Customer Reviews

Sound and Recording, Fifth Edition: An Introduction (Music Technology)

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I teach a recording technology class at a community college, and we selected this book as a text based on the claims that it was a good beginner's manual. It is quite the opposite-- by the second page, the authors are already throwing in equations to represent the relationship between the frequency and wavelength of a sound-- crazy! The book is written by engineers, for engineers, and assumes that the reader is already well-read in electronics, physics, and advanced math! Also know that the work is British, so much of the terminology is different than what we use in the States. For example, proximity effect is "bass tip-up". Shotgun mics are "rifle mics". TRS plugs are "GPO" plugs, etc. The discussion of mixing boards zooms in immediately on features found only on very high-end studio boards, rather than the equipment to which a beginner might have access. The discussion of impedance focuses on how to represent values mathematically, rather than clearly explaining what is meant by "impedance" and why it is important. This book has ended up being absolutely useless as a beginner's text, and the publisher should not be representing it as such. We are abandoning it for something more beneficial to beginning students.

When most of the class was buying spain's IORTV translated fourth edition at retailed price 32 euros I recieve it from New Zeland just beneath my feet a few thosand miles away and upside down, the 38 euros fifth edition. Simply outstanding, these days the latest edition matters, specially on Sound and Recording.