Anyone using Garageband?

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 8:39 am

Other than a cheezy name, I hear Apple Garageband is quite a goodnew audio app. I even hear v 1.01 has Rewire support. So the question I ask for anyone who tried this, Is it any good? Worth buying? I know it is not Live, but hear it is cool too..I even hear it was designed from the same guy that made "Acid" for PC.
It is also rumored that Logic 7 will have support for Apple Loops.

kenan · Post by **kenan** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:17 pm

I've played with it a little. It is indeed a great app for...well...garage bands...especially considering the price. It is primarily a studio tool; it has nothing like Live's session view (but then what does). It seems processor hungry, but then it is often generating sound rather than just playing it back. Apple Loops are handy things...a useful mixture of audio and midi.

The thing I st about GarageBand is its loop library interface. You can tag each loop with like moa bunch of 'flags' and then have it show only the loops matching criteria you set. I would love something like this in Live. I'd like to tag a loop/record as 'house', '115 bpm', 'C#', 'piano', etc. Then as I'm playing, I'd like to be able to press some buttons in the browser and see all 'house' loops at 115+/-5 bpm in the keys of C#, Ab, F#.

Loop organization is one of my problem spots.

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:47 pm

personally i think GarageBand is wack. besides being WAY too power hungry it just wasn't any use to me. i played with it for two days and then removed it from my hard drive. it's a cool little toy but nothing i would spend any money on.

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:22 pm

I just got it..it is cute..The thing I like most about it is I can use AU's with loops..This is one hard thing to do in Live...
This is defintely no competition for Live..
Logic 7 maybe a differnet ball game.

jamief · Post by **jamief** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:22 am

Gb is a nice toy. But i wouldnt /couldnt use it to produce anyserious projects.
i dont think 1.01 does have rewire.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:57 am

funny to see people 'not really comparing it to live' cause in all and every reality you couldn't do it. I don't use and haven't used garageband as i'm on a pc but it would occur to anyone using live for any considerable amount of time that before another app could actualy compare itself to live
it would have to infringe on so many ableton copywrights as to not even be worth trying, and secondly.... Live is almost the closest thing to 'perfect'
as anything in life is actualy suppose to be, it's just a sick music app! and almost scary, ableton only realisticly has one more major upgrade left in them, I don't know how those guys are going to make a living off of Live in the future because it's just to damn good already. anyhow as far as the mac is concerned 'radial' is closer to Live in comparison I'm sure, but still it cannot compete. apparently Live will never die, so in the event that an app does come along that just works great, has everything most of us want and interfaces superbly it won't even matter cause Live already exist
it would only serve as to be redundant.
but yeah garage band looks cool .

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 1:01 pm

I do not own gb so far but I can imagine it's a good thing for a songwriter producing demos.
I mean you don't even have to deal with plugins to play the built in-instruments and can easyly lay rhythm tracks by using the built in loops. and the organization of loops is superiour to live's (that could be a feature suggestion for an upgrade).
It seems to be a no brainer for that purpose and i think I will try it.
anyway - live's also good for that (and would be better with midi sequencer and vsti support) and does a lot more (as you all know)[/b]

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 3:54 pm

I got it..It is cool for quick inspiaration..Cool things is you can use AU's in it and loops..You could make professional tracks with it if you are talented and creative by no dought. It is not Live, nor trying to be. I love Live..probably my favorite piece of software. It is reliable, sounds awesome, looks super modern, and just plain cool.
I would just love to see a way to write music like a virtual keyboard and a instrument tracks for AU's/VST one day.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:50 pm

Apparently the 1.0.1 update adds Rewire support to Garageband:

• http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/ ... 000071.php

Share and enjoy--

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 5:20 pm

I told ya it had Rewire..
But too bad you not directly record in like in Live..
Best thing also I love in Live as the plugs rock! I wonder what Live rewire component has to be out of the system?

GarageBand Update Brings ReWire Support

MIDI hepcats understand the benefits of Propellerhead Software's ReWire technology (a technology that allows two applications to share audio data). The recent GarageBand 1.0.1 update hints that good things are coming in regard to ReWire support.

When you launch GarageBand 1.0.1 and then Propellerhead's too-cool-for-words-music-station-software, Reason, you'll discover that the two programs talk to one another. Reason enters slave mode and when you press the Spacebar or Play button, both Reason and GarageBand begin playing. Any master volume settings you've created in GarageBand also apply to a running Reason sequence.

A tiny gotcha: If you also have Ableton's Live installed, you won't hear your Reason tracks. If you move Live's support files (do a search under "Ableton" and move anything you find), log-out, log back in again, and launch GarageBand and then Reason, the Reason tracks play as they should.

lasers and their beams · Post by **lasers and their beams** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 6:39 pm

I needed the other updates anyway, but it's a lot of harmless fun for $49. Very usable piano, B3, and rhodes, better than Reason's, FWIW. And the steel-string acoustic...fairly amazing...John Mayer used I think the nylon-stringed at the keynote. The steel is, for linear fingerpicking...very believable, and I hate guitar emulations as much as any of you. It's pretty cool going from inspiration to ipod in like 10 minutes. It's the perfect melody-writing tool for me.

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 7:19 pm

sorry to ask this hear,but do you know how to open the editor window so it is bigger?
One trick I will do is replace all those drum samples with my own.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:54 am

so does it work in rewire mode with Live?

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:28 pm

ALL musical software and hardware ARE TOYS, that's why it's called PLAYING music!

Garage band is incredibly more powerful than the original MPC, and some people will make awesome music with it!

The only thing I didn't like was that you couldn't make your own Apple loops, but now you can DL the utility for free.