Make – Analog Synthesizers: Make Electronic Sounds the Synth-DIY Way

First of all this book is very generously priced - you get a lot of good information for £11.50, I think I would happily pay double that. If you are a fan of Nicolas Collins book "Handmade Electronic Music" and are looking for something new and more advanced to get into, then this is the perfect book for you. If you want to get into circuits and building electronic music from the ground up then I would read Collins book first: Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking I gave 4 stars because at times I thought the layout of the book was poor, it could have done with a little more editing in my opinion to make some concepts easier to grasp. My only other criticism is that I found Ray's language impenetrable at points, but you shouldn't let that put you off, build the circuits in the book, modify them and adapt them, you will find that they are very flexible! One more note, I noticed another review here that criticised the book for having a large section on the Noise Toaster instrument, but really, this section is great as Ray explains the instrument part by part, and I will let you in on a secret - you can pull each module out of the Noise Toaster and build it as a stand alone - I have made a standalone active low-pass filter from the notes that runs from a single 9v battery! (Edit: I decided to bump to 5 stars, there really is nothing else like this book on the market to my knowledge, my negative points don't detract from the useful content in this book)

Enthusiastically written and well explained. Perfect if you have some knowledge of op amp circuits. Circuit diagrams seemed to have been drawn to save space rather than for easy readability but are also well explained. I really enjoyed it, which is not something I often say about electronics text books, and I'm going to try some of the ideas out.

I made a synth out of my fridge and my wife left me

The book is excellent and the author explains the concepts well. The first few chapters go into detail about what tools are required as well as the theory behind analogue synthesisers before heading into a project. The book can be quite America-centric at times when referring to places to buy parts or how to save money on certain items but I didn't find this to be a problem as the tips are still useful and many of the websites mentioned have UK sites as well. The author has an enjoyable style of writing which I enjoyed and which helped me get through the book. Informative, well written and great value for money.

Great book at a competitive price. Timely delivery.

Great book, well written and witty, I was sad to hear the author is no longer with us but this is a great legacy. I intend to build at least one of his kits one day. One day...

Great read, even if you’re not going to make one

Was actually a little disappointed by this book. I read the reviews and thought id still give it a go but they are mostly right. The appendices at the back were the most useful bits and I already knew half of them. I was really hoping for schematics and building block diagrams and components for building basic noisemakers, vco vcf, lfo etc and then things like pre-amp and amp and then midi in and midi cv etc then pointing us how to put all these together to create our own devices. Yes one could reverse some of the stuff mentioned in the book but as its on pcb etc already this is really a glorified manual for building one device with info on how its made. Not deep enough for my liking and probably most who are sucked in by the click bait title. I guess ill continue my quest without using the knowledge I have.. Might have to put together an ebook myself.