Newbie: why do GarageBand's instruments sound better?

giacecco · Post by **giacecco** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:54 pm

All,
I am a newbie so what I am going to say may be complete wrong and I ask you in advance to forgive me.

I am new to computer music and I have been playing around with GarageBand and Live lately. I loved Live and bought Suite straight away.

Though, is it just me or many of GarageBand's instruments sound much better than Live's out of the box? What am I doing wrong? The pianos, just to make an example. GarageBand's "Grand Piano Punchy" sounds much better than Ableton Tension's "Acoustic piano".

My only guess at the moment is that Ableton's instruments are somehow "purer" and need some tweaking (echo, delay...) to feel real, while GarageBand adds those by default.

I welcome your advice, thanks!

Giacecco

the_woof · Post by **the_woof** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 11:01 pm

You're definitely right that they need tweaking. If you go into garageband and load up one of those presets, expand the bar on the left where you pick the instrument so you can see the effects and settings (I'd be more specific but I'm on windows and I've only occasionally used garageband). They probably have some reverb on it, aside from that I'm not sure. So for whatever sound you're trying to make, pick a comparable Ableton preset, then do your best to mimic the effects garageband has on their sound (or, in the future, improve on garageband's effects).

monobeach · Post by **monobeach** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 11:23 pm

Hi!

I am not familiar with GarageBand myself, just our singer put some ideas together in GarageBand using loops and some of the instruments.
From the loops used, it's obvious that they are highly processed using a lot of effects and tweaking to give you that modern and recognizable sound, you are used to from the radio or whatever...

For the beginner, I think it's important to first be aware of the natural sound of an instrument, then learn what can be done to achieve a desired sound. There's a whole new world to discover, so be excited!

In the case of the piano for example: first: tension is a modelling software and does not use samples. try the piano of the EIC instead and explore the differences. Completely different approaches to sound reproduction.
Second: there are a gazillion of ways to tweak audio to achieve a desired sound. "Sounding better", for the beginner often is evoked by a processed sound, lots of effects (like reverb, delay, compression, auto panning etc.)

so: experiment a lot, start analyzing the sounds you like the most, how certain effects are achieved etc. maybe read some books (e.g. Bobby Owsinski's Mixing/Recording engineers handbooks) or magazines that de-construct songs or give some insight what is done in the business to get "that sound"

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 11:45 pm

for one thing Tension is a synthesizer, a physical modeling synthesizer. PM synthesis allows you to recreate the characteristics of real world instruments via synthesis. any recording of an actual piano (or guitar or whatever) is not involved in the process at all. the pianos in GarageBand are multisamples of real instruments. what you are hearing are recordings of actual pianos being played at different pitches and velocities, laid out across a keyboard. major difference right off the bat. and yes, GB presets are going to have a nice slathering of effects on top of them by default but even still, PM synthesis can only go so far with something like an acoustic grand piano. PM is typically better suited for electric piano, wind and string sounds. none of which will really deliver the sound of the real thing, but that's not really the point usually. more about getting the "feel" of the physical instrument and then doing something cool with it that isn't possible with the real thing.

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:45 am

I think Apple/Emagic have actually just done a great job of recording/compiling the included samples.

Live is still a much better daw for me than Garage Band (not sure about Logic pro).

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:02 am

Tension's piano is physical modelled, not sampled. If you have EIC or EIC2, there is a quite useable piano sample, but it takes a lot of CPU to play it. Look at the sounds in Simpler and the EIC if you want sampled sounds.

You can't compare Garageband to Live. Garageband is like a cut down version of Acid, it's not much more powerful than Acid Xpress, a free cut down download of Acid. It's just designed to play simple sequences and loops and lacks a lot of the creative possibilities that other DAWs have. It's not a bad program for free, but the apple loops sounds are so tired and overused. And because it lacks a lot of plugins and functionality that way, the loops are pretty much done in a 'radio friendly' way but you cannot do too much else with them. Apple put it on there in the hope that people will upgrade to Logic when they've outgrown copying and pasting loops.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:47 am

as an aside, the Symphony Orchestra "Jam Pack" for GarageBand is pretty friggin' good.

i bought all the Jam Packs a long time ago because i got them for ridiculously dirt cheap and i actually still use the orchestra one. i don't know where they sourced the material from but a lot of the instruments are very nice, believe it or not.

dootdoot · Post by **dootdoot** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 8:47 am

It is definitely the case that the GB instruments have a lot of effects included in their settings. It isn't just an instrument sound. They have compression, chorus, reverb... already enabled in the patch. I'd consider them to be more like pre-designed sounds than bare instruments. They are also CPU-hogs.

Open up the GB instrument setting, as has already been suggested, and look at the effects pane. You can toggle the effects off and hear what the bare sample/patch sounds like. The samples are pretty decent and rather "wet" to begin with. Not bad, not better, just different.

Last, GB is basically "Logic Lite" and those big lush sounds are a selling point (marketing tool) for Logic. As much as I like Live, GB is a great way to do fast prototyping and get a "finished" sound in a hurry.

LeifonMars · Post by **LeifonMars** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:45 pm

They sound better because they're aimed to please instantly newbies and hockey moms and dads who seek out to be "creative" as they edit the video clips they shot at their sons weekend league game.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:35 pm

Logic Express is Logic lite.

GB files can be opened in Logic, and you can use the loops, but even Logic Express has a massive amount of features compared to Garageband - it's more of a scratchpad for ideas than a serious sequencer.

dootdoot · Post by **dootdoot** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:02 pm

leedsquietman wrote:Logic Express is Logic lite.

In comparison to the Ableton line, GB is Lite, Express is LE, and Suite is Studio. Lite is basically the freebie version, very limited but compatible, and you can do constructive work in it if you dig a little.

FWIW, GB is a great app for doing quick video/audio dubs by using the podcast mode. Maybe the least appreciated feature of GB, IMO. You can layer multitrack audio over video, and it demuxes the video on import. Very slick.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:55 pm

Yes, I know you can do constructive work in it. You can also do constructive work in Acid Express and the cheapest Fruity Loops. You just cannot do advanced audio or midi editing and some other creative processes afforded by more established DAWs.