SUGGESTED READING
FOR THE FURTHERING OF YOUR EDUCATION THROUGH
THE USE OF MANY MANY WORDS
When I started mixing and gaining interest in Acoustics, I didn’t have access to the internet. I mean sure, it was around, but growing up in the country with farm animals meant you needed a giant satellite in your yard. We didn’t have that and even if we did, the content in the mid ‘90s was… limited.
What we did have was libraries and book stores. While it’s easy now to pull the internet out of your pocket and get any answer to any question you can think of, there’s something to be said for opening an actual book with actual ink printed on actual paper. Maybe I’m just sentimental...
In the event that I am sentimental and you are sentimental like me, I’ve put together a list of books that I’ve read and that I can suggest to anybody interested in the art and science of sound, including general Acoustics, Audio Engineering, and Electronics. Why Electronics? Because Chemistry, of course.
Throughout my career as a Sound Engineer I’ve worn many hats in the field including:
- Music Producer
- Composer
- Studio Recording Engineer
- Studio Mix Engineer
- Mastering Engineer
- Production Sound Mixer
- Audio Restoration Specialist
- Post Production Mixer
- Live Sound Engineer
- Loudspeaker Designer and Engineer
- Acoustical Consultant
There isn’t a single one of these fields that didn’t benefit from some of the books listed below. I can confidently say that if I hadn’t taken such an interest in the readings, I would not have expanded my career to be so inclusive.
Enough backstory!
General Education
The Details
The Internet
There are simply too many options and only some of them are good. So instead of recommending several websites, I'm going to tell one story...
THE STORY
I doubt anyone here would have known about the old Glenn Meadows Mastering Forum in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but that was a game changer for me. Before social media put you at the fingertips of celebrities, this hidden gem of a URL was given to me by a colleague and I learned an incredible amount from it. It was just a forum full of the world’s greatest Engineers including Glenn Meadows, Bob Katz, Doug Sax, Bob Ludwig, Steve Hoffman, and many others. They would just chat and talk about sessions, techniques, equipment, pets, food, life… Every day!
It’s long gone now, unfortunately, as are a few of the people that frequented the site. But in a world without Facebook Groups and Youtube and Twitter; a world where you really had to dig for information, it was magical. I was a nobody, learning from somebodies.
In a way I credit that forum and those members for me becoming a successful Engineer today. I didn’t chime in much, and they didn’t necessarily impart to me any world altering information. But being in the same “room” with the people that were listed on my favorite albums throughout my entire life helped me realize that these were just normal folks from different places that struggled and worked and made things happen.
It made me realize that I could too, and as soon as I got my first gig working in Sound over 20 years ago, I never did anything else.
Thankfully, now we have many sources of information! Some of it isn’t great… But the good stuff is out there! And now we live in a world where you can @ somebody and be instantly connected.
What a world! Take advantage of it! But… also pick up a couple real books. ;)