Books about Acoustical from Amazon.com

With the advances in digital technology, musicians can now produce their own music at home. Over the years the gear has gotten much better, and musicians have learned a great deal about recording. So why do so many musicians and engineers have difficulty getting truly professional-sounding results? One reason? Acoustics. If the room you're working in has poor acoustics, it will be extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to produce excellent results. You can't capture a true sound if the microphones don't hear the instruments and vocals correctly. You have to be able to hear what's truly going on with your tracks to make the proper decisions about editing, equalizing, processing, and mixing them. Acoustics can be a complex, math-laden science, but treating a room to make it sound great and function optimally as a recording studio needn't be difficult nor require hours in front of a calculator or computer screen. Improving a studio's acoustics can be simple and inexpensive -- all you need is some guidance. Acoustic Design for the Home Studio focuses on creating a greatsounding home or project studio in an existing room. It teaches the basic principles of acoustics that affect you in your home or project studio and how to solve any acoustical problems you may have without laying out much (or any) money. Whether you're converting a bedroom, a garage, a basement, or a corner of the living room, this book will help you improve the sound of the environment in which you're making music. The principles are easy to understand and the materials used for treating a room are readily available. Diagrams and photos of actual rooms created with the designs are included to illustrate concepts. Whether you want to pursue a no-cost solution, use "off -the-shelf" acoustic materials, or even splurge with an unlimited budget, you'll learn how to put your room together easily and effectively..
Price: $12.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The goal of this book is to apply the principles of acoustics to the audio arts. This involves serving as an interpreter of major trends and the literature for students and practitioners in the audio field. Along with covering the more theoretical aspects of acoustics, the book applies the theory to the design of specialized audio spaces such as the home listening room, the control room, and the multi-track-recording studio..
Price: $21.27 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Floyd Toole, a leading expert in the field of sound reproduction, explains how to design the best possible listening experience for recording control rooms and home entertainment systems. This comprehensive work considers the whole sound reproduction chain from multi channel audio configurations and the loudspeaker/room system to acoustics and psychoacoustics and the evaluation process.

Part 1 shows the reader how to create the best listening experience, offering practical approaches to the sound reproduction chain. Parts 2 and 3 are an in-depth consideration of acoustics and psychoacoustics - the science behind Part 1.

* How to design a great audio system - for a home entertainment system or a professional recording control room
* Offers a comprehensive look at the sound reproduction chain offering practical advice and helpful graphics throughout
* Learn from a leading expert in sound reproduction - Floyd Toole provides essential knowledge in a highly readable and entertaining style.
Price: $37.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Recording Studio Design is essential reading for anyone involved in building, renovating and maintaining recording studios Good acoustics in a recording studio is crucial to the success of a project, and the financial implications of failure means getting things right first time is essential. In straightforward language Newell covers the key basic principles of acoustics, electro-acoustics and psychoacoustics and their application to studio design. Fully updated to reflect current technology and practice additional sections include digital signal processing, design for soundtrack mixing and foley rooms, providing a complete reference offering real solutions to help improve the success rate of any studio.

*Provides great detail on the practical recording application in various acoustic environments
*Complex issues are explained and real solutions provided
*Benifit from Newell's years of experience, designing over 200 studios including Manor and Town House Studios.
Price: $64.42 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Leo Beranek, an Iowa farm boy who became a Renaissance man—scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, musician, television executive, philanthropist, and author—has lived life in constant motion. His seventy-year career, through the most tumultuous and transformative years of the last century, has always been propelled by the sheer exhilaration of trying something new. In Riding the Waves, Leo Beranek tells his story.

Beranek's life changed direction on a summer day in 1935 when he stopped to help a motorist with a flat tire. The driver just happened to be a former Harvard professor of engineering, who guided the young Beranek toward a full scholarship at Harvard's graduate school of engineering. Beranek went on to be one of the world's leading experts on acoustics. He became Director of Harvard's Electro-Acoustic Laboratory, where he invented the Hush-A-Phone—a telephone accessory that began the chain of regulatory challenges and lawsuits that led ultimately to the breakup of the Bell Telephone monopoly in the 1980s. Beranek moved to MIT to be a professor and Technical Director of its Acoustics Laboratory, then left academia to manage the acoustical consulting firm Bolt Beranek and Newman. Known for his work in noise control and concert acoustics, Beranek devised the world’s largest muffler to quiet jet noise and served as acoustical consultant for concert halls around the world (including the Tanglewood Music Shed, the storied summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra). As president of BBN, he assembled the software group that invented both the ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, and e-mail.

In the 1970s, Beranek risked his life savings to secure the license to operate a television station; he turned Channel 5 in Boston into one of the country's best, then sold it to Metromedia in 1982 for the highest price ever paid up to that time for a broadcast station. "One central lesson I've learned is the value of risk-taking and of moving on when risks turn into busts or odds look better elsewhere," Beranek writes. Riding the Waves is a testament to the boldness, diligence, and intelligence behind Beranek's lifetime of extraordinary achievement..
Price: $8.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Authored by David Egan, one of the foremost authorities in the field of architectural acoustics, this architecture classic presents in a highly illustrated format the principles of design for good hearing and freedom from noise in and around buildings. The more than 540 illustrations are not merely supplements to the text but serve as the core of the basic principles of sound and hearing, sound absorption and noise reduction, sound isolation and criteria for noise, control of HVAC systems noise and vibrations, auditorium acoustics design, and electronic sound systems. Architectural Acoustics is a must have for architects, interior designers, engineers, consultants, students and all others concerned with the design and construction of buildings. An unabridged J. Ross Publishing republication of the edition published by McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988, 448pp. Key Features - Offers more than 540 illustrations to visually explain basic acoustic engineering principles with complete clarity and tables of engineering data that further enhance understanding and the usefulness of the text - Contains many valuable checklists of design aids, data tables of sound absorption and sound isolation properties for a wide variety of building materials - Presents case study examples of common problems and step-by-step practical solutions - Provides handy access to useful formulas, a metric system conversion table, a summary of common building acoustics terms, and extensive references.
Price: $59.65 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is a practical guide to equipment and sound for small to medium sized gigs. It covers everything from choosing PA equipment and back line amplification, to selecting the right type of microphone and finding your way around a typical live sound mixer..
Price: $13.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]