Chapter 2 Sound Waves: Section 2.3 (Experimenting) - Anqi

· 2.3.1 Experimenting with Sound Waves in Max and Pure Data (Max Only)

I actually read the MATLAB section first, and then came back to this part. I feel this section is comparatively weak. As more music people might be interested in using Max rather than MATLAB, I think more information on the use of Max needs to be given for practical purpose. The main body of this section did help me start Max, but not further enough. I am wondering what MSP stands for. I am not an Apple user, but does Apple-E mean Command-E? (Also, I personally prefer it to be ‘Ctrl + E’ instead of ‘CTRL-E’)

Even as a science student, I do not feel this section very appealing and helpful. I do hope to see more organized and indepth information on the application of Max, or links to other resources, such as related tutorial videos, and step-by-step instructions, similar to the ones used in the MATLAB of 2.3.2. Overall, I would not say 2.3.1 is very well written.

- Adding Sine Waves with Phase Offsets

The description of the purpose of this exercise is overly concise, making it hard to start with. A sample interface might help the readers find directions

I have been spending my whole afternoon exploring Max. It is such a fun software!

· 2.3.2 Experimenting with Sound Waves in MATLAB and Octave (MATLAB Only)

This section started with a brief introduction to MATLAB, the math tool. The given equation r/d = pi/180 is perfectly right, but kind of confusing and irrelevant to explaining why omega =2pi*f. I would say omega = 2pi/T interprets angular speed better, because different from f in cycles/time, omega is just the radius/time. The letters in equation 2.10 are squeezed together. The rest of this section is quite easy to read. However, a mention of the formation of these three waves, say a sawtooth wave being the summation of all harmonic frequencies related to a fundamental, would recall the material from 30 pages away. Also, on the top of the page 43, it mentioned a sampling rate of 44,100Hz, I think a brief mention that 44.1 KHz is a widely used sampling rate would be good. Other than that this part is fairly instructive. However, as I remember that the use of single quotes and variables used to bother me quite often, other readers might have questions on it as well. Under Figure 2.47 Triangle Wave, it says “Notice that the tripuls parameter is surrounded by fore single quotes, two on each side”; in the equation above, it seems like there is a space between each pair of single quotes, but it would not be run by MATLAB unless there is no space between the single quotes.

- Creating a Triangle Wave Exercise

After following the step-by-step instructions in this section, this exercise is quite easy.

· 2.3.3 Experimenting with Sound Waves in C++ Programs Under Linux

I currently do not have a platform on this computer to try out the C++ code, and it might take a while to install one. I guess it would be easier if I just try it on my own laptop with Ubuntu installed tomorrow.