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I am very interested in learning about audio from a signal processing standpoint. However, whenever I try to further my education by reading books, I get extremely frustrated because the books use all kinds of crazy math notation that makes absolutely no sense to me...

An example would be this book:

The first chapter (1.1) starts out completely clear... A nice diagram showing analog -> digital -> analog.. Great.. got it..

Then 1.2 goes to show $X(\Omega) = \int_{-\infty}^\infty x(t)e^{-i\Omega t} dt\ldots$

Uhhh.. yeah.. sorry.. I am totally lost and frustrated at this point.

Can anyone guide me to some sort of book or online site that will help me make sense of this notation?

EDIT: Some of your comments asked about my background. Unfortunately, I've only got a background in algebra, and that itself is slightly shaky as I haven't done a lot with it since high school.

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    What is your background so far? What math *have* you taken? Without some course(s) or sufficient background to understand some things about linear time-invariant systems, it may be a bit tough going at first. You'll need to be reasonably proficient in calculus, have a little background in complex arithmetic and the Fourier transform, and know at least enough differential equations to understand constant-coefficient linear ordinary differential equations.2011-09-24
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    I think you have selected a book that is not suitable for your interests. You might want to start with very simple basics of sound and spectrum analysis of sound first. That would give a handle on the topics : the scales, octaves and timbre of instruments. Many music theory sites would give a musician's point of view of scales and notes. Then audio engineering sites will give you the effect of certain operations such as filtering etc. Then you can back these intuitions up by mathematical gibberish :)2011-09-24
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    Also, if you can edit your question and include more specific details I might give some suggestions.2011-09-24
  • 0
    You are looking for articles on Fourier analysis. There is a tutorial at http://www.sunlightd.com/Fourier/ and a discussion that avoids complex numbers at http://www.colorado.edu/MCEN/Measlab/backgroundfourier.pdf2011-09-24
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    Do you know calculus? That is *all* you need to make sense of the notation you say confuses you. You should know calculus before learning signal processing, by the way.2011-09-24
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    It might interest you to know that there is also a [dsp.SE](http://dsp.stackexchange.com/).2011-09-25
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    Yeah, asking on dsp.stackexchange is a better idea. You don't need to understand the math 100% in order to understand the principles. You can stare at the equation for the fourier transform until you understand what the integral means, but that won't help you with signal processing. To do signal processing you need to learn common transforms and get an intuitive feel for them, which is more visual than mathematical, at least for me.2011-09-25
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    Tons of other good answers, but here's my two cents: you just picked up a standard engineering text, which assumes the reader is a 3rd year engineering student. Of course the math is beyond simple algebra! Engineers take roughly 2 years of college math, which comprises calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations. To understand DSP at an engineering level you will need at least that background.2016-12-13

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