GarageBand Changed My Life
By John Bordonaro

We are expanding our Indie Artist Insider series to include guest blogs from industry professionals
and artists from our SongCast family of indie artists.
Click this link to view the first 100 episodes of the Indie Artist Insider. 

Here is our latest guest blog, featuring John Bordonaro, entitled “GarageBand Changed My Life.” 

GarageBand Changed My Life:

My first CD “Forever June” has eleven songs.  Written over decades, through many of life’s changes, this is a brief account of how this passionate collection of songs came to be.

I purchased a MacBook Pro with a 13” screen in 2012. As a songwriter for nearly 25 years, I was still clinging to the silly notion that my songs were unique. I could play them, and play them well. But, they never sounded how they did in my head.  The melodies I heard beautifully sown in among my illustrious rhythms, existed only in my head. So, I knew my songs could be good, but what I needed was proof.

Enter GarageBand, the discovery of a lifetime!  I found it accidentally after purchasing a Mac. I clicked on the little Garage Band guitar icon, thinking “hmm, what’s this?” When it opened, I recognized what it was immediately. I knew what a digital recorder looked like, from recent recording experiences, in home studios. Friends recorded a couple of my first songs using ProTools, and, were absolute pros at using it. I learned a great deal from these early recording experiences, watching those guys produce my songs. Immediately, I knew what to do, I HIT RECORD! No kidding, using the built-in, condensed microphone on that tiny little computer, I made my first recording, “Unbeliever” (studio recording located on YouTube). I added all kinds of sound effects located in the application. A technique I would repeat time and again.

In the song “Jam Session” I employed two different Apple Loops, an organ that repeated three chords, and a Apple Loop drum beat, using the built-in microphone, I sat on my bed and recorded one of my coolest instrumentals ever! (available on YouTube).

I play a Yamaha six-string acoustic guitar. I play by ear and am a novice to intermediate musician, at best. I am a competent, steady rhythm player for sure; I have a knack for finding hooks all up and down my fret board. However, I struggle to sing, due to a vocal cord injury, which happened during the second of three spinal cord surgeries. I never let that deter me, because I believe so strongly that my songs, once constructed, will speak for themselves.

Garage Band programming afforded me the. luxury to play my rhythms to actual drums. I could play with real passion and energy, whereas the metronome doesn’t feed my playing. My ability to manipulate those beats in GarageBand, varying the drums to match what’s happening in the song, made recordings feel more like an actual band, and gives my songs a “live” sound. Finally, adding a melody becomes so much easier.  Because of such a comfortable bed, I was able to lay down, using Garage Band. rhythm guitars, beats, bass track, various sounds, and percussive instruments. My egg shaker is usually the last thing laid down.

Garage Band is intuitive. I can’t state that strongly enough. You can use it effectively without reading a technical manual! I learn by doing and have an aversion to reading technical stuff.   An example would be reading a lesson on applying “gates.” I accidentally discovered how to EQ by subtraction rather than addition, to avoid a muddy/muffled sound; EQ out/drop frequencies, instead of increasing levels, of one instrument, to let another instrument breathe. I learned by trial and error that not all instruments need to be compressed. Certain percussions and my tambourine, for instance, usually don’t get compression. Garage Band presets are just fine, for the most part. Every effect (compression, EQ, chorus, reverb, etc.) has a basic preset, usually multiple. I select chose them “by ear.” As a song writer, I am more interested in conquering the creative process. Sound engineers devote years to studying, memorizing, and achieving perfect techniques. Garage band pre-set are designed by those type people and I trust them. I don’t even know what most effects that I apply are actually doing to the signal – I just know by trial and error that I need to do them. Apple Loops are amazing. I’ve added strings choir voices, backing vocals, dozens of bass tracks, and all those amazing beats. Originally, some of my recordings had a professional drummer & bassist, whom I paid for services. He’s been incredibly supportive of my music. He told me early on, the drum tracks in my songs pass for a live drummer, and, I truly didn’t need his services. To that I say, “Thank you, Garage Band.  I use Garage Band drummers now with the most confidence. They fit my style, as I often leave little mistakes in my music, so you know I’m there (except timing issues). If I scrape the body of my guitar, as I did in the song “Pollution” I leave it. If in an Apple drum Loop, I can hear the floor peddle, or, a stick hit one of the drum cases, Garage Band leaves that in, for that exact reason, it sounds more “alive”, more human, therefore more relatable to the listener. In “Connect The Dots” the backup vocal comes in too soon — since it was still in-time, I left that in the mix, though it could have been easily edited out in GarageBand.

I always try to use some weird sound to make my songs stand out. (Reference “Muse” the song “Madness”). On the song “Viejo” for a percussive sound, I took a wooden honey dipper, from my kitchen drawer, and used it to hit a piece of 2X4 block, that I found in the garage. In the title track “Forever June”, there’s a wind chime, used to give the effect that it’s raining; I used a Garage Band keyboard to produced that sound. In Garage Band, I have songs, like the song “Try” (on SongCast), that combine 30 separate tracks. I also have songs such as “Innocence” where the original version had only 4 tracks. The version on the new CD has 6 tracks. I couldn’t resist the urge, so, I added my live egg-shaker, and a big crashing cymbal during the guitar solo – using the my old faithful friend, the Garage Band drummer. When in actuality, I’m playing the keyboard with my left, index finger! My songs are the proof that Garage Band can help an artist express themselves musically. I’m not able to state strongly enough, that if I had to rely on actual people to do all the parts in my songs, you’d never be hearing them. Garage Band is the only reason I could bring all those tracks, from inside my head and my heart, and make them real.