i think if you buy this book, add the dance music manual plus a subscription to Sonic then you’ll be reasonably well armed for the year 
has anyone recieved their copy of the book yet?? i’m ordering my copy tomorrow…:D:D:D
i have mine. its like a £40 glossy magazine
if it was in a shop and i could scan through it before i bought it, i wouldn’t have bothered
theres a disc with 500 meg of samples with it, but states they are only licensed to you as demo’s! on a £40 book? are you kidding me!?
dance music manual is miles better bang for the buck
still have to read it cover to cover, but my initial reaction is not impressed
[quote]inch lo (12/20/2009)[hr]i have mine. its like a £40 glossy magazine
if it was in a shop and i could scan through it before i bought it, i wouldn’t have bothered
theres a disc with 500 meg of samples with it, but states they are only licensed to you as demo’s! on a £40 book? are you kidding me!?
dance music manual is miles better bang for the buck
still have to read it cover to cover, but my initial reaction is not impressed[/quote]
I’m glad you’ve told me this before I bought it !!!
On a note, how about SA doing a producers manuel??
I’d buy it!
thanks for the heads up, was just going to order this. i thought if anything its worth it for the samples (sample magic usually cost around £40 per cd) but if its for demo only then F@$K that
I dont understand about the demo only stuff. Here is a C/P from the SM website…
Limited Edition 500MB ‘House’ sample CD containing 100s of the very best hand-picked loops from across the Sample Magic range, including SM16 Deep Tech-House.
Honestly, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to use them in your work. My idea is this though, even if you cant, take it, throw something on top of it, bounce it to audio and use that as your sample. Or, you can just use for inspiration. I find that alot with the sample magic stuff. I dont use them really in my work, but I end up using just about everything for inspiration.
Was it like a computer music magazine or something? I ended up buying it and its on its way over to the states as i type this.
here is the other thing though that i was just thinking about. And anyone can agree or disagree with me on it (I’m curious to others thoughts), but I would still buy it if it was on newspaper, if there was information in it that was invaluable enough. I found the information that I read from the samples online to be very very informative. if you go to [url]http://samplemagic.com/secretsofhouse.htm[/url], you can download samples. Can someone look at those and let me know if they think that there is some invaluable information there?
I do…
Its the same thickness as 2 future music mags. they have 130 pages in each. this has 140 pages. its the size as a future music as well, only its not produced in portrait but rather in landscape - this makes it a bit of a chore to hold up and read, due to the width.
howie, you’re right about the content, as long as that holds something then i would say thats all that counts. I’ve yet to have time to read it, but i dont think it will take that long once i start
hope that helps some of you and maybe as more people receive it we can get some more thoughts on the book
its written by the guys that make future music so i would still say it could be a great read.
someone download the samples. ive linked them in my above post. someone please tell me their thoughts…
i tried to downlad the sample pages but my pc wont open the files for some reason so cant look first before i buy …
from the description i think i could learn a fair bit from it so i’m ordering my copy tonight anyway dont really care what the book looks like its the content that matters:D
Am i sold… no
Am I torn… yes
Future Music is wicked, i get it every month, however on the other hand, the review seems a bit pants.
where did you read a review?
hey yall, here is a reader review that I found on Amazon about the book. To me, if I can get three good ideas out of it, I would be very happy. I scrounge after information that I don’t know yet. Most people do when the get good at something. It just seems like at some point, you seem to read the same thing over and over. But here is a good review of it, but its fair to say that just about all of the reviews were 3-5 stars, with the majority at 5. There were 1-2 star and 2-1 star reviews.
I’ve been programming techno for several years. I’ve used computer sequencers but I favor my rm1x. since the rm1x has a graphic display and an event editor as well as very robust midi implementation I have no problem using the examples and midi files in the book.
