A Digital Signal Processing Primer: With Applications to Digital Audio and Computer Music

This is a different kind of digital signal processing textbook in just about every way. To begin with, chapter one starts out talking about sinusoids in the context of tuning forks, when just about every other DSP book under the sun starts with a review of linear systems. This is good, in that throughout the book your eye is kept on the ball of actual audio applications. This can be somewhat troublesome in that the author sometimes has to delve into mathematics that the typical DSP student may not be ready for - the wave equation and elementary partial differential equations for example. The author ultimately does get the job done, however, explaining the DFT, FFT, z-transform, and filter design all within the context of audio signals. It is true that only the last chapter is explicitly labeled "Audio and Musical Applications". However, this only means that the author is discussing complex applications in this chapter only, after the groundwork has been laid for all of the theory. I would especially recommend this book to people interested in computer music that need to get up to speed on DSP. Such students may also appreciate "DSP Filter Cookbook" by John Lane. It is all about the implementation of audio filters and contains C++ source code and schematics. If you are a traditional student of DSP and digital audio does not interest you, you might want to go a more traditional route starting out with "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" by Lyon and proceeding on to a more advanced text such as "Discrete Time Signal Processing" by Oppenheimer or "Digital Signal Processing: Principles, Algorithms and Applications" by Proakis.

This is the only DSP book I would recommend for a beginner. This is an especially great book for someone without an EE background who doesn't know much about signals, or someone who doesn't know/care about analog filters. I found the book quite practical, and was able to implement working digital filters after reading it. But, it also gave me a good understanding of the theory. I've gotten other DSP books since then, including the famed Oppenheim, and I've been rather disappointed with each of them. The book is a lot more readable and less abstract than the others. I do wish this book covered more topics.. Some more specifics about Butterworth and Chebyshev filters would have been nice. If you just want sample code for building a filter, you won't get it. However, this book covers some topics which I haven't seen covered well elsewhere, like comb filters, resonators, reverb, and digital simulation of a plucked string. So it's still worth getting even if you already know about DSP and have other books.

I think this book is a good start for anyone who wants to find out the fundamentals of DSP. The math is very basic(high school intro to calculus101) and simple physics is all you need to start. It is also a great book to refresh those who are advanced in DSP. The book is fresh and very simple to follow. I wish I had this book back when I was learning the fundamentals of DSP.

To me, a computer scientist and musician, this is the best introduction to DSP I've seen so far. Simple, but accurate...

This book explains what you really need to know about signal processing. Through the years I have bought a variety of books on the subject. This one is delivers the best explanations for the beginner. {Don't worry the math is still there} If you are studying DSP maths and techniques, you will end up buying a few books. This one is a great start.