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Author: David Pogue

Publisher: Pogue Press/O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Edition: First - August 2005

ISBN: 0-596-10035-3

Pages: 272

Price: $29.95 US, $34.95 CA, £17.50 UK

There's a belief in the Apple world that their software is incredibly easy to use. This belief borders on myth. Sure, some programs are fairly simple to figure out, programs such as iMovie and iPhoto, but that's if you want to use the programs the way Apple feels you should. This isn't always practical, which Apple seems to understand because they do allow you to dig deeper into their programs, but mostly without their help.

GarageBand 2 is a very good example of this. If all you want to do is drag some loops around, no problem. You don't need a manual to show you how to do that. But, if you want more control of those loops, if you want to create your own loops or if you want to bypass loops altogether and lay down some by-God rock and roll licks, then it's time once again to turn to David Pogue, O'Reilly Media and the Missing Manual series.

I'm glad to see David Pogue at the helm for this book. He's an entertaining guy, whether he's writing a manual, covering the iPod for the New York Times or speaking about the tech industry in general on NPR. I like his style, which brings plenty of personality to his lessons without overshadowing them. And believe me, there are plenty of lessons in here. The book is split into three parts: Building A Hit, Beyond the Garage and the Appendix. The full chapter listing is available online (PDF), so I won't repeat it here. Instead, I'll hit upon the highlights of each part.

Building A Hit serves as an introduction to GarageBand, of course, but it goes well beyond that. Aside from teaching you how to navigate the program and work with the individual pieces, it'll help you understand each piece and when to use it. You'll learn the ins and outs of loops and MIDI, about working with regions and software instruments, and how to record real instruments for your compositions, along with the restrictions that entails.

These chapters, then, cover the use of GarageBand in the manner that Apple intended. When Steve brings John Mayer onstage to show off GarageBand, this is the kind of stuff he'd do. It's in here, after all, that people with no musical knowledge or experience can put together a fairly decent sounding song (no offense to you, John...glad to see you've given up the sap for honest guitar playing). It's also the kind of stuff that musicians or experienced computer users could probably figure out on their own, albeit in a less efficient manner. It's in part two, therefore, where things really get interesting.

In Beyond the Garage, we're taught to become engineers. Writing a song isn't just about putting the pieces together, after all, it's about mixing the pieces. Accenting some, muting others. Trying different sounds and instruments, including, yes, some real ones. Although GarageBand isn't as efficient with real instruments as it is with MIDI instruments, it's quite often worth it to give up the advanced functionality in exchange for something that sounds a bit less robotic. When you're playing with MIDI loops, after all, you're playing with the same pieces that other GarageBand owners have, giving your songs a stock photography feel.

But this section isn't biased to recording live instruments, it teaches you how to create your own loops, which can be MIDI or live. There's extra software involved, but the process isn't any more complicated than most other advanced GarageBand features. David doesn't go into as much detail here as I would have liked, but he does provide a link to Apple's AppleLoops SDK, which contains instructions on its own. David does that quite a bit, which I guess explains why this book can come in at just over 250 pages. No need for 500 when you can just link to information that offers more detail than the book could carry anyway.

The Beyond the Garage section will frustrate many GarageBand users because it really does look beyond GarageBand. Way beyond GarageBand to extra software and hardware than can cost thousands of dollars. Don't let this panic you. By the time you get to this material, you'll have first passed through sections that offer sources for free and cheap instruments and loops, and you'll know how to get impressive results without the use of external sources. For those who do want to record live vocals or take advantage of more tracks than GarageBand supports, David wants to make it clear that you don't have to abandon GarageBand. Just supplement it, and you'll be fine.

The only section of disappointment for me, and it's slight, comes in the GarageBand Music Crash Course appendix. I'd rather this not be a crash course. Because GarageBand places so much emphasis on key signature, tempo and such (as it should, of course), I would've like to have seen David add a bit more music theory here. At only eight pages, it's not enough for new musicians and isn't worth the time of accomplished musicians. If I'm recording a live bass loop, for example, I know the notes I'm playing, but I have no idea what key it's in. A simple chart and explanation such as the one found here would've been tremendously helpful, but, yes, perhaps outside the scope of what David chose to do with this book.

As it stands, GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual is a tremendously helpful book that really should be read from cover to cover. It's possible to zero in on the section you need, but the nature of GarageBand may necessitate that you know a few other things first to really use the program to its fullest. Luckily, David manages to cover a lot without bogging things down. It also helps that the book is in shiny, shiny color, which makes it feel less like a text book and more like a music magazine. Yes, there's a lot to learn and know, but this is music. The less you know, the more you sound like Ashley Simpson, and I don't think that's what Apple had in mind.