I think the book is well done. its definitely an introduction to electronic music. I don’t think a guy like BT would have any use for this book. The rest of us however can learn a thing or two.
there’s good advice on how to program basslines and the basic beat patterns for most music styles are there. its not all sequencing though. they go over how drum and bass artists use sampling and recycle to get their beats.
this book is not a huge and exhaustive in depth study of electronic music programming. read future music and computer music magazine for cool articles and tips.
its the basics of the whole affair and its well done. I would have liked it be more in depth but the art form is so new and versatile that it would be a monolithic task to collect and organize everything that’s going on out there in sequencer land. It would be behind the times in six months anyway. its a hell of a good place to start though.
here’s what they give ya.
four on the floor house, trance, etc, drum patterns. some cool ideas for fills. good ideas and thoughts on the arrangements.
very good advice on basslines. one of the best parts of the book IMHO.
they advise you to use gated pads for trance leads (duh) and that’s about as far as they go on that subject.
they tell you how to program some hiphop style breaks. nothing fancy though. you’re not gonna get the chemical brothers or prodigy secrets from this book.
some good advice on programming guitars and other instruments.
helpful midi advice. covers gm, gs and xg. nice touch.
good info on drum and bass breaks and bass patterns. If you are a total drum n bass head this book has a good chapter on that style and is worth your time to at least look at in the book store or library.
Here’s what you don’t get.
A detailed chapter on leads and synth programming. they provide with some basic stuff like filter sweeps but nothing in real detail. So you’re not gonna find out how digweed did the lead in heavenscent. I would have like some info on what synths(besides the tb-303) create what often heard sounds. nothing on that in the book.
This is definitely for the beginner. however if you have a little talent and a lot of dedication you can come up with killer sounds yourself. you’re not gonna find the formula for a kickass dance tune in a book. This book doesn’t tell you how to paint. rather it provides the brushes, paint and canvas.
Theres nothing on two step which can be good or bad depending on your opinion. I’m american so its makes no difference to me but that might seem like a glaring omission to UK programmers. There’s also nothing on hardhouse. the book should help you to figure out a lot of that sound on your own.
no aphex twin type craziness. I’d pay the price of this book to know how he did bocephus bouncing ball.
I think this is a good book. very informative and helpful to those just starting out. As someone who’s been doing this for a while I would have preferred something more in depth and technical but then they probably wouldn’t sell as many books. i can see this winding up on a lot of hipster coffee tables. nothing wrong with that.
the writers of the book were obviously influenced by the “blah blah for idiots or dummies” type books. the physical dimensions of the book are the same and the layout is very similar with little tip boxes and an included cd.
a little over half the book is actual programming knowledge. the rest is midi, eq, effects, etc.
I know this review is long but i’m just putting down the review I’d like to read if ya know what I mean.
this book has its strengths in rythm programming. that is to say the drums and the bass. the leads info is to me a bit thin but its enough to start with. that’s the part of techno that’s probably the most fun to discover for yourself anyway. good all around advice. A book with a good heart.
peace
That’s all fine and good, however the question really is though as to whether it can teach us any more than what we haven’t already learn’t on SA and from Future Music mags… ???
im torn, i think im gonna wait until howie gets his and see if its really worth it, two opinion are usually better than one, the sample pages that i download looked really good and point out some stuff i didnt know
[quote]tommyt (12/21/2009)[hr]im torn, i think im gonna wait until howie gets his and see if its really worth it, two opinion are usually better than one, the sample pages that i download looked really good and point out some stuff i didnt know[/quote]
Thats what I think too. Yeah dude, I’ll give you a good American opinion about it. It might be after Christmas though.
Tommy
i’m very much the same, thought the pages i downloaded were good but if the samples are not licensed for use it’s like paying £40 for a House Edition of Future Music. not saying i wouldn’t do that lol but it takes more to part with the cash
Heres my thing, Im gonna get samples. And I’m gonna use them. Period. I paid for it, they included it, and I’m gonna use them.
Its a bit tight of them to only license samples … no wait its f***^g ridiculous really !