Sound Synthesis and Sampling

I bought this book as a musician seeking ways to expand my creativity. I came with some background in sound synthesis as well as electronics. This 500 some pages book packed mostly with useless info for me. Knowing that the first synthesized sound was made by homo sapiens beating wood log against a stone doesn't help. And so the story about telephones being first synthesizers. Every time I grab the book trying to find something new and exciting, I just get disappointed. Yes, this book does have a lot of information, but hardly anything helpful to a musician. The book seem to be a collection of paraphrased articles that don't connect to each other and hard and boring to read. I bought this book shortly after reading Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook which is only about 100 pages long but packed with info that is to the point. This book would a good buy for college instructors trying to find something to talk about for 3 months.

This book is unbelievably detailed and well-researched. Russ gives just enough technical detail to facilitate a deeper understanding, and stops just short of the purview of an engineering textbook — but goes well beyond the countless “learn how to make synth patches” books on the market. For the sound design enthusiast who wants a deeper understanding of what’s actually going on behind the knobs, and how that technology came to be, this is the right book.

This book is pretty much what i expected a thorough yet easy to understand guide to the world of sound synthesis and sampling. It's full with terminology and interesting tid bits related to the history of sound. Any avid producer of electronic music old or new, novice or experienced will take advantage of the indepth knowledge that this text has to offer.

just what I need it, I'm a sound engineer student, and will be graduating here in a bit. This is what I need to get my gears turning. Thanks for the book coming with everything and being in tact. No complimants

I give this book a 5/5 because not only did I need this book for class, but it was a good read overall. I also usually enjoy reading Focal Press books.

I'm still reading through the book but so far it has been very informative and well-written.

This book is still up to date in 2017. We wrote the wiki article on music software and keep it up to date, and there is very little today that would need a new edition at an overdone price: If you're looking for a great intro to synth, look no further.If you're only needing to know the difference between sampling, looping, etc. some of the more practical articles on wiki, or the amazon titles on mixing secrets for small studios would be better. This fits the intermediate need between general waveforms and detailed circuits, and fills an important niche about what's going on under the hood of digital synthesis and music making. It's a great companion to the new krft app that is going viral right now. It also is between practical and theoretic, not a guide to "how to" create hip hop but also not "scholarly" text that's difficult to read and has few real life applications. JUST RIGHT IOW if you're intermediate in the field and want to get into a lot more detail short of circuit diagrams stolen from the Roland electronics dept.Price comment: if this were a springer title at this size and technical depth, it would be $300. Nuff said? Great bargain from a publisher and author who know we aren't all wealthy, especially in the music field!

positive:-This book is a good introduction to the most common sound synthesis techniques. The books is divided in analog, hybrid and digital techniques. For each of these techniques there are explenations of all the components and also some examples are given of existing instruments. The book also offers a historical perspective with timelines and different technologies for each era.-Good written text with clean figures and diagrams.negative:-This is not a book that explains the electronics in detail so don't expect full schematics of VCO, VCF, VCA etc. There are some of these schematics, but they are very basic and conceptual and the explenation is quite sparse.-There are a few mistakes in the book and editing is not superb. For example some of the timeline tables mention several synthesizers more than once and with different dates!

Sometimes you want a book that explains things simply and in a way that helps you use a synthesizer by understanding the underlying concepts. This book doesn't dwell on particular models of synthesizers but does indeed look at the general principles. But it's very comprehensive in its scope, trying to say a little about everything. Sometimes it just fails to say the simplest things in the first instance: for example, that the function of a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) is to control the frequency output of a module by varying it's input voltage. It's there (on page 104 and 180) but not prominently, and not before the writer confuses you with dubious detail (why explain the electronics when this is not your target reader?).I'll use this book as a reference but I will search for something else that is more useful practically and that won't take me three years to read.

Very comprehensive and covers a wide ground at varying depths. Includes the science of sound, from how we actually hear, analogue based theory, digital theory, Midi, software & lots lots more (See chapter breakdown).It will build your understanding on how to make sounds from the bottom up and add some order to experimentation. Knowing what FM, AM, VCO, LFO, AVF, VCA, ADSR, SRR, Square, saw, tri, & sine waves are and what to do with them is essential in order to understand those knobs and mouse clicks on the screen are doing. This in my opinion this is the best in publication book on the general subject. Others are also worth having as they focus in on specific areas but as a general all round work horse this book is the one for me.The content of the book does start basic and build on knowledge grasped from earlier chapters. Some of the more challenging concepts I found using my hardware then re-reading the chapters again caused things to start making some more sense. This is after all a text book that exists on reading lists of academic courses on the subject and therefore could be regarded a reference book that you will always re-read to refresh. As geek I have some really mixed up bedside reading material personally focus in on certain chapters relevant to my own hardware. As a result one day I may fully understand all my hardware user manuals.

Can't help feeling the other reviews are being a bit too flattering. I was pretty disappointed with this book. It certainly covers a lot of synthesis and goes into very good and easy to understand discussion but fails to have the "depth" and isn't quite as "comprehensive" as other have said. If you've been involved in syntheses or electronic music for about four years or more this book won't really provide you with anything you shouldn't already know. Might be a useful reference but otherwise pretty limited. I would have actually given it four stars as it is extremely well written and will be very useful to people who are new to the field but felt that the currently overwhelmingly positive reviews really need to be pegged back a bit as they definitely over-hype the book. Read most of it in a day

This book was my bible during my second year at university. It explains the subject incredibly well, and covers a broad range of topics. Well worth buying if you are interested in synthesiser programming and sampling

excellent