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Title: Hopelessly and uselessly academic
Review: I was disappointed by this book. It is 100% theory and history of synthesis, written in a typical pedantic British style of writing (sorry, Brits) with 0% actual practical content. It's a mix of a bit of synthesis history with a bit of acoustics describing how these things make sound. But it seems to miss the point, and one could learn more just by playing a synthesiser for an hour than learning this book from cover to cover. If you're investingating this book with an eye towards learning how to program synths or better understand them, I think you'll be disappointed. It spends a lot of time discussing the pioneers (DX7, etc.) but doesn't even mention some of the most important synths of the day (Waldorf, Virus) and there's only a brief mention of softwaresynths (Reaktor, Reason) and none of softsamplers (Unity, Giga, etc.)) I think this book misses the mark; it fills your head with facts and figures but doesn't give you much that's actually useful. Sorry fellas.
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