One Busy Week in February

My adventures with GarageBand began during the first week of February, when my copy of iLife ’04 arrived. I had been intrigued with GB since the Macworld S.F. keynote and couldn’t wait to try it out. Well, only a few hours after installing, I had a complete song on my hands (titled “Espionage” thanks to the inspiration of the “Secret Agent” guitar loop). Creating “Espionage” was such an enjoyable experience that I kept experimenting. Before I realized it, I had two songs, then three, then four, then five. As I kept exploring the loop collection, more and more ideas hit me.

A Song Gives Rise to a CD

Once I had five or six songs (in only about four days), an idea struck me. At the pace I was going, I could make a whole CD in about a week. And I did. When I got to the tenth song, I stopped and calculated the total length: 53 minutes! And I had owned GB for only seven days.

A CD Gives Rise to a Band

The GarageBand preferences include fields for playlist, composer name, and album name. The defaults (e.g., “David Ozab’s Album”) were pretty dull. About this time I decided that my GB venture needed a name. I already have a CD out under my own name, so I decided to make up a virtual band for my GB efforts. I’ve always been fascinated with orthodox icons (I own a couple of small ones), and one in particular I had seen online just recently had stuck with me. It was titled “Synaxis of the Saints of America” and featured a group of Russian saints who lived back when the Russians still owned Alaska. I’m not sure why, but the name immediately struck me as being great for a band. So Synaxis of the Saints of America was born.

A CD Needs the Right Packaging

After mixing down the tracks and selecting the correct order, I had to design the CD package itself (by this point I had decided to go all out). I had CD insert paper (for use in submitting audio portfolios) and templates, and I came up with a design that was simple yet distinctive. And it was all done with fonts. After designing the CD package, I set up a simple Web page using the same artwork. Eventually, the page will grow in complexity, but for now it serves its purpose. With CDs in hand I was ready to go, but how to get the word out?

Getting the Word Out

First, I put up a PayPal link on my new page. This was handy for people who already know where to look (mostly my friends), but what about everybody else? Well, I had just submitted my “serious” CD to CD Baby (an online retailer), so I submitted Synaxis of the Saints of America as well. I also explored the GarageBand online community.

I began by looking at three sites (all of which were mentioned in last month’s column): MacBand, MacJams, and iCompositions. I also investigated MacJukebox, but sadly that site had shut down since last month’s column. (I skipped MacIdol—I just can’t stomach anything even remotely connected to reality TV.) I posted two songs on each: the aforementioned “Espionage” and “Julia’s Song” (these tracks are also posted on the Web site). Both tracks were well received on all three sites, but I only received comments on iCompositions. I also exchanged a series of interesting messages (iCompositions also includes private messaging) with a singer-songwriter named Rhonie, who is definitely worth checking out. I have since uploaded two more songs (“The Navigator” and “Triple Double”), which are only available through iCompositions.

What’s Next?

Well, I plan on uploading one or two more songs, and I may enter a song contest, too. And I have another CD completed. This one took a little longer (a month instead of a week) and includes loops from Apple’s Jam Pack as well as two other loop sets I found online (from Access and Bitshift). I’m keeping this new CD under wraps for a little while longer, though, so that the first one can gain some attention.