Music : Recording & Reproduction

Okay, you’re either thinking about, or have decided to set up, a home studio. For many of us who love music, the ultimate form of expression can be writing and recording a song. Being able to accomplish this in your own environment can be a dream come true. Your home studio is literally the vehicle for your sonic visions. You can take an idea, shape it, refine it, and make it real. These days, there are almost no limitations to what you can do—except your own creative ambition. Home Studio Essentials is designed to help you grasp the essential elements that comprise a home studio and consider the different building blocks required to achieve your goals. A broad view of the available equipment is taken in each category, with specific recommendations according to budget and user. Everything is covered, from all the computer hardware and software, to microphones, monitors, preamps, mixers, processors, and much more. Home Studio Essentials also includes interviews with studio owners from many diverse backgrounds who share how they overcame specific obstacles and challenges. These interviews cover bedroom- and garage-based home studios, as well as more generously provisioned setups—such as an exclusive houseboat studio owned by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. more...

Price: $29.99

* 12 proven designs for building inexpensive, yet effective, audio studios. * Covers basic acoustic theory, construction materials, and applied design. * New chapters on blueprint reading and electrical wiring and grounding methods, expanded coverage of materials and construction methods more...

Price: $24.95

ACID Pro 5 continues to break new ground in loop-based music composition. Novices can use it for basic loop-based composition drawing on the enormous talent of the loop-based creators to assemble a song by painting loops on the timeline. Musicians can augment existing loops by recoding their own loops, or by using it to create entire tracks that don't loop. This Instant series guide uses carefully detailed screenshots and step-by-step directions to detail how you can use ACID in a concise, time-efficient way. Beginning with a review of the fundamental concepts, you get a complete guide to loop-based music including advanced looping techniques, methods to create your own loops, as well as a grab bag full of valuable tips and tricks. Beyond looping, you learn how to: customize the interface to your preferences, work with a video tracks, beatmap to remix, fix tempo drift, or create new tracks, use Groove Quantization to improve rhythmic timing, achieve an efficient workflow with the Media Manager, record digital audio and MIDI, sync ACID with other software programs, apply effects plug-ins, mix for optimal effect, and master and burn the final project. more...

Price: $25.95

Master the basics from first principles: the physics of sound, principles of hearing etc, then progress onward to fundamental digital principles, conversion, compression and coding and then onto transmission, digital audio workstations, DAT and optical disks. Get up to speed with how digital audio is used within DVD, Digital Audio Broadcasting, networked audio and MPEG transport streams. All of the key technologies are here: compression, DAT, DAB, DVD, SACD, oversampling, noise shaping and error correction theories are treated in a simple yet accurate form. Thoroughly researched, totally up-to-date and technically accurate this is the only book you need on the subject. more...

Price: $52.95

If you’re looking for a book that focuses on just the most important, most useful, and most fun stuff about your iPhone 3G or 3GS—you’ve found it. There are basically two types of iPhone books out there: (1) The “tell-me-all-about-it” kind, which includes in-depth discussions on everything from wireless network protocols to advanced compression codes. (2) Then there’s this book, which instead is a “show-me-how-to-do-it” book that skips all the confusing techno-jargon and just tells you, in plain, simple English, exactly how to use the iPhone features you want to use most. The iPhone Book is from Scott Kelby, the award-winning author of the smash bestseller, The iPod Book, who takes that same highly acclaimed, casual, straight-to-thepoint concept and layout and brings it to learning Apple’s amazing iPhone. Scott teams up once again with gadget guru and leading iPhone authority Terry White to put together a book that is an awful lot like the iPhone itself—simple to use and fun to learn. The book’s layout is brilliant, with each page covering just one single topic, so finding the information you need is quick and easy, with a large full-color photo on each page so you can see exactly how it works. The first edition of this book was named Best Computer Book of 2007 and, since then, Scott and Terry added even more tips and more tricks, and made it even easier by focusing on just the most useful and most requested iPhone 3G and 3GS features, so you can start really using your iPhone today!. more...

Price: $15.99