On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:54:40 -0700 shift8 shift8@digitrash.com wrote:
what resources would you recommend that illustrate calculus as used for signal processing, but from a more functional point of view as opposed to a theoretical one.
I heartily recommend Steven W Smiths "Scientists and Engineers guide to DSP", before tackling Perry Cook, Eduardo Miranda and our own Miller Puckette. Calculus is only a small part of the picture, maybe you use the word too broadly because it's just a technique that helps understand certain equations. For calculus you needn't really go above A level, a little of that with a good grasp of algebra, trig and geometry are a solid enough basis. Linear algebra and matrices are some useful tricks to put in your bag, and you can get a long way by reading many of the tutorials for Octave.
http://www.dspguide.com/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Sound-Synthesis-Interactive-Applications/dp/156...
As Chuckk and some of the other mathematicians have said here, some esoteric pure math like operator theory subsumes the whole subject, because sound is about changes and transformations, but I wonder what other peoples top 10 'must have' concepts are. I suppose it depends on your goals, for example a lot of composers learn a disproportionate amount of stats and distributions.
i know there are dsp chip programming guides for engineering, but there seems to be only "how" and not the "why" in most cases there. too theoretical of descriptions makes it difficult for me to visualize the action or imagine the sonic implications of the theory being discussed.
personally, i find that the application of theories make much more sense than the abstract theories themselves. maybe it's brain damage, or perhaps plain 'ol ignorance.
but anyway, here's a simple example:
someone tells me an empirical definition of the nyquist theory, it's hard to get my head around. but if someone says "hey, you can't sample a frequency that is >= 1/2 of the sample rate, because the wavelength is too short in duration to fit sample boundaries, and it causes distortions that are related to the frequency being sampled." that totally makes sense. i can picture that from a functional point of view, and then have a much easier time with the math an theory of it.
I strongly agree with you about teaching theory in context. It is hard to pick good examples and write using only words so that the knowledge sticks. Sometimes symbolic representation is the only way to be unambiguous. That is why Puredata is a powerful teaching and exploration tool, the diagram is the program. We are also lucky to have people like Derek and Frank who write from a position of "least assumptions". I find a lot can be learned by just browsing the archives.
are there any resources, books, etc out that approach the subject of dsp in a style like this?
One of Eduardo Mirandas more gentle books "Computer Sound Design" gives a pretty broad read, it also has some fun Windows and Mac software on the CD ROM. And you can't go wrong reading classics like Roads.
Perhaps it's important to know that classic DSP is only a part of synthesis and analysis. It's the "implementation" layer.
Another area of wisdom to explore is physics. I like to start sound design lectures by explaining that sound is a branch of dynamics, particularly fluid dynamics. Physics really helps design realistic sound effects, to know about propagation, interference, reflection, damping, stress, elasticity and all that. Then you can make ballpark models of what sound waves are doing in an object of given materials and dimensions. There's a big section in the book I'm writing about knowledge, imperative, declarative and procedural, and how to move from a description to a model to a method. Really this is Software Engineering, but that's what we are doing at the end of the day.
Empirical knowledge is so important too ( I think you use that term a bit incorrectly above). All the good synthesists seem to learn by experience, lots of experience gained during thousands of hours of playing about with code. It's no discredit to people like Eno and Bristow that they probably don't know a Bessel function from an Aardvark, but are masters of FM because they simply know it inside out in a practical way. Many accomplished producers work this way, the theory follows later to connect the wealth of practical experience they gain in the studio. There's no "right" way to do it. However the sooner you have theory the better you will have consistent and reproducible results because you get why something works rather than just observing that it does.
thanks and high regards, star
Cheers, thanks for the encouragement dude, but I am not a Jedi yet ;) Not by a long way. The term that describes my situation is "Ronin".
As for ninjas, I believe they are only mercenary assassins. They would be no match for Pirates. Yaaar. This Slashdot poll settles the matter once and for all :) http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1396
best, Andy
On Thu, 2007-03-15 at 15:24 +0000, padawan12 wrote:
[pow~] is from cyclone, I think in the case I used it (pow 2) you can replace it with an equivilent [expr~] expression or [*~]. I thought [lowpass] and [highpass] were vanilla. They are needed to set the coeffs for biquad~
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:49:29 -0800 Josh Steiner josh@vitriolix.com wrote:
i seem to be missing:
lowpass, highpass and pow~
running 0.39.2-extended-test7 on winxp
-josh
padawan12 wrote:
Sorry Hardoff, scratch that last load of rubbish. The parasite synth is the wrong patch, and I thought I was talking about different oscillators, it should have been something more like the ones here. The oscillator is a dual-slope one in hoover-triangles.pd, much easier to pull out than the last mess.
Another take is the hoover-pwm.pd, which is a juno voice basically, it's much brighter and fizzy down low. It just depends what you want more in the low registers, up high theres not so much difference. One is pulse width mod of a square, the other is slope mod of a triangle, both have a bit of frequency lfo on too at about 5 Hz. A fat Juno hoover noise uses the fast chorus so there's one on both versions. Each has the same sequence so you can compare the sounds. All the hoover flavours have a different character, like a highpass resonant filter makes an interesting addition. But what they share in common is a busy sound made by having 3 or 4 detuned components. Juno is a pwm + saw + square mix, with the square an octave down.
On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:34:01 +0900 "hard off" hard.off@gmail.com wrote:
andy's tokyo techno one is cool.
but i want hoovers. i keep try to make them and they always suck. there must have been a secret ingredient that i am forgetting.
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