Speech Technology Books

This is a great book for the new Cisco Phone administrator, but please realize that although it is in its 7th printing, it has not been updated. I ordered this book and found that most of the information I was looking for was on items added after CCM 3.1 (which is the version that is covered in this book).

I studied this book for my CIPT exam. Even though this book itself does not suffice to pass the exam, I could not have done without it either. It provides a clear understanding of CallManager and other CIPT components. All the pictures and graphics are well designed. If I have to criticise a couple points, I would say there are a few organization flaws. Titles could have been organized more effectively. Another improvement could be deviding Route Plan chapter. This chapter is very long compare to others.
Overall, I strongly recommend this book for those who want to understand "Fundamentals of CallManager." Also, if you are studying for CIPT, you should consider "Cisco IP Telephony" book along with this.
As far as practice tests concerns, neither books have enough questions for practice. I had to find a third party question bank to study and it helped a lot. "Cisco IP Telephony" book has some practice questions at the end of each chapter, but I can almost gurantee you that they don't help on the actual test.
Good luck to everyone...

Thankfully, a new edition. This is hands down the best book available on using the Cisco CallManager system. Unfortunately the first edition came out in 2001, since then the software has gone through at least five revision levels. This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1.

The biggest point about this book is that it covers the inner workings, the architecture of the system. This is often helpful in understanding just what it is that you're doing. Of course it also covers all of the standard user interface tools like management, monitoring, reports and everything else.

This is hands down the best book on the CallManager, if you have to manage one of these beasts you have a much harder job on your hands if you don't have this book. My only real negative, please guys, don't wait for six software releases to go by before you do a third edition.

One of the other customer reviews for this book (which may have been removed by now because I have complained about it) says: "This book has been updated to include the 4.1 version, a big improvement over the old book which covered 3.0 or maybe 3.1."

But clearly, that customer was referring to the 2nd Edition of the book - this book that you are looking at is the First Edition; in other words, it IS the old book which only covers version 3.1. I know, because I just bought it for $20 and now I will throw it away and buy the 2nd Edition.

I did the CIPT training course hoping that it would be enough to pass the exam. Although the instructor was excellent, the documentation was not. It did not couther certain topics in detail, and was hard to follow. As I had to pass the exam for myself and so that the company kept its Cisco Partner Status I had to get some good documentation.

Although I am only half was through this book I am finding it excellent. It goes into good detail on the information, which you have to know, whilst not sending you to sleep on information, which is not relevant to call manager, networking, or telephony. I am confident that once I have read the book a few times I should be able to pass the exam without too much trouble. Cannot say this about the Cisco training documentation.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3A80YKC8W7UEE New Chronology is a theory validated by astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient manuscripts that asserts: that Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th centuries. Human civilization is barely 1000 years old!

New Chronology complies with the most rigid scientific standards:

- It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know;
- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion;
- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically;

New Chronology goes by the following basic axioms:
- Chronology is the basis of history;
- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;
- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history are fantasy and hoax;
- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;
- The closer in time is a given manuscript to the events described the less distortions it contains;
- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Fomenko asserts: There was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of yoke and slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these imported historians with the mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.

Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godunov rulers and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.

As Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, he successfully removes a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece.

The Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less. The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone, like enormous Dendera horoscope that hangs in main entrance to the Louvre museum in Paris.

He was the first one to decipher and date unambiguously all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case.

English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the book "History: Fiction or Science?" portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such ancient history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them otherwise.

Islam with all its key figures appears as late as 15th-16th century A. D. as a branch of proto-Christianity. This is amply illustrated by imagery of Prophet Mahomet, archangel Gabriel, Heaven and Hell of this period. In today's Islam all imagery of the things living is taboo.

Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th 17th century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a proto Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian!) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.


The history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..

Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians,.. particularly when they speak the truth."

Henry Ford once said: "History is more or less bunk!"

Prominent mathematician Anatoly Fomenko not only proved it for a fact, but as true scientist tried to upgrade it into a rocket science.

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Like Erich von Däniken, the Creationists, and the legion of sensational conspiracy theorists, this book makes huge claims based on speculation founded on the most superficial and selective reading of the historical record.

