GarageBand '08 Power: The Comprehensive Recording and Podcasting Guide (Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an incredible book for anyone diving into Garageband to produce their own music and podcasts. The author makes it super easy to understand how to get into all the features that Garageband offers. There are excellent examples and tips that will advance the knowledge of even the most experienced of Garageband users.
I particularly recommend Chapter 10 on Podcasting for anyone who wants to create professional podcasts with the greatest of ease. I had no idea Garageband could be so simple to use for podcasting, but the results speak for themselves and author, Todd Howard, does a killer job of teaching the process.
Chapter 11 is also great about mixing tracks and taking advantage of all the cool automation features you can use to get the best results from your recording sessions. Todd also demystifies the extensive library of Garageband effects and how to adjust parameters to get just the kind of unique sound you are looking for.
Garageband '08 Power! really does have it all from step-by-step procedures to serving as an instant reference guided to everything you want to know about Garageband.
This book is highly recommended to all Garageband users who want to produce professional results. And from an educational perspective, it also serves as a comprehensive tool for the novice musician to learn the basics about how to digitally record their own music with a Mac!

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GarageBand is one of the most powerful tools for capturing and manipulating sound that has ever been made available to the public. Although GarageBand has always been easy to use, it provides an amazing amount of power and sophistication to users who really want to dig in and get the most out of the program. GarageBand '08 Power! provides an easy to understand, detailed guide on how to make professional sounding music, podcasts, soundtracks, mixes, mashups, and much more with the newest version of GarageBand. Through the use of screenshots, tutorials, creative jumping-off points, and real world examples, the book teaches the reader how to use GarageBand to create music, record and publish podcasts and score their own movies. It's an ideal introduction for those with no prior knowledge of GarageBand, but also covers advanced topics and provides info an all the new features.

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Rick Rubin: In the Studio Review

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(More customer reviews)Author Jake Brown seems to have synthesized this book almost entirely from other people's interviews with Rubin, his mentors and partners, and the broad range of musicians with whom he's worked. The only new interview Brown lists in his extensive bibliography is with Rubin's early protégé George Drakoulias. The bulk of the book is a series of quotes artfully selected and stitched together from newspapers, music magazines and websites. Brown's research is extensive, and organized into coherently themed chapters the material paints a broad-brush portrait of Rubin. But with only one original interview, Brown adds few new insights to the record.
Brown neither interviewed Rubin, nor actually watched him work, nor - other than Drakoulias - appears to have spoken with anyone who worked with Rubin. The quotes are all presented at face value, with no dissenting or contrasting opinions, and by sampling from other people's interviews, Brown robs himself of the opportunity to interact with the sources and ask specific follow-up questions. He cleverly synthesizes conversational back-and-forth between principals (e.g., Rubin and Johnny Cash) by weaving together quotes from multiple sources, but in the end it's a simulation rather than real-life interplay, and though a nice writing trick, it's not satisfying.
The existing materials that Brown could find, or his own personal interests, color the depth and breadth of the book's coverage. Individual chapters on Public Enemy, Mick Jagger and the Dixie Chicks are short and shallow, while multiple chapters on the Red Hot Chili Peppers wander away from Rubin into fetishistic, over-long explorations of guitarist John Frusciante's equipment. There are a few obvious typos, such as the use of "peak" in place of "pique," and at least one ill-chosen presumption: the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster is mentioned without explaining why it would have made Rubin nervous - those who've never seen the film are left in the dark.
Readers are left to synthesize the larger themes from Brown's reporting. Rubin emerges from the quotes as a transformative figure that brought rap to the mainstream, revitalized rock production, resuscitated moribund and damaged musical careers, and pried mature artists from their ruts. The diligence of his pre-production, particularly his focus on selecting and preparing material, is shown to free musicians to be emotional performers in the studio rather than technical craftsmen. Rubin himself is only rarely glimpsed in the studio, a by-product of both his working method and Brown's method as a writer, but he's pictured as listening intently and nudging (or jolting) artists with his ideas.
Drawing views from multiple sources might give readers a chance to triangulate on Rubin, but the vantage points are often too similar to create real dimension. The sampling of quotes doesn't bring the author, and thus the reader, close enough to really feel Rubin's character. The numerous in-line citations, laudable for their accuracy in accreditation, leave the reader feeling one step removed from the book's subject. The breadth of Brown's research shows a deep passion for Rubin's work (particularly with the Red Hot Chili Peppers) that would have paid greater dividends via first-person access to the producer. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Chronicling record producer Rick Rubin's meteoric rise in the music industry, this authoritative book posits that he has taken greater risks than any other producer of the past 25 years. Tracing his career from Def Jam Records—founded with Russell Simmons in a New York University dorm room—to his recent years as a top independent record executive, the book also goes behind the scenes to show how Rubin created hit albums with such diverse legends as the Beastie Boys, the Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, LL Cool J, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against the Machine—as well as the great rock and metal supergroups, Audioslave, Linkin Park, and Metallica.

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