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A GB review!

GB review

And his QuickTime audio samples of his songs ......... I thought they sounded pretty good!!
 
Re: GB review

Originally posted by gileschin
And his QuickTime audio samples of his songs ......... I thought they sounded pretty good!!
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Ugh.... If nothing else makes me shell out for iLife, it'll be to get GB to determine whether the limitations were the software of the composer.

When I tested GB at MWSF I was impressed with most of the app, but the effects left much to be desired in terms of flexibility. This is another feature I can't wait to explore.

PS - I know a lot of people are already downloading iLife. I hope everyone who does will either buy it when it hits the shelves or break their leg. $50 is not more than you can afford to save for such a suite. Innovation comes at a cost (R&D). If you don't pay for software than you have no right to expect innovation.

Dan
 
CPU requirements

I'm sure processing loops is CPU-intensive. Each little recording must be mathematically re-processed to match the current key/pitch and tempo.

Normally, slowing down a sound makes the pitch lower, and speeding it up makes the pitch higher. But a loop app like this needs to set the pitch and tempo INDEPENDENTLY. That takes processor power to re-build the waveform on the fly at high quality.

Luckily, my 700 Mhz eMac showed no signs of choking on as many tracks and effects as I could throw at it in Soundtrack.
 
Good product, so-so review, lame music

A fair-to-middlin' job of reviewing, IMHO. He mostly talked about usability, and didn't talk much about a feature list. I wish he had known enough to outline the reasons why someone wouldn't be satisfied with GB, for instance.

The songs he created and posted are a good sample of what we'll be seeing all over the place in the weeks and months ahead: a lot of mediocre music and a lot of just plain awful music. I'm not complaining or trying to be elitist -- just pointing out the inevitable. Kinda like when Pagemaker and the laser printer first came out in '86; all of a sudden everybody was a DTP expert, and you saw the most awful stuff popping up everywhere. Now that GB brings recording/looping capability to the masses, everyone will be a composer/performer. Sort of.
 
Re: Re: GB review

Originally posted by alset
PS - I know a lot of people are already downloading iLife. I hope everyone who does will either buy it when it hits the shelves or break their leg. $50 is not more than you can afford to save for such a suite. Innovation comes at a cost (R&D). If you don't pay for software than you have no right to expect innovation.
Click to expand...

My copy is already on the FedEx truck. Truly, if someone can't afford $50 for this sweet suite, they've got no business having a computer in the first place.

Since I don't see '04 updates on Apple's site, I'm assuming you're talking about illegal downloaders. If so, that ticks me off somethin' fierce. Leeches!
 
Re: GB review

Originally posted by gileschin
And his QuickTime audio samples of his songs ......... I thought they sounded pretty good!!
Click to expand...

Hmmmm. If those sounded good, well, you're going to be in hog heaven pretty soon. I predict we'll be hearing very similar-sounding "music" everywhere . . .

Whoops -- please ignore the card-carrying curmudgeon who wrote the above. Fact is, a lot of people will have a lot of fun with GB. :)
 
GarageBand is another killer app!

I played with GarageBand at Macworld Expo and I believe it could get a new generation of Mac users hooked on music and Macs. It is yet another angle on the whole iTunes/Mac experience.

It reminded me of the fun I had as a kid playing with the Music Construction Kit for the trusty Apple //e. Suddenly practicing the piano had some purpose. Even if GarageBand isn't perfect, it serves as an excellent first-look entry into the world of making music with computers, just as iMovie has done for movie making with Macs.

$50 for the the software! Are they joking? I think MCS cost more than that back in 1985 and compared to what's available today, I was making cave drawings and pounding on a rock with a stick. Anyone complaining about having to pay for iLife needs to get a life.
 
His demo songs on one hand weren't technically anything special (his levels needed a lot of work!) and what he said about strings was very true, they did sound ordinary.

But on the other, it did demonstrate how easy it was and that if he spent another few hours on them... they had potential.

But he was honest too - he said the first was boring - and it was. The second was more interesting.

How long before we start hearing GarageBand muzak everywhere though? *cringe*.

I look fwd to GB, but I will leave it to the pro's to go public with their creations. :D
 
This is really tempting me to buy the new iLife, I have no need for the programs other than GB as I dont have a digital camera or Superdrive and I use FCE for video. Additionally Im a failed guitar player but I still have my electric guitar so I could try again, even though I know Im useless.