Most insulting to one's intelligence is the claim that C14 dating could be so far off the mark. This method has been tried and tested for 50 years. It is based on the known decay rate of an unstable isotope, that occurs in fairly predictable amounts. Calibration merely raises the accuracy from around 10% to 1% error margin. Even without calibration, the measurement of various isotopes has given civilisation a history of thousands, not hundreds of years.

Tree rings are a well understood phenomenon in biology. These can be used to obtain accurately dated samples more than 4000 years old. C14 dating can be calibrated with these samples to adjust for slight variations in C14 levels due to the solar cycle. This enables us to date to within a couple of decades samples dating back to early classical times.

However, this is only a part of the evidence, there is layering of earth above sites, known geological events like volcanic eruptions, traces of natural and human activity all correlated. How do we explain Pompei? If we want to apply Occam's razor, is it really easier to believe in a huge medieval conspiracy, that was able to construct a consistent history, complete with archaeological evidence that had not yet been found? And that all of the thousands of scientists involved in dating have been misled?

I can only conclude that this book was written as a money spinner to hook the gullible, like so many other conspiracy books.

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

I bought this book with the hopes that it would give me some detailed insight into how mp3 works, instead it spends most of its pages talking about the differences between encoders and how to use them, as well as a detailed description of how to click on the play button in winamp.

The chapter on the insides of mp3 was what I was really looking for, and this book is, as other reviwers have noted, not really for programmers. Most of the "Mp3" books out there are for "How to go get music off the internet and play it", and I was really hoping that this one would be different. Nope, it wasn't. It did offer a bit of insight (which was available from many other sources) into the workings, but not much.

The language in this book is pretty bad, it feels like they rushed this to market - some of the sentences feature misconjugated verbs, and improper uses of the past perfect tense. While this is only moderately annoying, it really detracts from the usability of the book.

Overall, I'd say that my hopes have been shattered, and what has been generated here is just another book on how to use mp3, not anything different, other than the Oriley name.

For the price -- high technical density and readability.

The reference section was also very good.

I used the book as a general overview of mp3 issues for testing an mp3 player. I've got five other books on mp3 and the specs -- this is the first reference I pick up.

This book will not teach you how to write applications to create mp3 files. If you want to write an encoder or decoder you should get the specification from the ISO standards site.

It does give information on how to use other peoples software and it also gives you information about the law. If you want to start sharing mp3 files or broadcast music using third party software then this book is not too bad.

"MP3: The Definitive Guide" comes at a reasonable price. It is a good text, which provides a complete coverage of MP3 using four major platforms: Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and BeOS.
Users, particularly those who understood the basic mechanics of MP3, will benefit from the near-limitless information jam-packed in this 400-paged text. Right from the scratch, this book took care of every aspect of: obtaining, recording, and optimizing MP3 files using either commercial or open source methods, or both.
Whether you are having a hard time evaluating playbacks or burning CDs, this book will reveal a lot to you. It also has sections that were dedicated to equipment testing, control and co-ordination, as well as file sharing with enthusiasts on the Internet. The main blemish I found on this book is that most MP3 novices may find some chapters difficult. The author, Scot Hacker, assumed that his audience are already familiar with the MP3 basics.

This definitive guide goes into much more technical computer detail than more casual coverages for lay readers, introducing users to all aspects of the technology and covering the basics of how to use, optimize and maintain MP3 files using both commercial and Open Source methods for four basic operating system platforms. A highly recommended pick for musicians and computer users alike, this tells how to get the most out of equipment and MP3 music formats. Highly recommended.

Compared to DirectX graphics, Directx Audio gets little spotlight. DirectX programming is known to be complex. This book does a good job in making DirectX (audio) more accessible to beginners.
Here is my rating on the Content (5=Best):

Accuracy: (4.5/5) So far, I have found minor ommissions in the text. However, the sample code is good enough.
Coverage (4/5)The book, as some other reviews pointed out, focuses more on directmusic than direct audio programming. Maybe its just me, but I was expecting more programmer-oriented text. I only found 50% of the book applicable to my programming work.
If you are considering buying this book, please check the table of contents. The direct music part is useful if you are considering composing music and/or need some basic understanding of computer sound.
Completeness (3/5). This is by no means a complete reference for directx. Keep the SDK documentation handy.
The author also fails to explain at times the rationale behind chosing the particular parameters values for various function calls. Expect to do some googling if you plan to understand the code insideo out.
Style (5/5): The author's explaination is very clear and concise. A beginner to directx should have no trouble following the text.
Overall: 5/5 if you have never touched directx before. 4/5 if you have previous experience with directx programming. You are better off with premier's game audio programming book.

