New book on DSP and Plug-ins from Focal Press...

DSP, Plugin and Host development discussion.
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

I received the book today. Haven't had much time to look at it yet, but my initial impressions are good. I would say it's not for everyone... it seems appropriate for someone who has already got to grips with C++ and wants to get into audio/DSP/plug-ins. Robin - judging by your pdfs on various DSP topics, i think it is probably a bit basic for you!

Personally it appeals to me because my knowledge of filter theory and associated math absolutely sucks, so the three chapters on filters with plenty of detail, diagrams and (especially) code, along with formulas are a very welcome addition to my other books.

I'm not really that convinced by the authors rapid development app "RackAFX" yet, but i'll give it a chance in the context of the book. I can see the appeal from a teacher/author's point of view of abstracting the VST API, and building in an automatic/wysiwyg gui system in order to focus on the DSP, but I wonder if the extra boiler plate code might be confusing for beginners to plugin development. The app seems to be closed source so not good for future development. Also the GUIs it makes look like plugins did in the late 90s :-) . I'm a bit biased because I think that IPlug has a really nice ultra-simple plugin abstraction/implementation, that is hard to beat for clarity. When I look at the source of a RackAFX generated plugin, there is quite a lot of boilerplate.
can you tell us a bit more now, what this mysterious Windows®-PlugIn and Socket® stuff is about?
It seems like the TOC on the focal press website is out of date. Socket® is now called RackAFX®. The chapter "Anatomy of a Plugin" explains what a dynamic library is (and a bit more) and then introduces the authors abstraction layer API.
i'm also interested in how detailed chapter 14 is (commerical Plugin APIs) is. i mean, does it cover VST and/or AU in decent detail? what about other formats like LADSPA, AAX, etc.?
On initial inspection the appendix A about VST2 and AU apis does not have much detail, particularly regarding AU. Other formats are mentioned in passing earlier in the text, but no detail about their implementation is given.

Post

anyone else got it yet? I actually think it is rather good. Annoyingly there is some sloppy editing (typos, badly placed diagrams, references to "socket" etc) but the chapters on filter theory are going to be really useful, once I get my head around the math. The RackAFX software seems like a pretty good way to work through the DSP concepts in the book, but be warned it's windows only! The actual plugin implementation doesn't have that much boilerplate code, as I said previously.

Post

I got it yesterday. As I can see first, I don't need the vstsdk from Steinberg or the VSTGUI SDK.
The second thing is, that I can build my creations with a GUI and test it directly in RackAFX.
For VST Plugin "Beginners" just like me I think this book is really a good starting point. You got very detailed views of DSP Processing and much code classes to start.
I think I write next year, when I just "worked in" ;)

Post

I'm 2/3 the way through it. I've been putting in full-time hours into learning C++ and plugin design for 6 weeks now. Focal Press sent me a review copy about 10 days ago.

1) I couldn't be newer to C++, plugin design, etc. I remember almost all this "type" of math from college but that was a decade ago and I'm not sure I knew it completely then.

2) I'm completely unaware of what dead ends I'll eventually face.

With that in mind, I'm loving the RackAFX software. It's not nearly as automated as is implied. It's mostly for defining what the slider and button parameters. Other than that, I've found that I'm spending 90% of my time in C++.

I've made nice progress in learning this plugin design stuff and I feel like I'm getting somewhere. That is a big deal as many of the various resources I've encountered don't give you one comprehensive way to get you moving. Even if first gear is "wrong", I'm excited to know that I'll be in second or third gear soon.

The book is more formal than it needs to be. In my own book series I decided to be as informal as possible as I believe that's how you provide the glue that holds various concepts together. That anecdotal rhetoric gives context and clues. I think the book misses out on these benefits. It would be nice to know WHY I care about filter design when I'm guessing most the good ones were conceived 150 years ago. :)

I'm not 100% grasping all the DSP stuff, but Rome wasn't eaten with one bite. I can't blame the author, necessarily. I would have preferred 10% more effort into helping beginners. Okay, maybe 100% more effort. Where to draw the line on such classifications is tricky.

Overall, I'm thrilled with the book. I couldn't be more excited. I'm not grasping everything and I have no idea how much value this will be to me in 1-100 months, but at the moment I feel like I'm learning and the RackAFX software seems to simplify something I'd rather not deal with anyway. I don't get the feeling that a rocket scientist is going to need this book, but for anyone truly wanting to design their own plugins, I can't imagine how this wouldn't be a great way to get the ball rolling.

Brandon

Post

Hi there! First post :)

Im an electrical engineering student in my 7th semester, so i've done some DSP. I'm coding a plugin as my bachelor thesis. I can code some C and i've been learning C++. Also i've spent a lot of time doing HTML and CSS (i know, not really languages), so i understand the concept of classes and inheritance.

I downloaded the VST SDK and from looking through the examples i can understand what the functions do, i just need a book that focuses on VST development in particular to get me going.

Is this book something for me? Because if it is i would buy it straight away!

Cheers!

