Greg Milner - Perfecting Sound Forever (Book Review)

5/5

This book is an absolute triumph! Milner takes the reader through the history of recorded sound starting in 1877 and Thomas A. Edison's invention of the phonograph and ending up with today's recording techniques such as Pro Tools via Phil Spector, King Tubby, Steve Albini and many others.

This book is very well researched. Milner gives wonderful insight into the great debates in music recording such as the analog/digital debate, the acoustic/electrical recording debate and the loudness war and dynamic range compression.

This book has many attributes but its main strength is in its balance in arguments. Milner provides both sides of the arguments involved in the story, giving eyewitness accounts from both sides in the aforementioned debates. The analog/digital debate especially opens up some wonderful discoveries.

Milner uses scientific fact partnered with useful insight into the way humans take in music timbrally and also gives us dates, times and events for a historical account with added character in the writing.

For anybody who feels they love recorded music, this book is a must. It's probably the most interesting thing you'll read on the subject.