This book is an excellent resource for composers, sound designers and audio programmers who are focused on developing and creating interactive and adaptive audio for games. Regardless if you are utilizing Microsoft's DirectMusic Producer, you will find the techniques and strategies for creating interactive music extremely valuable and useful no matter what development tool you use.

Don't be intimidated by the wealth of knowledge and years of expertise from the authors. The straight forward creative and analytical approach to presenting the concepts in this book make it very well rounded for all readers. The case studies are particularly valuable in that they provide real-world applications of creating interactive and adaptive audio for the top games.

As a music composer for games, I highly recommend this book to both those who are currently developing audio content and to those aspiring to create audio for games.

The concept and application of game audio today has become increasingly complex and unfortunately, there are not many books available on the subject. The use of DirectX is one of the more popular methods of solving many game audio issues and this book, DirectX 9 Audio Exposed, couldn't come at a better time. Written by the many experts at Microsoft who develop and use DirectX and edited by an incredibly knowledgeable game audio advocate, this is a must have book, not only on the subject of DirectX but for anyone interested in creating, producing and implementing game audio. The subject is covered completely, from concept to fruition with some interesting case studies along the way. Whether you are hoping to become more educated on the use of DirectX or game audio in general, this is a highly informative book which is well worth the money. I HIGHLY recommend it!

Two thumbs up!

If you want to gain all the benefits and sophistication that DirectMusic provides, this book is a must. Also included is a marvelous CDROM containing several very well thought out sample sound programs (both source and executables) that illustrate many of the chapters' concepts in real-time. Definitely take them for a drive.

For programmers, I found this book to be packed with information on using both the DirectMusic API, and the very powerful (and free) DirectMusic Producer tool, which lets you view, edit, play, and drill down into DirectMusic files/projects. Understanding the Producer tool through this book will give you a much better understanding of the API and the architecture.

The CDROM contains several VC++ projects you will find absolutely essential if you are writing your own applications. All the source code is included and is very clean, and the programs are cleverly devised and illustrate key points very clearly.

This book contains a lot of information, but if you want to learn how to create dynamic music with this kind of audio quality and sophistication, this is by far the best resource I have found.

Lots of good information for game programming, but nothing useful for general audio programming with Direct Sound. Judging from what I had read about the book, I thought there would be more meat in it on the Direct Sound interface, but there wasn't. There is lots in it if you are doing games and will have sound that you just need to playback, but if you need to do any audio processing with Direct Sound, that isn't in the book. It could really have benefitted from some interface documentation (perhaps an in an appendix) and a bit more low level stuff, especially on effects processing.

This book is a must read for people working in the area of speech recognition. It is highly technical though.

Since this book misguides students of speech signal processing with the outdated compression technique of Linear Predictive Coding (LPC, which is far inferior to cepstral vocoding because of LPC's stateful memory of voiced excitation from one frame to the next), it ought to be half the price of Jelinek's book, not twice.

The beginner in Automaitc Speech Recognition should read this book. It introduces all the basics of signal processing and vocal tract modeling needed and provides good descriptions of modern algorithms for statistical speech recognition (such as dynamic programmation, Hidden Markov Models, Viterbi Algorithm ...).

This ia a classical book on speech recognition. It covers the basic concepts and practical speech recognition Techniques. The first tutorial on HMM by Rabiner,appeared in IEEE, is included in this book with much more practical examples. This book helped me a lot during my post graduation and work in the area of speech recognition. Thanks to Rabiner and Juang !!!

This book is a comprehensive and excellent introduction to the ever-expanding
field of Automatic Speech Recognition. Starting with models of speech
production, speech characterization, methods of analysis (transforms etc),
the authors go onto discuss pattern comparison, hidden Markov models (HMMs),
and design and implementation of speech recognition systems, right from
isolated word recognition to large vocabulary continuous speech recognition
systems. Neural networks and their use in speech recognition is also presented,
though somewhat briefly.

