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Apple GarageBand Tips and Detailed Info
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Hey guys. I am the guy who sent chaosmint the GB help files last night. I am glad you like the info he took from it. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I probably won't be coming back here much but I have been posting a lot of the info over at the garagebandcreations.com forums. Over there is some more info and I posted the document and loop icons. If you don't want to go there you can find the info here.
Thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
Audacity Works -- You state many times that GB is free... but its not.
Not even close to free.
At ALL.
GB -- NOT FREE.
It doesn't help if you don't state the truth.
iLife -- Not free, therefore
GB -- Not Free!
http://www.apple.com/ilife/
Notice there is no where there that says 'FREE DOWNLOAD NOW' it says purchase.
Not all of us have seen the Keynote or where there in person.
And yes I am confused.
Also the accessories cost more:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/accessories.html
A question from a MIDI newbie:
Will GB allow you to input music manually, note for note, without the use of a keyboard? I've seen screenshots with the notes shown as bars in the lower window, and have seen MIDI apps where you can draw those lines with the mouse to input the notes. Can GB do that, or is MIDI/mic/loop the only way to get music in?
Will GB allow you to input music manually, note for note, without the use of a keyboard? I've seen screenshots with the notes shown as bars in the lower window, and have seen MIDI apps where you can draw those lines with the mouse to input the notes. Can GB do that, or is MIDI/mic/loop the only way to get music in?
I have an M-Box, so I have Protools too, with Reason Adapted2.5 and a scaled down version of Live. I can say that i'm just pleased with this gear (except for Reason2.5... I'd say that they adapted it too much... I can barely do a thing that REAL users of Reason can do. And I can't even buy the full thing for an update price...) I'm not a pro, just an hobbyist. But i can tell that i'll get my hand on GB. That's for sure. Anyway, there's more than GB in the box... So for 59 CAN$ I'd say that this is a fair price.
I just wonder though, is GB compatible with ReWire so i could use it as a third "instrument"?
I just wonder though, is GB compatible with ReWire so i could use it as a third "instrument"?
IPhoto & IMovie should be set free
Having put in my order,
I can now say IPhoto and IMovie should be free.
- If you want the new functionality of IDVD or GB then you should buy it.
But, I would want to keep all those Apple people up to date on IPhoto and IMovie.
That's how I'd do it.
I like the enticement of the IApps drawing people to the Mac Platform. And Keeping them.
Having put in my order,
I can now say IPhoto and IMovie should be free.
- If you want the new functionality of IDVD or GB then you should buy it.
But, I would want to keep all those Apple people up to date on IPhoto and IMovie.
That's how I'd do it.
I like the enticement of the IApps drawing people to the Mac Platform. And Keeping them.
I'm going to guess no to the Recycle loops (REX files) because they come from a competing product.
Reason will work just fine because you can easily export loops from it in an .AIFF or .WAV format. I guess Recycle will work just fine to that extent as well, but you'll have to export the loops at the exact same tempo as the song you're making in Garageband.
My guess is a big no on the Rewire support though...
Here are a couple of interviews with engineer Tchad Blake, where he says he doesn't record amps much anymore (he uses a SansAmp instead):
http://www.bombfactory.com/faq/tchad.html
http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/tchad/tchad_16_3.shtml
a quote:
Listen to the Soul Coughing "Ruby Vroom" LP--the drum and bass sound, that's SansAmp. In fact, there are no amps used at all on that record.
(...though he does mention that he doesn't like using the SansAmp so much for electric guitar.)
I'm pretty positive they used a real sound card for that test. Probably one of the newer firewire audio interfaces because the latency is really low and this is important for direct monitoring of effects.
Re: GarageBand and where it fits in Apple's lineup
You forgot one or two things...
You forgot one or two things...
You can also record audio with Soundtrack. You can also convert your recording to a stretchable loop using Soundtrack's Loop Utility (which lives in /Applications/Utilities, no less).
You forgot the most important thing: audio recording via line-in. If GB lacked that capability, it'd be nothing more than a toy.
Don't forget that Soundtrack is part of FinalCut Pro and can sync video and audio. Its purpose is to create a soundtrack (sic) for a movie.
You can do this with Soundtrack's Loop Utility. Might be available as a standalone app (if you know where to lookOriginally posted by MetallicPenguin
Don't know if this has been asked or not, but can you record your own music and turn it into a loop? This would be very nifty, especially for a little doo ti doo doo, doo ti doo doo, doo ti doo doo...etc
).Definitely. As many other posters here said, a guitar with passive pickups, single-coils even, doesn't sound very pleasant when plugged directly into a Mac.
Guess what? You don't need a bass amp! Just take clean guitar sound, tweak the EQ a bit. If you have a good-sounding bass and know who to get different sounds using just your fingers, that's all you need.
