Rating: 
Summary: Great book for amateur audio-DSP techies!
Review: "Digital Audio Processing", by Doug Coulter, ISBN 0-87930-566-5, Copyright 2000 by CMP Media, Inc, except where noted otherwise. Publisher: R&D Books, Lawrence, KS.This book is a great aid to anyone trying to learn about and apply DSP at audio frequencies. Doug Coulter provides lots of impressive, working audio processing software that runs on widely used Windows PCs, and explains it all in an informative and friendly manner. The reader will want to go and get Microsoft Visual C++ V6.0 to modify the source code. A CD full of code and utility files comes with the book. Doug demystifies much of the confusion surrounding he subject of audio DSP. For example, how does one calculate the filter parameters for an arbitrary FIR filter? Articles often give a particular set of parameters for this filter or that filter, but don't explain how to compute different parameter sets for different filter responses, leaving me totally in the dark. Doug simplified it, for me at least: just take the desired filter response and run it through an FFT! This is much easier for someone like myself. I have downloaded and played with the deceptively simple FFT, and the amazing things it can do. My grasp of the operation behind the FFT is weak, but that doesn't stop me from using it, and learning a great deal of useful stuff by playing with it. And with this book, Doug has opened some more toolboxes for me to play with. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Great book for amateur audio-DSP techies!
Review: "Digital Audio Processing", by Doug Coulter, ISBN 0-87930-566-5, Copyright 2000 by CMP Media, Inc, except where noted otherwise. Publisher: R&D Books, Lawrence, KS. This book is a great aid to anyone trying to learn about and apply DSP at audio frequencies. Doug Coulter provides lots of impressive, working audio processing software that runs on widely used Windows PCs, and explains it all in an informative and friendly manner. The reader will want to go and get Microsoft Visual C++ V6.0 to modify the source code. A CD full of code and utility files comes with the book. Doug demystifies much of the confusion surrounding he subject of audio DSP. For example, how does one calculate the filter parameters for an arbitrary FIR filter? Articles often give a particular set of parameters for this filter or that filter, but don't explain how to compute different parameter sets for different filter responses, leaving me totally in the dark. Doug simplified it, for me at least: just take the desired filter response and run it through an FFT! This is much easier for someone like myself. I have downloaded and played with the deceptively simple FFT, and the amazing things it can do. My grasp of the operation behind the FFT is weak, but that doesn't stop me from using it, and learning a great deal of useful stuff by playing with it. And with this book, Doug has opened some more toolboxes for me to play with. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Great book for amateur audio-DSP techies!
Review: "Digital Audio Processing", by Doug Coulter, ISBN 0-87930-566-5, Copyright 2000 by CMP Media, Inc, except where noted otherwise. Publisher: R&D Books, Lawrence, KS. This book is a great aid to anyone trying to learn about and apply DSP at audio frequencies. Doug Coulter provides lots of impressive, working audio processing software that runs on widely used Windows PCs, and explains it all in an informative and friendly manner. The reader will want to go and get Microsoft Visual C++ V6.0 to modify the source code. A CD full of code and utility files comes with the book. Doug demystifies much of the confusion surrounding he subject of audio DSP. For example, how does one calculate the filter parameters for an arbitrary FIR filter? Articles often give a particular set of parameters for this filter or that filter, but don't explain how to compute different parameter sets for different filter responses, leaving me totally in the dark. Doug simplified it, for me at least: just take the desired filter response and run it through an FFT! This is much easier for someone like myself. I have downloaded and played with the deceptively simple FFT, and the amazing things it can do. My grasp of the operation behind the FFT is weak, but that doesn't stop me from using it, and learning a great deal of useful stuff by playing with it. And with this book, Doug has opened some more toolboxes for me to play with. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Leap Into Understanding Digital Audio
Review: *An early chapter on phsychoacoustics lays key groundwork on one of the most important parts of the audio system; the listener. *The DSP and Filter primers provide an intuitive approach to these subjects that have been difficult for many. *The DSP Programming Methods and Tricks chapter provides an overview of what the system design engineer should consider in sorting out the many DSP and CPU chip manufacturers features and claims. *Finally, the WavED and WaveEdPro software is provided with source on the CD with the user guide in the book. Lots of toys on the CD and I want to lock myself in a room Real Soon Now d just play a while. This book is for the intermediate skill level in digital audio processing. The naïve developer will probably miss the nuggets of wisdom provided in a easy going chatty style reminiscent of late night sessions spent with a mentor. The more experienced developer will catch those little nuggets for future use. Some of the figures are drawn badly and~ need to be traced with a pen to read, a small price to pay for their value. *Overall, the book provides a glue function tying together a lot of dispara leads me to think that there are a lot of these. A course in Computer Science does not prepare you for the typical math in this kind of work. Neither does a course in Electrical Engineering prepare you for the software aspects. This book fills the gap for the person with one foot in each discipline.
