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For you old school types who love your physical media, One Man Garage Band is now available for purchase on Compact Disc. I’m using Lulu.com, a publish on demand service, to produce the CDs which means that no CD is manufactured until it is purchased. This saves me from carrying inventory, and it seems to be the most environmentally responsible approach to content distribution for folks who’ve not made a transition to digital music files.

One Man Garage Band is now available both at iTunes and at Amazon. This means that should you for some impossible-to-comprehend reason not want to purchase the entire album, you can pick and choose your favorite songs and purchase them individually.

Physical CDs should begin shipping by the end of the week. Details on that to follow.

Available now for purchase at CDBaby (see the link in the side bar) for $9.99. Each song is in high quality 256-bit MP3 format with no digital rights management (DRM aka “copy protection”). These MP3 files will work on any MP3 player.

CDBaby is the recommended way to purchase the entire album for two reasons. First, you also get some text notes and a jpg of Marsha Minten’s awesome album cover. Second, CDBaby’s payment rate to artists is higher than any of the alternatives, which is another way of saying artists like me make more money when you buy through CDBaby.

If you’re only interested in a few songs, Apple’s iTunes Store will be selling individual tracks in a 256-bit AAC format with no DRM for $.99 each. If you use your music with an iPod or iPhone, this is a very convenient solution. I expect iTunes to be online by August 1 at the latest, but I’ll be sure to make noise here when it happens.

Finally, if you’re still into the old school compact discs, I will have those available for sale by July 3.

It happens tomorrow, June 17, my friends. We’ve got one final snafu to straighten out with CDBaby—my artist/album page is up but you can’t actually, you know, buy anything—and I expect it will be fixed first thing in the morning. I will post all appropriate links here once things are ready, as well as begin my email notifications.

A word about that. I’m planning to notify all family and friends of my album’s availability but only once. The last thing you need is me spamming you repeatedly about my musical endeavors. Really, one spam really should be enough. If you sign up for my online Mailing List, though, well, all bets are off (though I will try very hard to make the occasional email I send worth your time).

I have set 10,000 albums in two years as my sales goal, since that’s about what it will take for me to consider creating music on a mostly full-time basis. To say this is ambitious is an understatement. I mean there are goals, stretch goals and ludicrous goals, and this would be the last one.

I don’t know 10,000 people, which means I can’t do this without considerable assistance. If you like the album, I need you to not only buy it but to evangelize it to your family, friends, and co-workers. I have nifty t-shirts that can help. Seriously, though….

The album is a test, the results of which determine how long it will take me to get the next album out. Even if OMGB sells only a couple hundred copies, I’m making another album. It’ll just take longer to get out the door.

Song notes and lyrics for the album are now online in the One Man Garage Band section. I tried to include all the relevant information I could without going over the top. I’m not sure how many people are interested in a line-by-line academic analysis. Still, if you have questions about a particular tune, feel free to shoot me an email. If I get enough interest, I’ll expand on what I’ve written.

T-shirts are available! Featuring the iconic One Man Garage Band cover by Marsha Minten! Hit the Merchandise link and hop on out to our CafePress store. Don’t see the exact apparel you want? Email me and I’ll set it up.

Within the next two weeks I should have the One Man Garage Band CD for sale as well. For environmental reason, I encourage everyone who can to buy the digital download of the album, but if CD is still your thing, rest assured it’s on the way.

Audio files were sent to the distributor today. Cover art has been finalized and will be sent shortly. I expect One Man Garage Band to be available for digital download (256 bit MP3, no DRM) by the first of next week at the latest.

UPDATE of 6/15/09: There was one addition approval step I didn’t realize existed. I had to “finalize” the album and listen to all the 30 second song clips to make sure that everything got digitized correctly. Obviously one wouldn’t want CD Baby to digitize a song and give it the wrong title or something, especially since once submitted to iTunes or Amazon it’s virtually impossible to change without deleting the album and resubmitting. Anyway, the upshot is that I’ve now completed that step and expect One Man Garage Band to be available in the next 24 to 72 hours.

I’ve joined BMI, aka Broadcast Music Incorporated, in the off-chance that any of my songs pick up a wider audience. BMI is a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) who collects and pays royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers.

I’ll also be joining SoundExchange, a PRO that handles Internet and satellite radio.

My good friend Garr has just released his latest album, Universal Star Market. You can buy a copy via iTunes at www.iTunes.com/GarrMontalbano. My early favorites songs (I just got a copy yesterday) are “Chimpanzee in Me,” “Dungeon on Lankershim,” and “Small, Petty God.” See what you think.

Turns out that I’ve neglected two important steps in the process: Mastering and copyright. Unfortunately, this may mean a delay of a couple weeks in getting One Man Garage Band out the door.

Mastering is an interesting process whereby the album’s sound frequencies are manipulated to—for lack of a better phrase—sound better. This has to do with compression and equalization of the audio. It’s not the same as mixing the tracks, but it can be used to bring out certain sounds in the mix and “punch up” the overall recording. I’ve listened to some before and after samples and consulted with my friend and professional musician Garr, and it’s obvious to me now that I need to have One Man Garage Band mastered.

Having the album mastered will cost several hundred dollars, and depending on how many copies are sold may end up eroding significantly or erasing entirely any profit. Nonetheless, I’d rather turn out the best work I can than make a fortune. Hopefully I and everyone else will be able to hear the difference.

The copyright process is not terribly difficult now that everything’s been moved online. It appears that once I have the final versions (post-mastering, in other words) I simply need to fill out a form, upload them, and pay $35 fee. This is, of course, copyright registration I’m talking about. The actual copyright itself already exists.