I mean, for me that is the whole point in GB: take a PowerBook, a guitar or bass, maybe a little preamp (I use a BOSS CS-3 Compressor with very little compression dialled in) and off you go. Add a good mic and mic-preamp and I'm sure a talented musician could produce really great music. When you hear a great song, do you care about the equipment that's used to produce that song? Do you care that Strawberry Fields was recorded on a 4-Track tape machine? See.
iLife philosophy says no MIDI out
I think the reason there is no MIDI out is because the iLife strategy, is to manage your digital lifestyle on your mac and integrate all iLife apps so that what each one does, is accessible to the other. Not that you can dump iDVD to iPhoto but...heh...media conflict there.
This whole strategy lets you bring your life TO the Mac. Apple wants you to have your Mac as the destination with the ability to archive to cd, dvd, paper etc. MIDI IN does this; plugging in a guitar does this and so on. The mix-down function of GB satisfies the second requirement. It makes the music accessible to other iLife apps, since it dumps to AIFF.
By having a MIDI OUT, you are then taking people AWAY from their Macs to other MIDI devices, for which Apple cannot control the user experience, which iLife is founded on as a core philosophy. Apple doesn't want to have to ever issue a 'GB won't play out of such an such a keyboard because it doesn't support GMS, has different patch sections which controller ## must trigger to do a bank cfhange blah blah blah' knowledge base article I'm guessing.
It may be because I struggle grasping MIDI and patch selection on my Roland XP-60, but I despise being invited to send some controller number and data number to get to patch 43 in section C from a MIDI app that doesn't have a sound list in plain english. I'm trying to get away from all that stuff. GB will help me delve into the world of softsynths. I don't see any easy way for GB to let users select a tone from a bank or keyboard expansion bay bank or GM set or what have you. Apple would have to constantly provide transparent patch selection tools and be issuing software patch databases all day long for every new sound module (with keyboard or not as a synth) out there. BLECH!
Also, with Apple's strategy to have the Mac as the center of our digital lifestyle, how practical would it be to have to change it to, "you can play your songs on your digital lifestyle Mac, only if you bring along that MIDI device there, that one there on and that big-ass digital piano there that you recorded those 3 filler notes that only sound good on that MIDI enable digital piano". I'm guessing Apple wants to keep your portable, for the "year of the laptop" type things too. A softsynth collection without any need to ever send MIDI messages outside of its tone generator to a U-haul of MIDI gear, is a sweet portable deal. Keeps your musical creative life on your Mac without strings attached (litterally).
It also allows this sceniario, "you're up till 3 am and you get this killer brainstorm. You jump in GB, toss the idea together really quick and click on 'save'. You then sleep 2 hours, get back up, yank your other band mates out of their sleep and you know they're too exhausted to run to the full MIDI setup you have a 30 min drive away from the hotel, so you just flip open the laptop and press play. They don't have to be truly conscious nor get dressed to hear your brilliance." By inviting a GB user to even remotely consider sending stuff out to other MIDI devices, kills spontaneous creativity and portable presentation unless you never leave the confines of your MIDI network. It's no longer your life, it becomes work. It's calleld iLife and not iWork heh.
GB is not a sequencer, it's an enabler. It's not a MIDI waypoint to push data along past a tone generator. It's a destination where Apple controls the plushness of your stay. And it does this with great quality, some of it professional quality.
I hope this makes sense and that I came off as having some kind of clue.
I think the reason there is no MIDI out is because the iLife strategy, is to manage your digital lifestyle on your mac and integrate all iLife apps so that what each one does, is accessible to the other. Not that you can dump iDVD to iPhoto but...heh...media conflict there.
This whole strategy lets you bring your life TO the Mac. Apple wants you to have your Mac as the destination with the ability to archive to cd, dvd, paper etc. MIDI IN does this; plugging in a guitar does this and so on. The mix-down function of GB satisfies the second requirement. It makes the music accessible to other iLife apps, since it dumps to AIFF.
By having a MIDI OUT, you are then taking people AWAY from their Macs to other MIDI devices, for which Apple cannot control the user experience, which iLife is founded on as a core philosophy. Apple doesn't want to have to ever issue a 'GB won't play out of such an such a keyboard because it doesn't support GMS, has different patch sections which controller ## must trigger to do a bank cfhange blah blah blah' knowledge base article I'm guessing.
It may be because I struggle grasping MIDI and patch selection on my Roland XP-60, but I despise being invited to send some controller number and data number to get to patch 43 in section C from a MIDI app that doesn't have a sound list in plain english. I'm trying to get away from all that stuff. GB will help me delve into the world of softsynths. I don't see any easy way for GB to let users select a tone from a bank or keyboard expansion bay bank or GM set or what have you. Apple would have to constantly provide transparent patch selection tools and be issuing software patch databases all day long for every new sound module (with keyboard or not as a synth) out there. BLECH!
Also, with Apple's strategy to have the Mac as the center of our digital lifestyle, how practical would it be to have to change it to, "you can play your songs on your digital lifestyle Mac, only if you bring along that MIDI device there, that one there on and that big-ass digital piano there that you recorded those 3 filler notes that only sound good on that MIDI enable digital piano". I'm guessing Apple wants to keep your portable, for the "year of the laptop" type things too. A softsynth collection without any need to ever send MIDI messages outside of its tone generator to a U-haul of MIDI gear, is a sweet portable deal. Keeps your musical creative life on your Mac without strings attached (litterally).