Rabiner was the author of the first widely-read tutorial on HMMs, so
naturally the presentation of HMMs is one of the strong points of this
textbook. The theory is developed in detail, but in an easy to follow
fashion, starting with the very basics and with plenty of helpful examples.
The implementation is discussed at great length as well, starting with
the simplest of tasks and progressing to the state-of-the-art (circa 1993).

That isn't to say that HMMs are the only good part of this book - indeed,
practically every topic, whether it be perception, transforms, vector quantization
or dynamic programming, is presented with great clarity. This book really is easy to
learn from, with numerous examples and illustrations.

The field of speech recognition is inherently multi-disciplinary in nature,
drawing upon various areas of study, including Physics, Physiology, Acoustics,
Signal Processing and Computer Science, to name but a few. The authors do a
great job of explaining all these facets, as well as the mathematics that
is an essential tool.

The only caveat is that it's now a little old (published 1993), since the
field has been growing by leaps and bounds - so while the basics remain
the same, things have changed and hence what's said here should not be
taken as the last word on the subject.

Perhaps a new edition is due, and would certainly be most welcome.

However, for an excellent, accessible introduction to this exciting field,
this is still a great choice.

If you are new to digital recording and loops and want to get the most from your acid pro software, then this book will get you going and having fun. Not exhaustive by any means, but rather practical and approachable, especially if you are not the type to read dry technical manuals. Really the best first book for someone just getting their feet wet with acid. Listen to my first efforts with Acid Pro as Griffman on acidplanet.com

Instant Acid by John Rofrano and Iacobus is a how to book for Acid Pro version 5 which is a PC only loop-based music composition application.

It is easy to read and can get you up and running quickly. This is great for media editors, since you will probably want to know how to compose music to go with your video. This book shows you how you can do this. You can load in your video, which displays both as track one so you can match it to your audio tracks, and in a preview window in the lower right where you can watch the action as the audio plays allowing you to match music precisely to events in your video.

Loops, as you probably already know, are bits of music or even voice sounds. Loops of less than half a second are known as one shots. Up to 30 seconds are known as loops and longer than 30 seconds becomes a beatmapped track.

Don't let any of these terms throw you. I am not a musician and I have been able to compose using loops and its fun. To compose music you paint the loops into the tracks at points you want them to play for as long as you want them to play (like Soundtrack). You can use the loops provided with the program, add new ones, modify existing ones to create new ones or create new ones from scratch-something you can't do in Soundtrack. The book teaches you how to do this and this is one of its strongest points. You use a window called the Chopper window and you can export(render) out as AIFF or MOV or numerous other formats.

By the way you can take a Soundtrack loop, modify it, and bring it back into Soundtrack if you like. Very cool.

Other features the book covers are adding effects, interfacing to a MIDI device, doing a bit of mixing, and burning to a CD. I did not do a lot of experimenting here, but the book seems to cover these topics well.

I did encounter a few things I thought the book was a bit weak on. First there is no index. However, I was able to get around; maybe that's just a pet peeve of mine. Even though the book is labeled as "novice to advanced" don't expect many definitions. A certain amount of prior knowledge is recommended. The instructions on how to use the Groove Pool and how to use the Loops and Samples Reference Library seemed a bit sketchy. When I applied a selection from the Groove Pool (New Orleans Jazz) to one of my tracks, I did not get the results I was expecting. I tried other selections, but never got the hang of the Groove Pool. I do plan to keep trying. Maybe your results will be better.

Regarding the Loops and Samples Reference Library, this is a free piece of software the book directs you to download and use to tag loop CD's with loop characteristics such as beats, temp, key. I was unable to get it to tag anything, but when I loaded one of my loop CD's into Soundtrack and clicked on the Index button, it "tagged" it within seconds!

All things considered, once I started composing with loops a couple of years ago, I couldn't wait until I could create my own and export them. And with this software I can, and this book tells you how. The book definitely got me going with the app and was worth it for the Chopper feature alone.

