Best books you read

All You Need Is Ears - Sir George Martin
Mixing With Your Mind - Mike Stavrou


Both are truly inspirational.

I have to go with heart of darkness....because my mixes are always long, sweaty, agonizing, journeys into the depths of madness and insanity that end in...the horror...the horror.
 
 

 
Roey Izhaki: Mixing Audio - Concepts, Practices and Tools

Not a book but a modern tips and approach video log - Pensado's Place on Youtube.
Owsinski's Mixing Engineers handbook.
Learning that few plug ins are a substitute for real hardware.
SOS articles on tracking and mixing of recent albums.
Bob Katz Mastering Audio
Recording the Beatles
Master Handbook of Acoustics
Behind the Glass v1 & v2

The White Pages (so many characters to keep track of though!).

mcourter


The Mixing Engineer's handbook - bobby owsinski

Ok - that's is a good one too!  And so is the standby Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook.

Roey Izhaki: Mixing Audio - Concepts, Practices and Tools

+2

Bob Katz's Mastering Audio is also a must-have

F. Alton Everests's Master Handbook of Acoustics is another favorite

Sound Reproduction by Floyd Toole is a personal favorite

Digital Audio Explained for the Audio Engineer by Nika Aldrich should be required reading

Principles of Digital Audio by Ken Pohlman is a standard but only recommended for the nerdiest of techno-nerds

Howard Massey's Behind the Glass is a good read, even if not particularly informative. There is a Volume 2 out now, but I haven't read it.

Speaking of good reads, Mixerman's The Daily Adventures of Mixerman can't be beat for pure entertainment value. He has a serious book on mixing out now (Zen and the Art of Mixing), but I haven't read it yet.

Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros by Rod Gervais: practical advice from an acoustician who's also a builder by profession.

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Leviton is about psychoacoustics and the perception of sound, written by someone with a unique perspective: a psychologist who used to be a record producer. Understanding how sound is perceived and interpreted by the brain is surprisingly practical for musicians and mix engineers to know.

Beware! There are a lot of really BAD titles out there, too! That's the unfortunate reality with technical books in general: lots of quick-buck scam artists want to cash in on trends and whip out product with no substance. My advice is to read user reviews on Amazon before committing your credit card, and be aware that at least one of the reviews will always have been written anonymously by the book's author himself.

bitflipper

Beware! There are a lot of really BAD titles out there, too! That's the unfortunate reality with technical books in general: lots of quick-buck scam artists want to cash in on trends and whip out product with no substance. My advice is to read user reviews on Amazon before committing your credit card, and be aware that at least one of the reviews will always have been written anonymously by the book's author himself.

that does explain how i acquired some of the real rubbish that's sitting now on my book shelves ...
 
well, there appears to be a consensus in this thread on what you guys recommend ... which either means you did really like these books or you did WRITE them