Title: Electronic Music Production
Author: Alan Douglas
Publisher: Tab Books
Year: 1973
Pages: 148
Tab Books is a publishing house of the seventies specializing in publications of technological interest, designed as introductory manuals for issues such as the Hi-Fi, audio in general, technology and electronics for hobbyists and so on.
The number 718 of the series Tab Books is dedicated to electronic musical instruments. The book opens with two chapters that describe, respectively, the acoustic characteristics of traditional instruments and the frequencial relationship of the tempered scale.
The third chapter goes into detail of the electronic equipment, providing the most interesting part of the whole book. These are the features and diagrams of the respective circuits of generators, oscillators, converters, controls for the voltage and so on. The purpose of this chapter is not merely descriptive, but is intended to provide information necessary for the reader to be able to realize for themselves the different devices.
Chapter four consists of two parts, the first of which has a utility that has remained obscure. It gives a sort of guide for the composer interested in electronics, but I personally was not able to grasp the meaning.
The book by Alan Douglas is oriented almost exclusively in an analogical sense, yet the fourth chapter devotes a small part of the theme of music and computers, specifically focusing on the MUSYS system and EMS Synthi 100, which constituted the digital equipment of the Electronic Music Studios of Peter Zinovieff in London.
Also in this case shows the electronic structure of the devices, with an approach very technical, and technological, not interested to aspects purely musical.