Allan Phillips

Now almost eight years old, ACID was a run away hit when it first appeared bringing a whole new concept in music composition to the computer based composer. The looping concept of creating a small loop that can then be repeated a number of times reflected the way that much popular music is really written. That was just the beginning. ACID has now been through five major revisions, getting more powerful with each revision but retaining the basic simplicity that made the software such a hit in the first place.

In this book, two consumate masters of the software have combined to produce an excellent book. This is one of those books that literally have something for everyone. On the one hand it gives tips to the newbie on things he might want to consider during installation. On the other hand, there are enough points brought out that the expert will find things that make him wonder why he didn't already know that.

This book is part of the CMP Instant Series that combines screen shots with text to instantly convey the points of importance. A quick way to get started, or to learn about the latest version.

I'm a guitar player, so when I got Sound Forge I wanted to plug in my guitar and rock. Problem was that the manual talked totally about DJ crap and dance beats. This book will help you out 100%. A must read with a tons of recording techniques to get the most out of your mix.

I was excited to get this book because of the great reviews it got. I picked up two books on Acid, Instant Acid and Acid Pro 5 Power. The Instant book got such great reviews that I chose to start with that one first! I sat down and started reading with my laptop ready to go. I'm brand new to Acid and have never made digital music ever before, but I am an amatuer musician and know music very well. That being said, this is what I thought:

The book was too vague. I liked how the author writes like he's talking directly to you, but it seemed to me that he assumed the reader knew too much. When I write an instructional document, I sometimes am faulty because I assume that everyone knows at least something (at least the basics even!), but I always get calls asking, "but how do you even get to that point!?!" So, that's what I am experiencing now. Instructions are mentioned in the book to do something, but it doesn't tell you how to do it! This isn't the case on all of the instructions, but on quite a few.

I lost my motivation and closed the book. I will keep the book and probably go through it once I've gone through the Acid Pro 5 Power book.

The instructions are good, which warrants the 3 stars, but the authors assumed that the reader knew more than we do (at least if you new to this program).

Overall, not a bad book, especially for the price!

A perfect book to get you started in your digital audio endeavors.Filled with practical information about almost anything involved ,honest and well grounded.Chapters on acoustics, toolkit,setup, installation-configuration,simple songmaking guide, recording, effects,midi control,mixing-mastering, audio for videos and a DVD full of tools and extras, make it clear that it is a book to be used.
Having read a handful of similar books I can't be certain but for me this is almost perfect

This book was disappointing. If you're looking for anything in depth look elsewhere. Plug ins and their use were given short shrift. A paragraph on the use of compressors, for instance. Not much more than you'd find in your user's manual. Suggestions for general use ok, but definitely not hands on. This book is meant for absolute beginners with emphasis on selling products that the author wants to promote or is being paid to promote.

Many of us out here have been working with and around audio for many years. As well, most of us have resisted the "I/O" demon, ha! After updating my equipment, a little at a time, I found myself in the digital domain; like it or not.

Upon review of this book "Real World Digital Audio" in EQ Magazine, I immediately purchased it, and got what I asked for; more work. Good work however, in that the author placed me in the driver's seat, gave me an easy to understand road map (I brought the cheetos)and it's been just great! Something I can use to honestly understand where I'm at with newer and evolving technologies, and put them to work in a positive and productive manner.

Bravo!

This is a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute study of the digital music world that is unparralelled in accessibility. Read this book cover to cover and then enjoy the freedom to go any direction you like in the field, knowing that you have the fundamentals.
Peter Kirn has managed to explain the concepts in a way that is clear and concise without ever being misleading or confusing. Read this and you can know that the next audio text you pick up you won't get stuck on concepts that are taken for granted by so many authors. College level "Introduction to Music Technology" classes (that so often fall short of expectation) would do themselves a favor to make this required reading.

This is a book for musicians who need to understand the science of sound as well as the principles of digital music production including equipment, computers, and software. There is even an entire chapter dedicated to MIDI. If you are a musician who is interested in getting involved in computer music, this is a great place to start learning as well as getting your hands dirty with the actual business of creating digital music.

Chapter 1. Understanding Digital Sound - Covers the basic physical concepts of analog sound - the sine wave, pitch, amplitude, and perception. Next the book discusses how these concepts translate into digital form.

