Wow, didn't expect to see my free book on HN. I'm the author.
Hi, I'm a computer musician. I just had a quick look at the book, but this looks like a really nice resource! I'll put this on my reading list for summer.
Computational Music Synthesis
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#12Wow, didn't expect to see my free book on HN. I'm the author.
This is great! I've always wanted to get into computational music.
I spent five years working with audio/video codecs and APIs on the Xbox 360. Had to support various DSPs and help games improve their performance (curse you, denormals!). But I never got a chance to go full synthesis.
Thanks for publishing this!!
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#13A lot of care and work seems to have went into this book, really commend the author.
However, I do have to make one slight joke:
> "The topics are short and light on theory."
This did not prepare me for full-page greek-letter and symbol walls haha.
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#14This seems nice, introductory and very up-to-date. If I may offer some superficial criticism, I found the covered material was at odds with the title. The title evokes themes of algorithmic composition and experimental whole-music generation, while the book is actually about digital synthesizers and effects on a digital signal processing level. Of course I'm having a hard time coming up with anything better, but maybe in the lines of "Audio Programming for Music", "Music DSP for Programmers", "Digital Synthesizers and Effects"...
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#15A lot of care and work seems to have went into this book, really commend the author. However, I do have to make one slight joke: > "The topics are short and light on theory." This did not prepare me for full-page greek-letter and symbol walls haha. https://i.imgur.com/2K7w1vL.png
It is technically light on theory. DSP is just a lot of applied math and it’s hard to hand wave it away if you really want to write software.
A book on music production or an introduction to audio engineering would probably offer a higher level overview.
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#16This seems nice, introductory and very up-to-date. If I may offer some superficial criticism, I found the covered material was at odds with the title. The title evokes themes of algorithmic composition and experimental whole-music generation, while the book is actually about digital synthesizers and effects on a digital signal processing level. Of course I'm having a hard time coming up with anything better, but mayb…
On that note, what some favorite (ideally freely available) lectures/notes/books on the subjects of algorithmic composition and generative music? Ready, go:
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#17Building a synthesizer from scratch was the most fun I've had as a programmer:
http://www.plastaq.com/scythe_vst/
I'd strongly advise against trying to write music software for a living though. The market is just too competitive now and DAWs are increasingly bundling everything a user might need to make music.
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#18Wow, didn't expect to see my free book on HN. I'm the author.
Thank you for writing this book! I'm currently working on a music creation program based on modular synthesis, and I expect the filters chapter of your book will really come in handy.
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#19Building a synthesizer from scratch was the most fun I've had as a programmer: http://www.plastaq.com/scythe_vst/ I'd strongly advise against trying to write music software for a living though. The market is just too competitive now and DAWs are increasingly bundling everything a user might need to make music.
I hope the current giants in DAWs are doing much experimentation with VR tools, with the addition of multi-modal interfaces (like the mimu gloves and others), which could open up some marvelous ways of re-thinking music creation as a whole-body experience.
The tech for VR might still be a bit limited but the potential for the intersection of it and multi-modal interfaces is, in my opinion, very interesting.
Re: Computational Music Synthesis
#20Thanks for submitting, I'm currently working through Stanford Audio Processing for Music Applications but this books looks like a nice companion (and I tend to prefer written content to videos). I studies some signal processing stuff in college but didn't really connect it to music unfortunately so struggled. Since then I've gotten very interested in electronic music production so it's a 2020 goal to learn more about…
> Stanford Audio Processing for Music Applications
In no universe could my little offering compete with Julius Smith. He is the man.