1st Edition

Audio Anecdotes Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Digital Audio

Edited By Ken Greenebaum, Ronen Barzel Copyright 2004
    512 Pages
    by A K Peters/CRC Press

    Audio Anecdotes is a book about digital sound. It discusses analyzing, processing, creating, and recording many forms of sound and music, emphasizing the opportunities presented by digital media made possible by the arrival of inexpensive and nearly ubiquitous digital computing equipment. Applications of digital audio techniques are indispensable in: - The recording industry - The film industry - Interactive gaming - Computer Human Interaction.

    The contributors to this volume include researchers, recording engineers, and sound designers, as well as creative artists, and the articles reflect this broad spectrum of experience in dealing with: - The fundamentals: the physics, measurement and perception of sound - Signal processing: the mathematical manipulation of sound - Recording and playback of sound: including music, voice, and field recording - Synthesis: rendering sounds which never existed including the synthesis of musical instruments, voice, or noise (Foley Sound) - Signal processing applications: from compression techniques to signal detection and recognition - Computer techniques: efficiently implementing low latency high performance audio systems on digital computers - Music theory: the mathematics of both western and non-western music - Creative topics: composition and sound design - Nature, mind, and body: how sound exists in nature and affects the mind and body This book will be an invaluable tool for anybody who uses digital sound in the creation of computer generated works, musicians, game developers, sound producers in movies and other media, and more.

    Preface -- Introduction -- 1 Measurement -- Sound Pressure Levels: “Mine Goes to 11!” /Ken Greenebaum -- Understanding the Decibel /Hersham Fouad -- Sound Propagation /Ken Greenebaum -- 2 Perception -- Controlling the Perceptual Organization of Sound /Albert S. Bregman and Wieslaw Woszczyk -- Perceivable Auditory Latencies /Derek DiFilippo and Ken Greenebaum -- Introduction to the Theory of Signal Detection /Derek DiFilippo and Ken Greenebaum -- 3 Recording -- Understanding Microphones /John Klepko -- How to Make Great Voice Recordings /Dex Manley -- Instrument (and Vocal) Recording Tips and Tricks /Daniel J. Levitin -- 4 Synthesis -- Retro Game Sound: What We Can Learn from 1980s Era Synthesis /David Thiel -- Introduction to Physical Modeling /Perry R. Cook -- Timbre Trees: Integrating Sounds and Images /James K. Hahn -- 5 Signal Processing -- Auditory Masking in Audio Compression /Henrique S. Malvar -- Rate Conversion /Tor A. Ramstad -- A Framework for Software Modem Experimentation /Ben Luna -- 6 Computer Techniques -- Simple Interfaces: Small (Hello) World /Ken Greenebaum -- RampTest: Quantifying Audio Performance /Ken Greenebaum -- Audio File Formats: A Formal Description-Based Approach /Ken Greenebaum, Christian Hresko, Alexandros Eleftheriadis, and Danny Hong -- 7 Computer Tools -- Octave and Gnuplot: An Audio Detective’s Best Friends /Phil Rutschman -- PABLIO: A Simple Audio I/O Library /Ken Greenebaum, Phil Burk, and Ross Bencina -- PortAudio: An API for Portable Real-Time Audio /Ross Bencina and Phil Burk -- Using FLAVOR for (Media) Bitstream Representation /Alexandros Eleftheriadis and Danny Hong -- 8 Human Experience -- Designing a Movie for Sound /Randy Thom -- Listening to Nature: Hearing is More Than Meets the Eye /Gordon Hempton -- Understanding Hearing Losses and Hearing Gains /Adrienne Ross -- Glossary of Audio Terms -- Contributor Biographies.

    Biography

    Greenebaum \, Ken; Barzel \, Ronen

    This book is like a Swiss army knife of information about digital audio.
           -- Robert Rowe, Journal of Audio Engineering , February 2005


    The editors' goal for this book was to provide an accessible introduction to research in digital audio and its associated software. .
           -- Computing Reviews , June 2005


    The wonderful thing about this book is that it contains well-written introductions to many subjects, including sound propagation, auditory scene analysis, audio file formats, and rate conversion, that otherwise might be found in magazines, on the Internet, or not at all.
           -- Robert Rowe, Audio Engineering Society , March 2005


    A highly recommended supplementary educational text for anyone pursuing or involved in a career in the digital audio field.
           -- Library Bookwatch, July 2004


    The appeal of this book is its practical usefulness, the variety of approaches taken within some chapters, its accessibility, and the breadth of experience brought to bear, particularly from a technical perspective. In these terms, it is likely to be a handy reference book on many shelves in educational, artistic, and engineering settings, and it certainly fills a gap in some of the current tutorial offerings.
           -- Ian Whalley, Computer Music Journal , April 2009