Customer Reviews

WAVs, MIDIs, & RealAudio®

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     The advances being made with Web audio applications has presented Web developers and their clients with a number of amazing opportunities to liven up Websites with a variety of sounds and exciting online audio options. Are you looking for some helpful and creative instruction on using sound files with your Website? Judi Fernandez offers plenty in WAVs, MIDIs, & RealAudio.      She provides comprehensive coverage of the description, creation, and use of the more popular sound files in use today such as AU, AIFF, MP3, WAV, MIDI, SND and streamed technology. RealAudio, Shockwave, StreamWorks, and Netshow are featured to enlightened readers about the latest trends in Websound technology.      The book offers readers detailed instruction in the operation and use of the latest and most popular sound editors and players for both Windows and Mac systems. Readers will learn how to install them and put them to immediate use to create new sound files and to edit and convert existing ones. Screenshots and illustrations of program control panels offer an effective hands-on approach to learning how to use them. One of my personal favorites featured in the book that I highly recommend is CoolEdit 96!      Readers are also provided with detailed instruction on how they can use sound files within the Windows 95, 98, NT, and Mac operating systems. Readers will also learn how to use sound files with all of the major online services including AOL, CompuServe, and MSN! Would you like to share your sound files with others via e-mail? You'll learn how to do this as well!      The CD that accompanies the book is packed with a number of freeware, shareware, trialware, and demoware sound file software programs. The players, plug-in's, sound managers, recorders, and editors can be put to immediate use for both fun and profit. They are discussed and illustrated adequately to provide readers with everything they need to know to get started. A small but useful collection of sound clips is also provided. Not to worry, though. Readers will be able to access an unlimited number of other sound files online to meet any need they will encounter. The author shows them how!      Readers are provided with quality instruction on the use of sound files and the programs they need to know about to put them to productive use. Look forward to this phenomenon taking off even further in the years to come. Put this book to use along with a good Website design guide and begin enjoying one of the most fascinating innovations in Website technology! Get started now!

Don't expect to learn much more about various sound files than their names and the operating systems they operate with.

Very little information of value for musicians and composers.

Contains a CD that is out of date now, but is still of value in that it tells you about some player, converter, etc. software that is updatable on the internet.

This book's focus is on sound files and formats for both PCs and Macs. The author provides information that will help users identify, access, download, edit, send and transmit sound files on the Internet. Starting with the basics of sound on computers, the author describes in detail the difference between WAVs, SNDs and other sampled sound files, including MP3. She also discusses synthesized music files such as MIDI. Methods of using sound files with Windows, Macs, and online services are reviewed in detail, with excellent, easy-to-follow examples. Streaming audio applications are discussed in general. The book continues with information on how to work with sound files from downloading to emailing and from recording to editing. Included is a CD-ROM jam-packed with shareware and freeware tools for working with sound files for both Windows PCs and Macs.

The author, Judi N. Fernandez, is a popular and prolific computer book author. She's written over 40 books starting in 1982! The majority of these books have been guides to how to use many of the popular programs of the day, such as Wordstar (Remember that one from the mid-80s?). She has mastered the ability to provide outstanding guides that help users make the best use of their computers.

This is currently an outstanding book for beginning and intermediate computer users. The instructions and examples are simple, step-by-step and clear -- they're ideal for someone just getting started with sound files. However, those looking for advanced technical details or more than basic information on streaming audio should look elsewhere. And, like any book on the rapidly changing field of online multimedia, several of the products covered have already been upgraded to more advanced versions.

The book is excellently written and edited for its audience. It covers a broad spectrum of computer users, making it an excellent choice for anyone interested in those sounds their computer makes and wondering about those strange sound files they're getting from their friends.

Review by Mike Powers, Radio Guide, August 1999