The Audio Programming Book [ハードカバー]

As a seasoned coder new to audio processing I give this book 5 big stars. It explains through numerous coding examples and projects all of the major aspects of coding for audio. It also provides cross-platform libraries you will find essential, as well as extra chapters not included in the book via the included DVD. I was able to synthesize my own sound waves, and even write my own wav file player within a week.

That said I would not recommended this book to someone who is unfamiliar with coding. The authors do try to give an introduction to c programming, however I found that the examples in this book would be very difficult for a new programmer to be able to follow, let alone compile, given that there are many libraries which must be linked etc. Personally though, I loved that upon opening the book for the first time I could flip through the pages gingerly and see tons and tons of straight c code. The theory is there, but more importantly so is it's practical application, and that's what makes this book awesome.

I had been coding in C/C++/Objective-C for a year or so when I first picked up this book. As a musician all my life, I wanted to be able to get a fundamental understanding about what goes on under the hood when computers process audio signals, and hopefully start writing my own programs that do just that. In the content and coding practice realm, the book is TOP. NOTCH. You will not find a more comprehensive guide on Digital Audio Processing anywhere. In the first two chapters (being Chapter 0 and Chapter 1), there are some great techniques and strategies for really getting the most out of pointers, and, unlike most C programming books I've skimmed through, it jumps right into grabbing input for the command line, and introduces you to the proper defensive programming strategies and refactoring methods (i.e. encapsulating code into functions, using preprocessor definitions/macros, always keeping variable scope in mind) that you'll need to make strong, versatile programs. And on the audio side, it covers everything from Spectral Audio Processing to simple DSP to filter Design to effects such as Ring Modulation. And the DVD has tutorials about using C++ with either QT or Carbon to build GUIs for audio Apps, VST plug-ins, and even has a tutorial on designing an audio app for the iPhone. If you're a very advanced programmer with some signal processing background, you might find the DVD more valuable than the actual book itself.

A few warnings about this book though:

1) It is not, I repeat, NOT, for beginners. If you have just started learning C, or are switching over to C from a higher-level language that's not C++ or Objective-C, I HIGHLY recommend you read (or at least read the last half of) Kochan's "Programming in C" to get up to speed before you try to tackle this book. Chapter 1 claims to be an introduction to C , but having read through some of it to get a feel for the book's layout, I can tell you that if you do not have ample programming experience in C you will get very lost. Make especially sure that you have a thorough understanding of pointers and how they are used in all aspects of the language before diving into this book. But to be completely honest if you're a programming newbie why in the world would you want to start off learning SIGNAL PROCESSING, an advanced topic even for seasoned coders? Also, it might be important to note that you also have to have a solid understanding of sound and its basic principles, as well as some advanced composition knowledge (serial music, etc..) if you want to fully understand all the examples in the book.

2) This book is a bit dated. For a number of reasons. The first is that it is absolutely pre-C99. Variables aren't declared inside of loops anywhere (even where it would be more readable and more appropriate to do so). All of the comments have the /* text */ format, even the single-line comments. Furthermore, they tell you to install Gnuplot using Aquaterm, which has been deprecated since Snow Leopard was initially released (you have to now ./configure it using X11, google "Gnuplot in Snow Leopard" and click on the first link for a quick tutorial on how to do so). Finally, there is a whole Chapter dedicated to writing OpCodes for CSound. Now yes, CSound was invented at MIT and this book is published by the MIT Press, and yes, it is still a widely used program, however, my personal opinion is that this could have easily gone in the DVD section and been replaced with a section on writing GUIs, VSTs, Mobile Applications, or heck even programming external objects for MaxMSP (which to my knowledge is used more often than CSound nowadays).

All in all I absolutely love this book and will definitely keep it as a reference throughout my entire audio programming career; I just wish they would update it.

This is a great book that I'd recommend to intermediate and hard-core coders. All the concepts are very clear and it provides TONS of tools to get the job done. I'd go and learn general programming from another book or school before jumping into this.