Garrett Soden

About Garrett Soden

Garrett Soden is a marketing communications consultant, music producer, and author. He has held marketing positions at Waves, Inc., Kenwood USA, Occidental College, and GetPlugged.com. He is a founding partner of the music publishing and production company Clear Moon Music, and produced Michael Koppy's debut CD, Red River Redux. He has written books and articles on audio technology, graphic design, business communication, and history. His work has appeared in magazines such as Resolution, Live Sound International, and Pasadena Magazine. His books have been published by W.W. Norton, the American Management Association (AMACOM), and Peterson's.

Soden first gained notoriety as a musician. While still in his teens, he became lead guitarist and songwriter for Central, a cult rock band produced by Richard Barber, the long-time road manager for Frank Zappa, who also booked the band with such 70s headliners as Canned Heat and Rare Earth.

Later Soden launched a career in communications as a writer and graphic designer at Occidental College. Dismayed at the 1980s time management craze, Soden satirized the phenomenon in his first book (coauthored with Jeffrey Book), a parody entitled The One Minute Maniac (Andrews McMeel, 1987). Excerpts appeared in USA Today.

By the early 1990s, Soden had become a communications executive at the consumer electronics giant Kenwood USA, writing and designing the company's marketing materials. His second book, I Went to College for This? (Peterson's, 1994), was a candid guide to the business world and a subversive tract against its hypocrisies. In support of the book, Soden did dozens of radio interviews and wrote a column in the national college magazine Campus Circle.

Soden's third book, Looking Good on Paper (AMACOM, 1995), distilled the basics of publication design into 36 commandments. An excerpt appeared in the professional journal Before and After, and the following year the book was selected for publication in Italy by the distinguished publisher FrancoAngeli.

In the mid-1990s, Soden was named Editorial Director for GetPlugged.com, a start-up portal which sold high-end audio electronics sourced from retailers nationwide. In his fourth book, Hook Spin Buzz (Peterson's, 1996), Soden showed how heuristics - persuasive cues discovered in social and psychological research and applied in advertising, public relations, and politics - could be used to improve business communication. Publishers Weekly described the book as a "practical guide," while the Minneapolis Star Tribune reviewer praised it as ". . . one of the best communications books I've seen in a long time."

In 2004 Soden joined Waves, Inc., a leading manufacturer of audio signal processing products used extensively in the recording and movie industries. As Director of Pro Audio Marketing and Communications, he was responsible for introducing the company's L3 Ultramaximizer multiband limiter, Tune pitch-correction software, GTR amplifier and effects software (in association with Paul Reed Smith Guitars), the Maxx BCL and APA hardware units, and several other successful products.

Soden's fifth book was Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill - A History, (W.W. Norton, 2003), which traces the evolution of gravity play from its prehistoric beginnings to today's thrill rides and extreme sports. The book received praise from the San Franciso Chronicle, Washington Post, Boston Herald, National Geographic Adventure, London Times, Guardian, and many other publications worldwide. Soden appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation, KGO's The Pete Wilson Show, KPCC's Air Talk with Larry Mantle, the Australian Broadcasting Company's The Sports Factor, and several other radio programs in the U.S. and abroad. In 2005, the book was released in paperback as Defying Gravity: Land Divers, Roller Coasters, Gravity Bums, and the Human Obsession with Falling (W.W. Norton).

In 2006 Soden left Waves to work as a communications consultant and, with industry veteran Scott D. Ray, to found the music publishing and production company Clear Moon Music. Soden also produced Red River Redux, the debut album from acoustic guitarist and singer Michael Koppy.

Soden currently provides marketing communications for manufacturers of professional audio products, and is represented by SD Ray Associates.

Soden is a member of the Author's Guild, and is represented by Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, New York. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer/performer Kate Shein.