This book won me over as a reader from my first look at its table of contents. The topics covered are essential to anyone studying multimedia, music technology, or any practical aspects of sound technology. The book itself is a collection of papers, gathered and organized into chapters. The organization, in my opinion, is very successful; the book flows as if it was written purposefully, rather than being just a collection of disparate papers. Based on the topics covered, the book can be divided into three main parts: sound engineering, sound computing, and sound creativity.

The first four chapters cover aspects of sound engineering, from field recording to signal processing. Chapters 2 (“Synthesis”) and 3 (“Signal Processing”) are the most interesting chapters of this part. The chapter on signal processing is one of the biggest in the book, with five papers. By no means, however, have these papers covered the wide spectrum of signal processing. Admittedly, this chapter does not have an overview section, as other chapters do. “Spatialization” (chapter 4) is a segue between the technical aspects of sound and sound creativity. The two papers in this chapter, covering the use of stereo and multiple speakers for spatialization, present some interesting ideas, supported by some C code and diagrams.

Chapters 5 and 6 address the computing aspects of sound technology. Chapter 5 attempts to provide a summary of computer techniques used in dealing with and manipulating sound. One paper in particular, “Count in Frames (Not Samples or Bytes),” attracted my attention. The paper covers the programmer’s problem with samples and sample buffers. The proposed solution is to use an audio unit of counting, namely the frame, rather than bytes or number of samples. While samples and bytes change all the time, depending on the quality required, a frame can be fixed as a container of audio data. This allows some form of standardization in the code, producing clean programs.

Chapters 7, 8, and 9 cover the more creative aspects of sound, including music theory and sound design. Chapter 7 covers music theory. Even though the level of the music theory presented is somewhat elementary, it is important for sound engineers and multimedia programmers to know. The chapter covers everything a multimedia or sound engineer would need, from notation to rhythm and meter. Chapters 8 and 9 are contrasting chapters. While chapter 8 looks at aspects of sound design, mostly in artificial contexts such as computing devices, chapter 9 looks at natural sound.

In general, the book is very well planned and organized. It is also very technical, with a substantial amount of C code, and mathematical equations to explain the theory and turn it into practical implementation. I strongly recommend it.