The Dance Music Manual: Tools, Toys and Techniques

By Rick Snoman

Book Overview

Whatever your level of experience, The Dance Music Manual is packed with sound advice, techniques and practical examples to help you achieve professional results. Written by a professional producer and remixer, the book is organised into three accessible sections: Technology and theory If you're relatively new to the technology and theory behind today's dance music, Rick Snoman discusses the basics of MIDI, synthesis and sampling, as well as music theory, effects, compression, microphone techniques and sound design. Dance genres This section covers techniques for producing different musical styles, including Trance, Trip Hop, Rap and House. Snoman takes a close look at the general programming principles behind drum loops, basses and leads for each genre, in addition to the programming and effects used to create the sounds. Mixing and promotion Snoman guides you through the art of mixing, mastering, remixing, pressing and publishing your latest masterpiece. This includes a look at how record companies operate, copyrighting your material, pressing your own records and the costs involved. Finally, guest contributors offer essential advice on DJ'ing and how to create your own website to promote your music. The CD provides demo tracks showing what can be achieved when applying the advice contained in the book, including examples of the quality difference before and after mixing and mastering. The CD also contains free software demos for you to download. For even more advice and resources, check out the book's official website www.dancemusicproduction.com

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0240519159
• ISBN13: 9780240519159
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Focal Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 2.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Intelligent, thorough, and a perfect buy!

The Dance Music Manual is my bible. One of the greatest if not the greatest resource book I've ever read. From cover to cover it details all the important aspects of Dance Music from Ambient to Trance to UK Garage. In it's hollowed pages reside: programming theory, mixing boards and patching overview, recording of live instruments, music theory, an overview of popular genres, mixing, mastering, publishing, and promotion. Appendixes at the end of the book cover issues such as MIDI patching, and tempo delay time charts. It's a perfect "go to" resource for the modern electronic musician.

Holy cow, this book rocks

First off, the title of this book is a little (okay, a lot) misleading. From the title, you would think it would be a light-hearted, casual intro to dance music. This is not the case. This book is like a massive compendium of every single concept you would ever want to know about dance music, or anything like unto it. The first pages are all about sculpting sounds from waveforms, and it's not easy reading! As a matter of fact, that's my only criticism of this book - so much of it was over my head. But what the author lacks in his ability to explain concepts to complete newbie/morons (like me), he more than makes up for with his vast amount of knowledge, and the breadth of the subjects in the book. This really is EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about dance music - how audio works, how synth programming works, dance music trends, effects, etc. And the author doesn't just tell you the "how", he tells you the "why". It's a book for both artists and techies alike, which is a hard line to straddle. I really have enjoyed this book, and will no doubt read it again as soon as I'm done. It's opened my eyes to soooooo much!!

Must have for any Dance Music Producer

Rick Snoman is a Dance music GOD! This book is a must must have for anyone who intends to write/remix/compose/produce dance music in any capacity. It is written generally with a novice in mind but those of us with more experience will benefit from having it as a reference. It offers an in-depth look into the major genres of dance music and covers everything from how to tweak the knobs of your synth to drum machine programming and musical analysis all the way to remixing, sampling, mastering and promotion! It is a very wide scope of information and it covers it all very well and very informatively. Anyone from beginner to pro can definitely benefit from buying this book. IF YOU ASPIRE TO WRITE DANCE MUSIC DO NOT WAIT; BUY THIS BOOK! It is like the textbook for dance music.

true professional material for grownups

I first saw this thing about a year ago, and held off because of negative reviews. ignore that noise. this guy has remixed Underworld. the book isn't perfect, no book is, but it's thorough, deep, and excellent. the publisher is Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann -- I have other books from them, top-notch professional materials on studio technique, and grad-school textbooks on artificial intelligence techniques. this is not some litany of obvious platitudes copped from an article some wannabe DJ wrote for "Remix" in between drug binges. this is the real thing. pretty much any relevant topic is covered. I have plenty of criticisms -- the section on web design seems totally superfluous, and there's a section on trip-hop but no section on drum and bass -- but overall, it's well worth the read.

The Only Book You Need

This is an amazing book! If you make music with a computer, you can forget about other books and get this one. Other books on production waste trees on "how to record a drum kit", "how to record wind instruments", "how to record guitars" blah blah blah. I'm not knocking recording live instruments, but many of these books do not satisfy the needs of producers of electronic music which boil down to creating and producing music from electronic sources. The chapter on basic synthesis is worth the price of the book alone. Instead of rehashing what a sine wave is and what an LFO does, it takes you in plain terms how to program useful sounds, the sounds that you actually want to program. This section is a must for trance/ambient/techno producers. The chapter on processors and effects not only give you information on how to use them but offer rationales for use, helping you to develop critcal thinking to determine your choice rather than on relying on "processing chain recipes". I could go on and on and on about this book, but I will put it to you like this. I own several books on mixing, electronic music, and subscribe to Computer Music, Keyboard, Future Music, Electronic Musician, etc., and I can frankly say this is the only book you need. One thing though. TEAR OUT PAGES 28 TO 37 AND SHRED THEM. This is the chapter on music theory and unfortunately the information is totally wrong. However the rest of the book is worth every cent. I produce r & b, and this is a handy reference. If you make music with a computer this is the only book you need.