good c++ framework, August 7, 1998

By 

W. A. Norris (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Programmer's Guide to Sound (Paperback)

WHAT THIS BOOK DOES WELL:

* Explains audio signals, frequency, pitch, and Fourier transforms at a level suitable for anyone who understands trig, and in a highly readable way

* Explains file formats (WAV, AU, AIFF, MPEG formats, MIDI, MOD formats, etc.), and compression schemes, complete with tested implementation code

* Explains basic frequency filtering (with code)

* Implements readable, usable c++

WHAT'S BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK:

* In depth DSPs, physics, acoustics, or mathematics

* More complex transforms, like pitchbending without changing the length, noise reduction, adding reverb, flanging, etc.

* Highly optimized numerical algorithms

IN SHORT: if you need an introduction to the subject or just want a royalty-free code base for file format handling, this is an excellent book. If you already know all the basics, you won't learn very much.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good book, bad publisher, November 6, 2005

By 

Christopher Fowler - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Programmer's Guide to Sound (Paperback)

This book is pretty decent, pretty much what I was expecting, except the publisher, Addison-Wesley, has stopped shipping the book with a CD. Instead there is a note in the book instructing you to go to their website for a downloadable version of the CD.

Surpise! No downloads available for this title!

The CD contains all of the code from the book, project files, sample sounds, and code that is not in the book, so in my opinion, the CD contents are pretty necessary.

So far I have written them several times (very politely) with no response and I've spent hours on the phone trying to get this problem resolved, only to get transferred to four or five people and eventually transferred to a recorded message saying that they "cannot take my call at this time" and to call back.

So... do not buy this book unless you don't mind not getting the CD.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Outdated and Useless Software, March 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Programmer's Guide to Sound (Paperback)

This book can be used as a reference toward file formats as applied to sounds. However, I found the software and code examples within the book to be unnecessarily complicated. For instance, the author has a clear obsession to add unnecessary functions toward the API, such as "negotiation" and various levels of abstraction. Under normal circumstances, all parameters (sampling frequency, bits per sample, etc) are known in advance and hence "negotiation" among various sound objects is absurd. I have also found numerious inconsistencies and omissions in the code provided. In Page 42 - Listing 4.6, the author suggests a recursive way to read bytes; nonetheless, if the previous pointer is NULL the code will get into real trouble. In the CD-ROM provided, in order to compile the window player, a key header file is missing: "audiolib.h", I couldn't find it after searching several times. My recommendation is that the material can be used for a quick browse of file formats, but do not get serious in the software solutions because they are not useful.