It also allows this sceniario, "you're up till 3 am and you get this killer brainstorm. You jump in GB, toss the idea together really quick and click on 'save'. You then sleep 2 hours, get back up, yank your other band mates out of their sleep and you know they're too exhausted to run to the full MIDI setup you have a 30 min drive away from the hotel, so you just flip open the laptop and press play. They don't have to be truly conscious nor get dressed to hear your brilliance." By inviting a GB user to even remotely consider sending stuff out to other MIDI devices, kills spontaneous creativity and portable presentation unless you never leave the confines of your MIDI network. It's no longer your life, it becomes work. It's calleld iLife and not iWork heh.
GB is not a sequencer, it's an enabler. It's not a MIDI waypoint to push data along past a tone generator. It's a destination where Apple controls the plushness of your stay. And it does this with great quality, some of it professional quality.
I hope this makes sense and that I came off as having some kind of clue.
I was in one of the Apple Stores in Boston yesterday and asked two sales people there this specific question. Both of them asserted that the new iLife will NOT be included in new macs - it'll cost the $20 upgrade to get it.
Well I certainly hope so - I'm buying a mac for the wife fairly soon. You would think that Apple would ensure that their staff knew pretty important stuff like this, wouldn't you? I told them to expect some fairly disgruntled customers if what they said was true.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/06ilife.html
The $20 thing is if you buy a mac today before iLife starts shipping. After Jan 16th or so, it will come with iLife.
arn
Re: Re: audio track limit?
Steve said "Digitally mix up to 64 tracks" just as a general statement about the app. I have seen other low-end apps have separate limits on audio tracks than on other tracks such as MIDI. Nowhere in the keynote or on Apple's site does it say anything specific about the number of audio tracks other than this general statement of "64 tracks" .. in fact the GarageBand pages on the Apple site tout "You can record multiple performances in the same track" as some sort of advantage, although it says nothing specific about multiple tracks of audio or "real instruments." Sure, I'm probably being paranoid, but this makes me at least want to wait for something more conclusive before buying it.
Also, anybody else notice they added the word LIKE to "It's (Like) Microsoft Office for the rest of your life" .... I guess somebody thought they were offering lifetime upgrades to somebody else's product
Steve said "Digitally mix up to 64 tracks" just as a general statement about the app. I have seen other low-end apps have separate limits on audio tracks than on other tracks such as MIDI. Nowhere in the keynote or on Apple's site does it say anything specific about the number of audio tracks other than this general statement of "64 tracks" .. in fact the GarageBand pages on the Apple site tout "You can record multiple performances in the same track" as some sort of advantage, although it says nothing specific about multiple tracks of audio or "real instruments." Sure, I'm probably being paranoid, but this makes me at least want to wait for something more conclusive before buying it.
Also, anybody else notice they added the word LIKE to "It's (Like) Microsoft Office for the rest of your life" .... I guess somebody thought they were offering lifetime upgrades to somebody else's product
mobilepre USB question
So I'm pretty new to digital multitracking. I plan on recording guitar and bass tracks and some tracks from my drum machine as well. I imagine that I'll have to buy something like the MobilePre USB in/out interface to plug my mics into, but I'm wondering something about it.
Since that interface handles both the audio in and out, when I'm laying down tracks, what's to stop GB from recording not only the audio that I'm playing but RE-RECORDING the audio that I've already recorded? Maybe this is super simple or there's some kind of setting or something, but I'm having a hard time understanding how that would work.
thanks for any advice. ..
So I'm pretty new to digital multitracking. I plan on recording guitar and bass tracks and some tracks from my drum machine as well. I imagine that I'll have to buy something like the MobilePre USB in/out interface to plug my mics into, but I'm wondering something about it.
Since that interface handles both the audio in and out, when I'm laying down tracks, what's to stop GB from recording not only the audio that I'm playing but RE-RECORDING the audio that I've already recorded? Maybe this is super simple or there's some kind of setting or something, but I'm having a hard time understanding how that would work.
thanks for any advice. ..
GARAGEBAND QUESTION
I'm new to the music software game and had a basic question:
with garageband, can one import mp3 or wav files but more importantly, once imported, can you edit them into loops? ie chop and tweak them down the a piece you want? Or does that need to be done in additional software before import?
If not, can anyone recomnmend an inexpensive and BASIC sample editer, where i can manipulate loops, pref. in real time?
Thanks so much
PS I have played with Reason before but am looking for something much more simple.
I'm new to the music software game and had a basic question:
with garageband, can one import mp3 or wav files but more importantly, once imported, can you edit them into loops? ie chop and tweak them down the a piece you want? Or does that need to be done in additional software before import?
If not, can anyone recomnmend an inexpensive and BASIC sample editer, where i can manipulate loops, pref. in real time?
Thanks so much
PS I have played with Reason before but am looking for something much more simple.