This is just what Apple does, tempting me in when I dont need something! :rolleyes:Arggghhh heheh
 
Thought I'd pipe up on the subject seeing as I'm a Pro

Regarding loops taking up CPU power:

For those of you who DON'T know Steinberg's 'ReCycle' and anything about 'Groove Control' here is what happens. Loops are broken down into 'mini samples' or 'mini loops' and these are played via midi triggers. As the triggers are just telling the samples WHEN to play and the overall loops are chopped up into tiny pieces, any change of tempo is immediately translated into the way the loop sounds. So you can change tempo as much as you want, the samples are just triggered faster or slower.

I would imagine that Garageband does what many of us have been doing for ages in Logic Audio etc but 'hides' the modus operandi so it doesn't get complicated. I haven't yet played around with Garageband so I don't know if you can go in and 'edit' these triggers. Perhaps there are different levels of editing depending on your expertise.

Another thing about loops and sample instuments regarding CPU power:

On Logic Audio you can choose to have samples load into memory when you choose them OR play them from the hard drive (just as your own 'recording' would) By juggling how much you have 'streaming' from the disk and how much is played straight from memory is a factor on how much CPU power is being drained. It's a balance between the maximum amount of bandwidth AND the maximum CPU power. On Pro systems by this juggling you can get the most out of your current hardware.

Garageband does NOT takes loops and then in realtime do a 'timestretch' on each and every one. If if were to do that then not only would it sound silly and bad but also the computer would collapse - that kind of thing is EXTREMELY CPU intensive.

However, as in one loop there may be as many as 20 different segments that means that just to play one loop once the computer is accessing 20 different files. Do the maths. 10 loops? Your mac is accessing perhaps 200 different files per bar and playing them in sync.

The greatest draw on the computers CPU is actually the effects you may use, and also any soft synth which has to work out its output in real time. Streaming from disk is a relatively low CPU hit, so I would imagine you could play back quite a fair few tracks with no effects on which you had recorded yourself.

Reverb is the biggest single CPU drain.


Hope some of this helps.

Cheers

Bev
 
I am looking foward to this i really iam. Gives me a reall exscuse to buy a new Mac. As for audio and processing and g3 issues yep its dam right true. Try doing anything with mor than say 6 tracks and your going to be struggling its all based around the speed at which the procesor can work blah blah blah . Your gona want a new system anyways for all the great addons to iLife. its 79 dollars australian by the way so nothing to complain about for 50. Oh and Reason 2.5 has the same size loop libary and its over 300 dollars USD i belive. so nothing to complain about at all..

Whats with the vocals been on one chanel as well on the demos
 
This guys tunes might be the worst piles I've ever heard. And those strings sound like total $H!t. This took him a few hours? Scary.
 
Re: Re: GB review

Originally posted by splashman

The songs he created and posted are a good sample of what we'll be seeing all over the place in the weeks and months ahead: a lot of mediocre music and a lot of just plain awful music.
______________________________

Hmmmm. If those sounded good, well, you're going to be in hog heaven pretty soon. I predict we'll be hearing very similar-sounding "music" everywhere . . .
Click to expand...

Okay, we get it already. You've got more sophisticated music tastes than the "masses". How many times do you need to post it?
 
Originally posted by Rincewind42
Afraid not, but if there were do you really think that you would want to sit through a 5+ GB download?
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w00t!?
What's taking all that space? Is it GB?
 
Originally posted by filipp
Is there a way to buy iLife online?
Like "download now" option.
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Its a couple Gigs of stuff.


No I don't think they are having an download now option.

Also iLife is just a compilation of programs you have/do not have already on your mac.
 
Originally posted by ChrisH3677
His demo songs on one hand weren't technically anything special (his levels needed a lot of work!) and what he said about strings was very true, they did sound ordinary.

But on the other, it did demonstrate how easy it was and that if he spent another few hours on them... they had potential.
Click to expand...

I agree. I wouldn't rush out and buy an album full of stuff like that but I was impressed nonetheless. Course, I think a lot of top 40 stuff is crap, too. For a few hours on the software as a first time user, I might add, it was okay.

Squire

P.S. I wonder if he had the Jam Pack?
 
Originally posted by filipp
w00t!?
What's taking all that space? Is it GB?
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if you check the specs, it says iLife 04 with the lot takes 4.3Gb. But if you leave off GB and iDVD, it only needs 250Mb or so of space.

My iDVD takes near 2Gb so GB must take the other 2Gb.
 
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