Chapter 2. Choosing Your Tools - Surveys the available hardware and software you'll need to produce digital audio. Included are photos of typical devices, their uses, their price ranges, and examples of some name-brand products. This section even tells you how to select a computer that is best for your needs.

Chapter 3. Setting Up Your Equipment - Discusses all aspects of connecting the physical hardware you selected in chapter two. This includes a discussion of the desirable acoustic properties of the room you'll be using for your studio.

Chapter 4. Preparing Your Computer for Audio - Discusses setting up your computer to optimize your audio productivity. This chapter gives detailed instructions on the installation and configuration of drivers and plug-ins, copy protection schemes, disk storage space, operating system optimization, and other tips on making a computer most efficient for the production of digital music.

Chapter 5. Quick Songs with Patterns and Loops - Shows you how to quickly and easily turn your ideas into music using Kinetic and GarageBand's pre-built musical components.

Chapter 6. Recording Instruments and Sound - This chapter is all about the different types of microphones and how they work. Discusses microphone characteristics and what types of sound they are best at capturing, how they affect sound coming from various directions, strategies for placing your microphones at various distances and in various arrangements. Also shown are microphone strategies for different instruments and the use of Audacity and Ableton Live, which is recording software included on the DVD.

Chapter 7. Processing and Effects - Without getting over-technical(i.e. mathematical), this section discusses the various effects you'll need to know about to complete most digital audio projects. The chapter begins discussing what signal processors are and then goes on to explain equalization, dynamics processors, time-related effects such as delay and reverb, and specialized processors such as distortion and modulation.

Chapter 8. MIDI: Notes, Rhythms, and Physical Control - Discusses how MIDI enables you to express digital music in a form that seems natural to musicians. The chapter discusses when to use MIDI, how to connect MIDI devices, MIDI's data structure and messaging system, and how to put everything together so that you can use MIDI to create a song.

Chapter 9. Synthesis and Software Instruments - This chapter concerns turning your computer and its software into various musical instruments. You learn how to work with prefabricated sounds, analog waveshapes and their sounds, and how to use envelopes, modulation, and different effects to produce more interesting sounds.

Chapter 10. Put It Together: Arrange, Mix, and Master - This chapter takes the material from the previous nine and shows you how to arrange and assemble a complete composition, including mixing, so that you have something professional sounding that is ready for distribution, which is also discussed.

Chapter 11. Producing Printed Scores - Goes into detail about producing a score. Shows how to choose the right notation software, using quick-start features and templates, how to input your notes to your score either via keyboard, MIDI, scanning, or pure audio, assembling and replaying your score, and finally sharing your results with others. Sibelius and Finale are among the software packages featured.

Chapter 12. Music and Sound for Video - Builds on what you have learned about digital audio and shows you how to synchronize that audio to video. You'll learn about adjusting cues to fit the video, measuring time in frames, recording sound for easy synchronization, and recording dialog.

Chapter 13. Playing Live - This chapter includes discussions on the live arranging of music and DJing your live arrangements. The actual software used is discussed in some detail.

The DVD contains over two gigabytes of sound content, instruments, and software tools. Included are Ableton Live, Audacity, a 30-day demo version of Cakewalk Kinetic, a full version of IK Multimedia AmpliTube UNO, MIDI management utilities, and a collection of free plug-in and standalone instruments and effects for Mac and Windows.

This book is not just about speech processing, it's also an all-in-one handbook about everything you might deal with when doing speech recognition related research. Don't be scared by the total page number of this book - it includes many chapters on Digital Signal Processing, Probability Theory and Random Process, Linear System Model, Optimization Method, Statistical Pattern Recognition AND speech recognition. I believe all the readers who are interested in reading this book should already have some background knowledge on those topics, if not, they won't get required background knowledge simply by reading the related chapters in this book. Further more, there is no in-depth coverage of the state-of-the-art in the speech recognition related chapters. The writing quality of this book varies a lot from chapters to chapters, weird grammers/phrase uses can be found here and there. For researchers who are interested in this area, I would recommend Jelinek' book and Huang's book.

I would have given this book a 3-star if it were sold at the price of $60. For the price of $189.95, I give it a 1-star.

