Video games open portals into fantastical worlds where imaginative play prevails. The virtual medium seemingly provides us with ample opportunities to behave and act out with relative safety and impunity. Or does it? Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of our engagements with gaming's audio phenomena-from sonic violence to synthesized operas, from democratic music-making to vocal sexual harassment. Author William Cheng shows how the simulated environments of games empower designers, composers, players, and scholars to test and tinker with music, noise, speech, and silence in ways that might not be prudent or possible in the real world. In negotiating utopian and alarmist stereotypes of video games, Sound Play synthesizes insights from across musicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, literary theory, and philosophy. With case studies that span Final Fantasy VI, Silent Hill, Fallout 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Team Fortress 2, this book insists that what we do in there-in the safe, sound spaces of games-can ultimately teach us a great deal about who we are and what we value (musically, culturally, humanly) out here.

Electronic music instruments weren't called synthesizers until the 1950s, but their lineage began in 1919 with Russian inventor Lev Sergeyevich Termen's development of the Etherphone, now known as the Theremin. From that point, synthesizers have undergone a remarkable evolution from prohibitively large mid-century models confined to university laboratories to the development of musical synthesis software that runs on tablet computers and portable media devices.
Throughout its history, the synthesizer has always been at the forefront of technology for the arts. In The Synthesizer: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Programming, Playing, and Recording the Ultimate Electronic Music Instrument, veteran music technology journalist, educator, and performer Mark Vail tells the complete story of the synthesizer: the origins of the many forms the instrument takes; crucial advancements in sound generation, musical control, and composition made with instruments that may have become best sellers or gone entirely unnoticed; and the basics and intricacies of acoustics and synthesized sound. Vail also describes how to successfully select, program, and play a synthesizer; what alternative controllers exist for creating electronic music; and how to stay focused and productive when faced with a room full of instruments. This one-stop reference guide on all things synthesizer also offers tips on encouraging creativity, layering sounds, performance, composing and recording for film and television, and much more.

With Computational Thinking in Sound, veteran educators Gena R. Greher and Jesse M. Heines provide the first book ever written for music fundamentals educators which is devoted specifically to music, sound, and technology. The authors demonstrate how the range of mental tools in computer science - for example, analytical thought, system design, and problem design and solution - can be fruitfully applied to music education, including examples of successful student work. While technology instruction in music education has traditionally focused on teaching how computers and software work to produce music, Greher and Heines offer context: a clear understanding of how music technology can be structured around a set of learning challenges and tasks of the type common in computer science classrooms. Using a learner-centered approach that emphasizes project-based experiences, the book provides music educators with multiple strategies to explore, create, and solve problems with music and technology in equal parts. It also provides examples of hands-on activities which encourage students, alone and in interdisciplinary groups, to explore the basic principles that underlie today's music technology and which expose them to current multimedia development tools.

Although there have been two main perspectives on the nature of music through systematic and cultural musicology, music informatics has emerged as an interdisciplinary research area which provides a different idea on the nature of music through computer technologies. Structuring Music through Markup Language: Designs and Architectures offers a different approach to music by focusing on the information organization and the development of XML-based language. This book aims to offer a new set of tools on for practical implementations and a new investigation into the theory of music.

It is clear that the digital age has fully embraced music production, distribution, and transcendence for a vivid audience that demands more music both in quantity and versatility. However, the evolving world of digital music production faces a calamity of tremendous proportions: the asymmetrically increasing online piracy that devastates radio stations, media channels, producers, composers, and artists, severely threatening the music industry. Digital Tools for Computer Music Production and Distribution presents research-based perspectives and solutions for integrating computational methods for music production, distribution, and access around the world, in addition to challenges facing the music industry in an age of digital access, content sharing, and crime. Highlighting the changing scope of the music industry and the role of the digital age in such transformations, this publication is an essential resource for computer programmers, sound engineers, language and speech experts, legal experts specializing in music piracy and rights management, researchers, and graduate-level students across disciplines.