Post

Fluid Movement wrote:Hi there! First post :)

Im an electrical engineering student in my 7th semester, so i've done some DSP. I'm coding a plugin as my bachelor thesis. I can code some C and i've been learning C++. Also i've spent a lot of time doing HTML and CSS (i know, not really languages), so i understand the concept of classes and inheritance.

I downloaded the VST SDK and from looking through the examples i can understand what the functions do, i just need a book that focuses on VST development in particular to get me going.

Is this book something for me? Because if it is i would buy it straight away!

Cheers!
The code in this book focuses around the author's proprietary wrapper framework RackAFX. That being said, it's not difficult to translate code from that into the basic VST format (inheriting straight from the VST SDK) if you're reasonably familiar with C++. The book even briefly explains how to do this.

Furthermore, the code in the book is fairly straightforward, though it does assume knowledge of C++ so don't expect any hand-holding there.

Another option would be The Audio Programming Book, by Boulanger and Lazzarini. It covers some of the basic C/C++ code used in DSP programming and comes with a whole heap of supplemental material on the DVD, including a tutorial on VST development and examples.

Either one would be a good bet I think.

Post

LemonLime wrote:
Fluid Movement wrote:Hi there! First post :)

Im an electrical engineering student in my 7th semester, so i've done some DSP. I'm coding a plugin as my bachelor thesis. I can code some C and i've been learning C++. Also i've spent a lot of time doing HTML and CSS (i know, not really languages), so i understand the concept of classes and inheritance.

I downloaded the VST SDK and from looking through the examples i can understand what the functions do, i just need a book that focuses on VST development in particular to get me going.

Is this book something for me? Because if it is i would buy it straight away!

Cheers!
The code in this book focuses around the author's proprietary wrapper framework RackAFX. That being said, it's not difficult to translate code from that into the basic VST format (inheriting straight from the VST SDK) if you're reasonably familiar with C++. The book even briefly explains how to do this.

Furthermore, the code in the book is fairly straightforward, though it does assume knowledge of C++ so don't expect any hand-holding there.

Another option would be The Audio Programming Book, by Boulanger and Lazzarini. It covers some of the basic C/C++ code used in DSP programming and comes with a whole heap of supplemental material on the DVD, including a tutorial on VST development and examples.

Either one would be a good bet I think.
Yeah i dont really need my hand held when learning things, so i guess i'll read some more reviews and probably get the book. Thanks! :)

Post

Surprised how much flack this book is getting here. I just got it the other day (I pretty much buy up all the books I can on DSP... especially books that deal with audio and dsp) and I'm overall pretty happy with the text.

It actually seems fairly simple compared to some other books that I have read on the subject, but it covers the material in a comprehensive manner.

Some of the people in this sub forum are definitely pretty brilliant at this stuff so it might not be aimed towards you, but I'd say this is a good book to have in the library.

Post

Yes I also received this book for Christmas, I'm a few weeks into learning C++ and new to DSP. Overall I'm finding it pretty good. I'm developing on a Mac so that means no 'RackFX' for me, but who cares, it's easy to ignore that stuff as the lion's share of the book is DSP maths and C++ code.

I would say this book is best for those who can code in C / C++ and who are interested but inexperienced with DSP. It takes you through all the basic filter designs, up to Biquads, but no fancy or exotic designs to speak of. The author is a bit formal for my taste, but hey, it's not like this subject's a walk in the park.

Time to brush up on my maths and get stuck in!

Post

I've just bought this book.


I'm not an experienced programmer and I am still wrapping my head around the fundamentals of C++, though I am familiar with C and very familiar with SuperCollider.

I have looked at JUCE and iPlug examples, but to do something around my current ideas I feel that 1. my C++ skills are lacking, especially concerning larger programs, and that 2. my DSP knowledge is not strong enough for me to fluidly read a more complex interesting algorithm (say, a reverberation FDN)and implement it in code.

I've also grabbed the recent MIT Press' "The Audio Programming Book", the (older) DAFX book, plus a general C++ primer & reference book. FAUST is interesting as well. Consider me stoked!

Post

I have access to this book through my university's online library (I'm a grad student of music technology), and I recommend it.

RackAFX does allow you to create your own GUI.

Post

I've bought the book one month ago and I'm more or less half way through it.
Being a novice at DSP with some background in programming I've been delving through some books in order to get some knowledge on DSP. I found most of them either too heavy on math or not having enough background information for you to grasp the basics.
This was the first book that made everything clear to me.
Furthermore, because it introduces the math concepts with enough background information it allowed me to go back to some more "math heavy" books I was reading before and start to understand them.

The plug-in framework in which the book is based is its stroggest point, IMHO. As the author mentions, this API main purpose is to enable the readers to focus on DSP learning without having to learn a full bloan API at the same time.
This makes the hands-on experience engaging and invites experimentation, which helps the concepts to sink in.

Hence, to me at least, this was the book I needed to get involved with DSP.
Obviously, if you have a strong DSP background, this book might not be for you.

HTH

Post Reply

Return to “DSP and Plugin Development”