This book provides the deepest and most balanced excellent treatment of both linguistics and speech technology among all the books available. It has both qualitative and quantitative descriptions of these subjects. The subjects covered are rather comprehensive alao, with adequate background covered in a balanced manner.

The level of the book is perhaps too high even for senior engineering or computer science students. It seems more appropriate for experienced researchers.

Some cross references for figures, equations, and tables seem out of place. This may be due to word processor problems. Hope the problems can be corrected in the next reprint.

Overall, this is a strong and deep book. It may be difficult to read the first time around. But after you get into it, especially if you like deep and thorough understanding of the subject, a lot can be learned on the subject of speech processing.

I gained a lot of joy in reading this wonderfully written book. Although the book is rather specialized in both phonetics and mathematics/statistics, any reader with both backgrounds will find that no other materials in the globe deal with these subject matters better than this book. It is deep in some areas and broad in others, rather appropriately portioned.

A rather deep treatment of speech science can be found in Chapters 7 and 8, with a view towards how such linguistic knowledge can be applied usefully to solve speech recognition problems.

One most interesting aspect of the book is its thorough treatment of dynamical systems for speech processing. In particular, Kalman filtering theory has been covered in an amazing detail in both theory and applications. There are also very interesting descriptions of how hidden Markov models and dynamic system models are differentiated and linked, and of how they can be usefully combined.

Do you want to be a listener or a podcaster? If you do, then this pocket guide is for you! Authors Jack Herrington, Kirk McElhearn and Richard Giles, have done an outstanding job of writing a pocket guide that shows you how to tune into podcasts and download them to your favorite portable device so you can listen to them when you want.

Herrington, McElhearn and Giles, begin s by taking you through the process of using iTunes to find, subscribe, and listen to podcasts. Then, the authors briefly introduce you to creating, recording, and editing your own podcast. Finally, the authors review some of the most interesting and unusual podcasts available.

This most excellent pocket guide is intended to guide you through getting started in the world of podcasting, both as a listener and as a creator of your own podcast. More importantly, like this pocket guide, podcasts fit nicely in your pocket.

I'm an O'Reilly fan and must own a few dozen O'Reilly books, so please take my prejudice into account. Still I think it is a rational bias considering the quality and reliability of O'Reilly products. Enough preliminaries, let's get into the review.

This book definitely lives up to it's subtitle - "Tips & Tools for Finding, Listening To and Creating Podcasts" - 100%. It's also one of that rare breed, a "Pocket Guide", that actually fits in your pocket. It's a great introduction for someone seeking a brief overview of the whole field. Jack Harrington, one of the trio of authors, was known to me prior to reading the book from an excellent series of podcasts he narrated on podcasting technology.

I'm more interested in podcast production than in the podcast "consumption" side of things. This book, as the subtitle advertises, covers both downloading and listening to podcasts as well as production. The consumption side comprises about 50% of the book including both discussion of podcatchers (podcasting listener clients, e.g. iTunes) and brief synopses of over 30 podcasts, none of which I listen to, nor am I likely to listen to despite the briefs. Most of us have our own pod tastes so the reviews just weren't important to me. So in a sense the 50% podcast consumption coverage is a 'weakness' from my point of view.

The podcast production side is it's strength with discussion of hardware, software and producer workflow / content issues. By far the strongest link in this threesome is the software discussion with the hardware discussion being the weakest link. In fact the hardware discussion, "what microphones should I be looking at?", is really just barely touched on and readers are referred elsewhere. Okay, I understand this is a complex topic but even some technical basics would have been nice.

There is excellent brief coverage of the software side of podcast production that is up to date and targets the core issues wannabe podcast producers are interested in. They discuss Windows, Mac and Linux environments so the coverage is "OS agnostic".The discussion of how to organise and plan your podcast is great too.

The book focuses on audio podcasting only, no video here. It gives you enough to get going with a simple audio track podcast without the devilish details generated by multi-person roundtable interviews, outside interviews, skype calls etc. Still a great intro to the basics.

