Sound Design Essentials: Books
by Miguel Isaza
Few days ago I showed the first part of a series of essential resources, sites, tutorials, and tools related with Sound design. The first part was about Websites. Here is the second part: Books.
There are many books about music production, sound design, mixing and mastering, etc.. I’m gonna post 15 that I consider as good reads, covering all aspects including general sound desing and game/film sound.
General Purpose
- Computer Sound Design: Synthesis Techniques and Programming by Eduardo Miranda
- Designing Sound by Andy Farnell
- The Foley Grail: The Art of Performing Sound for Film, Games, and Animation by Vanessa Theme Ament
- Sound Synthesis and Sampling by Martin Russ
- Sound Design and Science Fiction by William Whittington
For Games
- Creating Music and Sound for Games by G.W Childs
- The Complete Guide to Game Audio by Aaron Marks
- Audio Programming for Interactive Games by Martin D. Wilde
- Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design by Karen Collins
- Game Development Essentials: Game Audio Development By Aaron Marks and Jeannie Novak
For Film
- Lowering the Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound by Jay Beck and Tony Grajeda
- Audio-Vision by Michel Chion, Claudia Gorbman and Walter Murch
- The Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound by David Lewis Yewdall M.P.S.E
- Film Sound: Theory & Practice edited by Elisabeth Weis and John Belton
- Sound and Music for the Theatre, Third Edition: The Art & Technique of Design by Deena Kaye and James LeBrecht
Enjoy!
Miguel Isaza
Jake Riehle
Varun Nair
Damian Kastbauer
Shaun Farley
Jamie Hardt
Abigail Sie
Peter Albrechtsen
Tim Nielsen
Mike Taylor
[...] Designing Sound » Sound Design Essentials: Books. Catagories : audio [...]
Something I’d be interested in is a quick beginner runthrough of entry level equipment..I’d like to get into sound design, but I have no idea on what kind of mics are appropriate or you know, anything related.
just a suggestion :)
Of course, that will be on another “Sound Design Essentials” part. The objective of this section is to gather useful information covering everything related with Sound Design.
Stay tuned ;)
Why did you choose these particular books? Any titles to avoid?
I dont think the Eduardo Miranda book is a good fit here, its a bit esoteric and the software described is pretty outdated. For that style of thing I’d go with the CSound book which is more practical or the Computer Music Tutorial which is more in depth theory.
One book I found really useful is “Audio Sampling- a practical guide”. Like the title says, it is a practical to sample recording, editting and playback taking a software/hardware nuetral approach. The section on ear training is thought provoking.
I’m ordering Designing Sound on the strength of the chapters online and the obiwannabe site. Sound Design and Science Fiction sounds like a winner too.
[...] series, articles created to provide resources and tips to learn sound design. Since I give the first list of recommended books, some people told me if we could recommend more of them, ans the answer is: yes. Buy software, buy [...]
Another book to add to your information arsenal is “Surround Sound Up and Running”. Covers history, delivery formats, psychoacoustics, multichannel mixing and microphone techniques for surround sound.