The Scientist & Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing

Detailed set of knowledge about producing audio effects and neighbouring areas of science. Especially S to Z transformation explains a lot. Pity I found this book 20 years too late.

This is a great book in terms of breadth, depth and effort put into explaining DSP to those with limited maths skills (I learnt new stuff about moving average filters from this book). While I have the 'heavy' books on DSP, for a quick refresh I'd grab this book or "Understanding DSP" by Richard Lyons (this one has the edge for anything involving 2D DSP, i.e. image processing).

The author Professor Steven Smith states in the opening chapter, 'A basic premise of this book is that most practical DSP techniques can be learned and used without the traditional barriers of detailed mathematics and theory. The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to Digital Signal Processing is written for those who want to use DSP as a tool, not a new career.' And this is what he achieves brilliantly, but this book is a lot more than just a 'guide' as the title would suggest. It gives a basic introduction to each topic and progresses smoothly to quite an advanced level. Not only is the technical content excellent, but the structure and style are, likewise, excellent, as reflected by the previous three Amazon UK reviews of this book. Highly recommended. PS: Digital Signal Processing 101: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started, 26 May 2010, by Michael Parker, gives a very good overview of DSP and digital numbering systems and is a useful complement to the above book.

This is without doubt the best technical book I have ever read, and is an outstanding achievement for the author which I truly appreciated. The author demonstrates that it is actually possible to write a technical book that enlightens, informs and inspires the reader, rather than making them feel dumbed down because they don't understand the maths or feel that they are constantly missing the point. How often have you read a technical book that is so clear, interesting and easy to read that you cannot put it down? This is one of them. Concepts are explained in everyday language with copious analogues so that the reader always feels on top of the subject. Every mathematical equation that initially looks daunting is explained so clearly as to its significance, meaning and implications, that you begin to think "so what's the problem?". Then you look at other technical books, feel the dumbness returning, and realise what a treasure you have in this book! The book is expensive but is definitely worth every penny if you want to truly understand the basics of signal processing to the point where, armed with a basic FFT library, you can go away and code a real FIR filter usings FFTs and convolution, create your own kernels, or code real IIRs and calculate appropriate coefficients, etc, without matlab doing the hard work for you...it is that good at implementation details.

This is no doubt a fantastic book, written by someone who has an outstanding pedagogical talent. The author IS a teacher. He teaches you signal processing. How amazing it is to teach something so intertwined with maths, yet without having much recourse to a mathematical discourse !

I have come across many books on DSP but non explains complex concepts better than this one. It is amazing how this book explains mathematically-demanding concepts such FFT, Z-transforms, Windowing with hardly any equations. It is a pleasure to read.

Eased of understand the contents

As expected

This is without question the best academic book I've ever read. Mr. Smith is so articulate and clear. He starts at the very beginning and approaches each new concept carefully, building on the concepts you've already read about. Usually when I'm having difficult understanding something, I find he has already answered it in the previous page. His presentation is logical, intuitive, and on occasion entertaining. It's concise and well-formed but not off-putting like the majority of text books I've read. All the information is there and in plain English. A monkey (who understands English, of course) could read this book from start to finish and be an expert in DSP. I found the pdf online but ended up buying the book just because it was so good and I wanted a copy to make notes in and cherish.

Parfaitement adapté à mon cas : intéressé par l'électronique numérique, besoin d'acquérir rapidement des connaissances en traitement du signal, mais malheureusement avec un bagage mathématique un peu léger. Les chapitres suivent une progression logique, chacun revenant sur des notions expliquées dans les précédents. Il y a beaucoup de graphiques, et des exemples de code facile à suivre (en BASIC, donc certainement plus utilisables aujourd'hui, mais faciles à traduire dans un langage plus actuel). Le style est assez plaisant à lire, plus ingénieur - voire bidouilleur - qu'académique. La totalité du livre est disponible en ligne, et même téléchargeable - j'avais lu quelques chapitres en ligne avant de le commander - mais je ne regrette pas un instant d'avoir acheté la version papier.

This is an excellent college-level introduction to digital signal processing, especially if you wish to learn more about the underlying theory and application; i.e., how signal processing actually works. Yes, there is some math, but it's not the primary focus, and the author is very upfront about this. The author's style is conversational and friendly, and he provides plenty of examples, graphs and pictures, with a focus on the actual mechanics of signal processing. This is in contrast to a number of DSP texts that emphasize the underlying mathematics over the mechanics, some to the point where one wonders how the actual mechanics of signal processing even work. This book fills in those gaps. It should probably be read before taking on a math-heavy course or used in conjunction with one. I would recommend it as a primer or tutorial before beginning a typical engineering course in DSP or to have on hand while working with the standard math-heavy text. It will really fill in the knowledge gaps.