Beatmixed

CNet pays Eliot Van Buskirk to play with MP3 hardware and software. Now Osborne/McGraw Hill is paying him to write books about it. Poor guy! Burning Down the House: Ripping, Recording, Remixing, and More!, hit the shelves late last year. What follows is my review and thoughts on this book.

Van Buskirk divides the material into 16 task-oriented chapters. Each task is explained in detail, and although some tasks build upon skills covered in previous chapters, you do not necessarily need to read this book in any particular order (or even in entirety). The chapters and the tasks are as follows:

1. That’s no computer — it’s your music machine
2. What you need (and what you don’t)
3. Copy a CD
4. Rip a CD
5. Download music
6. Record and mix live audio
7. Burn the perfect mix
8. Digitize your vinyl
9. Turn your digital pictures into music videos
10. Build a beat and sample library on your computer
11. Broadcast audio to every radio in your house — wirelessly
12. Turn out your own DJ set
13. Make a self-playing or self-burning CD
14. Create your own Internet radio station
15. Remixing 101
16. Create a mash-up remix

The first chapter is an obligatory informational chapter covering the basics — compressed vs. uncompressed audio, encoding types, etc. The second chapter gives an overview of available audio software; for example, audio editors, players, rippers, DJ software, etc. As you might guess, these first two chapters are for the uninitiated. Those who have some background in the subject matter will likely skim or skip these chapters.

Chapter three — “Copy a CD” — is where the fun begins. I was extremely happy to see that the author uses Exact Audio Copy in his examples rather than pushing a commercial or sub-standard alternative. The next chapter, “Rip a CD,” delves into EAC again but this time in conjunction with the LAME codec. He unfortunately doesn’t mention any of the special command line options for LAME. I suspect Van Buskirk omits this information in favor of simplicity.

Chapter five, the “Download Music” chapter, is out of date. You’re more likely to find quality information on this subject matter online; there’s simply too much flux with P2P networks to even bother covering them in a book. There was, however, a good overview of what applications ride what networks. There is no use installing two applications that search the same network — you might as well install a diverse set of P2P applications that search different networks. This chapter arms you with this information.

You’ll learn how to record and mix live audio in chapter six. Van Buskirk covers the basics of audio editing, using Audacity in all his examples. While I applaud him for using an open source application in his example, there are a number of shortcomings in this program that are bound to frustrate new users. For example, Audacity does not have recording level controls. Despite his choice of audio editor, there’s a great overview of editing, effects, and multi-tracking in this chapter.

There’s also a chapter on creating the perfect CD compilation. Entitled “Burn the Perfect Mix,” chapter seven covers song selection, track order, audio normalization, track order, and the basics of burning custom CDs. It’s a short but sweet chapter. The next, chapter eight, talks about digitizing vinyl and is basically a continuation of chapter six.

If you’re an audio enthusiast, you’ll probably skip over chapter nine. It’s a bit out of place in this book, but if you’re curious how one might create a custom screensaver or a slideshow with a music bed, go ahead and read it. Learning how to build a beat library, the subject matter of chapter ten, will probably be of more interest. Van Buskirk covers a number of methods of gathering, creating, and organizing samples. I especially like his take on organization, as I can relate with the ‘5,000 unorganized files in a directory’ problem his advice attempts to remedy. His suggestions of organizing by BPM, mood, or genre are right on, and I wish I had taken this advice long ago.

Probably the shortest chapter, number eleven, covers how to broadcast audio to every radio in your house. The information offered is little more than a plug for a few neat products that can pull this trick off. It’s also probably outdated. My advice is to just skim this chapter and move onto chapter twelve where you’ll learn to “turn out your own DJ set.”

Want to know about beat-matching with Tactile1200, PCDJ, or Traktor? Want to make a beatmixed CD? You’ll get a great overview of the what, why, and how of these different applications in this chapter. Once you’ve created that perfect mix, move on to chapter thirteen where Van Buskirk shares his tricks on how to make a “self-playing or self-burning CD.” I scratched my head on the self-burning part, too, but apparently there is a web-browser applet that you can use to allow folks visiting your web site the ability to click on a link, insert a blank CD, and burn your CD. Nice touch if you ask me!

Chapter fourteen covers the topic of webcasting. Not only does he cover the standard offerings like Live365, Launch, and the like, but Van Buskirk also covers broadcasting on your own with Shoutcast. You’ll also learn how to pay royalties, should you choose to broadcast commercial music offerings. And I know you’re all dying to pay royalties, right? Riiiiiiight.

The highlight of this book for me, however, was chapter fifteen, “Remixing 101,” and chapter sixteen, “Create a Mash-Up Remix.” This is where Sonic Foundry’s ACID is covered in surprising detail. The author manages to cover the basics of beat matching, effects, effect automation, and editing with ACID in succinct detail. He even jumps into making a mash-up, or as Van Buskirk calls it — “doing a Missy.” It’s all in good fun, and he is even able to cover some advanced techniques for fixing/quantizing live drummers in ACID. (The method to do so, however, has been met with mixed success by the bootleggers at GYBO.)

My biggest gripe with this book is the never-ending sidebar warning about copyright and piracy. Mention it once and I won’t complain, but do you need to remind me every chapter that sampling, copying, and otherwise duplicating copyright material is illegal? Perhaps Van Buskirk is attempting to cover his ass, but he ends up talking down to his audience in the process. My advice for the next edition: cover this topic in one chapter and stop harassing us throughout the book.

Burning Down the House could very well have been published in the “Dummies” series, as it covers a lot of ground and speaks to varying skill levels. Van Buskirk does a great job taking complex tasks and making them easy. Old timers will learn something from the book, but not enough to warrant spending the money on the book. Newcomers, however, will find Van Buskirk’s book to be the holy grail of digital audio books.

One final note — if you do decide to buy it, use this link to make your purchase. It helps support this site!