Rating:
Summary: Highly technical topic made highly readable
Review: As a newcomer to the world of software for audio processing I found Doug Coulter's book an engaging introduction to this area. The area is, by its nature, very mathematically challenging, and Coulter does a good job of making it approachable with his conversational light-hearted style. The accompanying CD provides a sound wave editor. The most useful part of this is that you can apply a particular filter or effect while you are reading about to get a better feel for the transformation beyond its mathematical definition. Sure to become a classic in its niche.
Rating: 
Summary: How to reach me, and who this book was written for
Review: As the author, most of what I have to say was said in the book. I wrote this book mainly for Windows programmers who want to add DSP skills to their bag of tricks, and who find current DSP references obscure or unapproachable. There are a few very advanced Windows programming methods included, along with a complete waveform editing application, with full source code. I noticed my email address is in an obscure place in the book, so I want to make it available here. I can be reached at clab@swva.net
Rating: 
Summary: Good content, Bad writing skills
Review: Beginners in DSP beware, this book is not for you. The book lacks continuity and expressiveness, puts me to sleep within minutes of opening it :-) But there is lot of content and the experienced DSP guy can use this as a reference book. But this book does not serve as a text book or a good tutorial for any class of people, only as a reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not much content
Review: By reading the books description, it seemed to be exactly what I needed. However, it fails to deliver much of what was expected. The author provides very little explanation into any theory and says "just try out the software and see for yourself." The author says himself many times, "the source code it way clearer than anything I can explain." There is practically no source code in the book itself, just on the CD. And the author does not explain any of it. Overall, I was very unsatisfied with the book. After reading it I felt I had no better understanding of the subject than before I bought the book. The author relies on his example program in the CD for you to figure out everything. If I wanted to do that, I'd download an example program from the internet with source code.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much Hype
Review: I do not believe that this is a very good book for programmers who are wishing to learn DSP. I'm sure this book is of value to a particular audience. Unfortunately, I'm not in that group. Here's my advice: if you want an explanation of how and why different audio effects function the way they do, if you want a general understanding to different DSP principles, or/and if you plan on writing your own code and need some type of direction, like a few brief examples (well-commented & an explanation of the source code), then DON'T BY THIS BOOK! As I began to look elsewhere to find the information I was looking for, I realized that this author failed to explain the topics. The source code was not even useful because there was not much of an explanation behind the work. Too much hype.
Rating:
Summary: What a mess...
Review: I ignored the bad reviews and bought the book anyway because it's one of the few dealing with digital audio. I should have been more careful. Both the book and the CD are a complete mess. Have you ever seen a book starting with a chapter describing which other books to read next ? No ? Buy this one. This gives you a flavor of how the book is organized. The writing style is atrocious and filled with useless personal considerations. If you are a DSP expert, then you already know what's in the book. If you are new to digital audio, then don't expect to learn much from this book. The author seems more concerned about showing how smart he is than teaching you digital audio. The source code provided on the CD is not any better. Rather than providing small code snippets that can be easily reused, the author provides a full wave editor program probably written by generations of students who did not follow even the most elementary coding standards. Most of the code is not indented and hardly commented, making it extremely hard to follow. Functions are so intricate that it is virtually impossible to reuse anything (the use of MFC does not help anything). Most of the book is dedicated to explaining what's in the wave editor and how to use it. A total waste of time and money. The worst book I have ever seen (I buy over 10 computer and technology books a year).
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