The author presents Probatio, a toolkit for building functional DMI (digital musical instruments) prototypes, artifacts in which gestural control and sound production are physically decoupled but digitally mapped. He uses the concept of instrumental inheritance, the application of gestural and/or structural components of existing instruments to generate ideas for new instruments. To support analysis and combination, he then leverages a traditional design method, the morphological chart, in which existing artifacts are split into parts, presented in a visual form and then recombined to produce new ideas. And finally he integrates the concept and the method in a concrete object, a physical prototyping toolkit for building functional DMI prototypes: Probatio. The author's evaluation of this modular system shows it reduces the time required to develop functional prototypes. The book is useful for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in the areas of musical creativity and human-computer interaction, in particular those engaged in generating, communicating, and testing ideas in complex design spaces.

PRO TOOLS 101 OFFICIAL COURSEWARE takes a comprehensive approach to learning the fundamentals of Pro Tools systems. Now updated for Pro Tools 9 software, this new edition from the definitive authority on Pro Tools covers everything you need to know to complete a Pro Tools project. Learn to build sessions that include multitrack recordings of live instruments, MIDI sequences, software synthesizers, and virtual instruments. Through hands-on tutorials, develop essential techniques for recording, editing, and mixing. The included DVD-ROM offers tutorial files and videos, additional documentation, and Pro Tools sessions to accompany the projects in the text. Developed as the foundation course of the official Avid Pro Tools Certification program, the guide can be used to learn on your own or to pursue formal Pro Tools certification through a an Avid Authorized Training Partner. Join the ranks of audio professionals around the world as you unleash the creative power of your Pro Tools system.

This book explores how the rise of widely available digital technology impacts the way music is produced, distributed, promoted, and consumed, with a specific focus on the changing relationship between artists and audiences. Through in-depth interviewing, focus group interviewing, and discourse analysis, this study demonstrates how digital technology has created a closer, more collaborative, fluid, and multidimensional relationship between artist and audience. Artists and audiences are simultaneously engaged with music through technology-and technology through music-while negotiating personal and social aspects of their musical lives. In light of consistent, active engagement, rising co-production, and collaborative community experience, this book argues we might do better to think of the audience as accomplices to the artist.

Inside Computer Music is an investigation of how new technological developments have influenced the creative possibilities of composers of computer music in the last 50 years. This book combines detailed research into the development of computer music techniques with nine case studies that analyze key works in the musical and technical development of computer music. The book's companion website offers demonstration videos of the techniques used and downloadable software. There, readers can view interviews and test emulations of the software used by the composers for themselves. The software also presents musical analyses of each of the nine case studies to enable readers to engage with the musical structure aurally and interactively.

This agenda-setting book presents state of the art research in Music and Human-Computer Interaction (also known as 'Music Interaction'). Music Interaction research is at an exciting and formative stage. Topics discussed include interactive music systems, digital and virtual musical instruments, theories, methodologies and technologies for Music Interaction. Musical activities covered include composition, performance, improvisation, analysis, live coding, and collaborative music making. Innovative approaches to existing musical activities are explored, as well as tools that make new kinds of musical activity possible. Music and Human-Computer Interaction is stimulating reading for professionals and enthusiasts alike: researchers, musicians, interactive music system designers, music software developers, educators, and those seeking deeper involvement in music interaction. It presents the very latest research, discusses fundamental ideas, and identifies key issues and directions for future work.

In Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, expert author and music technologist V. J. Manzo provides a user-friendly introduction to a powerful programming language that can be used to write custom software for musical interaction. Through clear, step-by-step instructions illustrated with numerous examples of working systems, the book equips readers with everything they need to know in order to design and complete meaningful music projects. The book also discusses ways to interact with software beyond the mouse and keyboard through use of camera tracking, pitch tracking, video game controllers, sensors, mobile devices, and more. The book does not require any prerequisite programming skills, but rather walks readers through a series of small projects through which they will immediately begin to develop software applications for practical musical projects. As the book progresses, and as the individual's knowledge of the language grows, the projects become more sophisticated. This new and expanded second edition brings the book fully up-to-date including additional applications in integrating Max with Ableton Live. It also includes a variety of additional projects as part of the final three project chapters. The book is of special value both to software programmers working in Max/MSP/Jitter and to music educators looking to supplement their lessons with interactive instructional tools, develop adaptive instruments to aid in student composition and performance activities, and create measurement tools with which to conduct music education research.

