Music Technology and the Project Studio: Synthesis and Sampling by Dan Hosken (review)

[Editor's note: Selected reviews are posted on the Web at http://www.computermusicjournal.org (click on the Reviews tab). In some cases, they are either unpublished in the Journal itself or published in an abbreviated form in the Journal.]

In the Winter 2011 issue of the Computer Music Journal, I wrote a review of Dan Hosken's book An Introduction to Music Technology. Among other things, I praised the book's clear, concise writing style and its focus on a range of audio topics that I think are valuable for today's musicians to understand. I did note, however, that Hosken's chapters on software synthesizers and samplers seemed a bit more in-depth than I felt necessary in such a book, and that perhaps they could have been edited down a bit, since, to me, they were beyond the introductory topics.

As it turns out, those chapters in An Introduction to Music Technology were an overview in comparison with the thorough treatment Hosken gives them in his more recent text, Music Technology and the Project Studio. Whereas An Introduction to Music Technology was oriented toward a general audience of musicians wanting to grasp music technology from microphones and cables to software, the new book focuses mostly on the use of software synthesizers and samplers for sound design, composition, and arranging. Both books seem aimed at undergraduate music technology students, and from the similarities between them I could imagine that they were initially supposed to be a single, larger text but were separated due to issues of length, focus, price, and target audience.

I must admit that I felt some reservations upon first reading Music Technology and the Project Studio, because much of it deals with the use of digital audio workstation (DAW) software and control of software samplers and synthesizers via MIDI. Some of these reservations stemmed from my disappointment that, three decades after its introduction, MIDI is still the standard control protocol for commercial synthesizers. I feel a tinge of regret that any students today must spend time learning about MIDI note-on and note-off messages, memorizing that MIDI continuous controller number seven handles channel volume, and figuring out how to express nearly all musical parameters as integers within the range of 0-127.

This bias aside, I realize that MIDI is still the standard in commercial music software and hardware (yes, some hardware still exists) and that, despite my complaints, clever musicians can accomplish much using these products. I do include MIDI basics in my own teaching and I use a MIDI controller when I perform. While we await the rumored MIDI Manufacturers Association's HD specification, we are stuck with this 30-year-old, serial, eight-bit protocol.

As mentioned earlier, Hosken's intended audience for Music Technology and the Project Studio is those who want to use commercial DAW programs and plug-ins to create electronic music, broadly defined. My first reaction upon reading about the focus on DAWs in the book's introduction was: "What? DAWs for synthesis and sound design? Not Max, Csound, or Supercollider?" However, upon further reflection I realized that Hosken's choice makes sense for this book, since (1) many in the target audience would likely not be curious andcommittedenoughtolearnone of these other applications at such an early stage in their education; and (2) DAWs today are rich environments that allow users to focus on outcomes rather than building their own instruments, which is what Music N-derived applications encourage. Most DAWs include some kind of analog-synthesis-emulating instrument, and when these and other sound-producing plug-ins are used cleverly, the DAW environment can be quite powerful.

It is worth noting that Hosken does not choose a particular DAW but rather speaks about commonalities and shows screen...