Quite clearly, this pocket guide does what it's supposed to do. It gives you a quick & dirty intro into the podcasting world. I already know a thing or two on podcasting but for beginners, this is a nice introduction. Why the 'but...'?? Well, there is a small chapter on 'Fixining common audio problems'. This was a very small chapter but I'd like to have that one a bit bigger. Perhaps in an other pocket guide? I liked that part because it kinda gives you shortcuts to some specific solutions to improve your audio, without going in the technical stuff. Very nice.

If you're new to the podcasting arena (either as a listener or producer) and you want a quick overview on the subject, you can find a pretty good one with Podcasting Pocket Guide by Kirk McElhearn, Richard Giles, and Jack D. Herrington.

Contents: Finding, Subscribing to, and Listening to Podcasts; Starting Out in Podcasting; Formats for Your Podcast; Editing Your Podcast; 30 Great Podcasts; Index

Because it's a pocket guide and meant to be small, you're not going to get a lot of technical detail in this volume. The authors cover getting and managing podcasts primarily through iTunes and an iPod, which is a relatively common combination. The chapters on creating your podcast are also fairly high level, but there's enough there to at least get your feet wet. The Audacity software is the primary choice they have for sound editing, but they also list a sizable number of options in addition to that. I'm not sure I would have included the 30 Great Podcasts section, however. Everyone's tastes and interests are different, and that seemed to be 30 pages that might have been better spent with more technical detail on creating podcasts. Still, if you happen to find one or more in that list you like and didn't know about, then you'd probably disagree. :)

If you're an experienced podcaster, or if you've been listening to podcasts for awhile and have no desire to create your own, there might not be much appeal in this book. But given the right target (podcast newbie), it's a non-threatening intro to the subject.

Back in October, I had the opportunity to review Jack Herrington's book Podcasting Hacks. This book is a sort of condensation of much of the information in that book, though it's presented differently and is targeted at beginning podcasters. This book shouldn't be thought of as a replacement for the other book. This is a great beginners manual, and has actually been useful for me in explaining what podcasting is to people who are less technologically astute than I am.

I wish that this book were required reading for anyone who wants to podcast. I've listened to several shows that would benefit from this book (and no, I'm not mentioning names). One of the most valuable sections is on How To Be a Critical Listener. I mentioned before that to podcast, you have to listen to podcasts. But you don't listen to them the way a music fan, for example, would. You are looking for tips and ideas -- suggestions for your own podcast. What's the format? What software are they using? What mic do they use, and how does it sound? How are they promoting their podcast? Listening to podcasts can only help you in creating your own.

To that end, a list of 30 Great Podcasts is included in this book. I was pleased to see many of the podcasts I listen to included on the list, including several fellow-members of the Association of Music Podcasting. What surprised me was that many well-known podcasts were not included. What is there is a wide variety of styles, formats, and genres of podcasts produced by amateur podcasters who are doing it because they love it. And that is the best example of what podcasting is all about that there is.

The book will fit in your pocket, right next to your iPod. If you aren't sure about this podcasting thing, and want to find out more information about it before you start doing it, this is a great reference for you. And in no time, you'll graduate to Podcasting Hacks.

Good introduction to various speech processing techniques. Attempts were made to cover very broad areas such as speech synthesis, coding, and recognition; which obviously cannot be done in a single volume. The serious readers looking to specialize in any of the mentioned areas must find other sources for more thorough info. Also note that many materials in the book are already outdated due to rapid technological advances.

This is the book to have on your shelf if you are a serious about speech processing. The authors give a through treatment to the fundamental issues involved in speech processing. This outstanding work of two leaders in DSP and Speech processing, will help you to get started with the fascinating subject of speech processing. The issues covered in the book are still relevant today as it was back in 1970's. Though a bit dated this work is a classic.

I am an Engineering student and doing a project in speech recognition. This book not only helped me in this project but also improved my knowledge on this subject.

It is a bit to technical, but still goes a long way to improve your knowledge on the subject.

I am currently doing research for a speech processing project, and as I went through a good number of books, I was not able to find a more complete and technical source as Digital Processing of Speech Signals. In my opinion, the book has a perfect combination of theory and practice when presenting both time-domain and frequency-domain algorithms for speech analysis and synthesis. I originally borrowed this book from a library, but now I am getting my own. It is a must-have classic!