This book addresses the issue of music consumption in the digital era of technologies. It explores how individuals use music in the context of their everyday lives and how, in return, music acquires certain roles within everyday contexts and more broadly in their life narratives.

Both modern mathematical music theory and computer science are strongly influenced by the theory of categories and functors. One outcome of this research is the data format of denotators, which is based on set-valued presheaves over the category of modules and diaffine homomorphisms. The functorial approach of denotators deals with generalized points in the form of arrows and allows the construction of a universal concept architecture. This architecture is ideal for handling all aspects of music, especially for the analysis and composition of highly abstract musical works.

This book presents an introduction to the theory of module categories and the theory of denotators, as well as the design of a software system, called Rubato Composer, which is an implementation of the category-theoretic concept framework. The application is written in portable Java and relies on plug-in components, so-called rubettes, which may be combined in data flow networks for the generation and manipulation of denotators.

The Rubato Composer system is open to arbitrary extension and is freely available under the GPL license. It allows the developer to build specialized rubettes for tasks that are of interest to composers, who in turn combine them to create music. It equally serves music theorists, who use them to extract information from and manipulate musical structures. They may even develop new theories by experimenting with the many parameters that are at their disposal thanks to the increased flexibility of the functorial concept architecture.

Two contributed chapters by Guerino Mazzola and Florian Thalmann illustrate the application of the theory as well as the software in the development of compositional tools and the creation of a musical work with the help of the Rubato framework.

Audio production is an incredibly rewarding craft. To take the raw, basic tracks of a fledgling idea and shape them into one glorious stereophonic sound wave is an amazing feat. The transformation from analogue to digital dominance has brought many advances in sound quality and new techniques, but producing digital music with only a standard computer and DAW can be problematic, time-consuming and sometimes disappointing without the right approach and skills. In Template Mixing and Mastering, renowned mix engineer Billy Decker tackles the challenges of in-the-box production through his innovative template approach. He shares his passion and knowledge from over twenty years of industry experience, including an introduction to templates and a step-by-step guide to their set-up and a discussion of drum replacement technology. Channel and setting information for each of the drum, instrument and vocal sections of his template is discussed along with the master channel and his methodology of mixing and mastering. Finally, he gives professional advice and best practice. This book features the full template used on sixteen No 1 records!

Prepare yourself to be a great producer when using Pro Tools in your studio. Pro Tools 9 for Music Production is the definitive guide to the software for new and professional users, providing you with all the vital skills you need to know. Covering both the Pro Tools HD and LE this book is extensively illustrated in color and packed with time saving hints and tips, it is a great reference to keep on hand as a constant source of information. Detailed chapters on the user interface, the MIDI and scoring features, recording, editing, signal processing and mixing blend essential knowledge with tutorials and practical examples from actual recordings. New and updated materials include: *Pro Tools 9 software described in detail *Details of the new functions and features of PT9 *Full color screen shots and equipment photos Pro Tools 9 for Music Production is a vital source of reference, for the working professional or serious hobbyist looking for professional results.

This book discusses all aspects of computing for expressive performance, from the history of CSEMPs to the very latest research, in addition to discussing the fundamental ideas, and key issues and directions for future research. Topics and features: includes review questions at the end of each chapter; presents a survey of systems for real-time interactive control of automatic expressive music performance, including simulated conducting systems; examines two systems in detail, YQX and IMAP, each providing an example of a very different approach; introduces techniques for synthesizing expressive non-piano performances; addresses the challenges found in polyphonic music expression, from a statistical modelling point of view; discusses the automated analysis of musical structure, and the evaluation of CSEMPs; describes the emerging field of embodied expressive musical performance, devoted to building robots that can expressively perform music with traditional instruments.