Hey guys,
I work in a high-profile independent music store that caters to everyone from complete newbies all the way to world-famous rock stars and film composers. Multiple times every day I get some 14-year-old kid or 45-year-old yuppie into the store asking "Uh... how do I make music on my computer?"
"Well, there are many ways. What kind of computer do you have?"
"Uh... I dunno. It's kinda' beige."
At this point, the first thing I do is give them my 6-page "Computer Recording Made Relatively Simple" brochure and say "Well, I can babble for about twenty minutes or you can sit and read this thing."
Most of us aren't dumb. But some of my customers are D-U-M-B. Nice people, genuinely passionate people, but complete luddites nevertheless. These are the people who need GarageBand. They need GarageBand.
They need something that doesn't have MIDI out, because along with MIDI out comes local control, MIDI channels, MIDI ports, multitimbrality, polyphony, and dozens more.
They need something that doesn't support multiple inputs, because with multiple inputs come third-party drivers, routing, bussing, and setting buffers.
And can you imagine Apple tech support having to field thousands of calls from people who don't understand why their Roland keyboard's sounds won't play from their computer speakers?
"Sir? No, you see, MIDI doesn't send any audio signals. The sound of the keyboard stays in the keyboard."
"Whatta ya mean? How can I hear it then?"
"Well, sir, you have to have the speakers hooked up to the keyboard."
"Huh? I gotta get another set of speakers? That's crap! This $50 software makes me buy a $60 set of speakers?"
"Well, you could hook both the output of the keyboard and the output of the computer into a mixer and then send that to a single pair of speakers. You can find mixers for around $50."
"Huh? But there's a mixer on the screen!"
"No, sir, that's only for the tracks that are already recorded in the computer. You still need a hardware mixer to hear multiple pieces of gear through the same set of speakers."
"But I gots the keyboard goin' into the MIDI!"
>sigh!<
Thank GOD Garage Band doesn't support MIDI out. Thank GOD Garage Band doesn't support recording more than one or two tracks. It shouldn't. It should be braindead simple to operate like iPhoto.
Speaking of which, professional photograpers don't use iPhoto to remove red-eye just like professional musicians won't use GarageBand to record their masterpieces. And that's a good thing.
Logic Big Box is only $199. It contains Logic Audio, EXSP24 sample player, EVP76 digital piano, ES1 softsynth, and an EXS sample library. It may very well be the most in-depth software bundle for the money ever conceived, in any category of software. It's immensely powerful. And again, it's $199. No one should ever complain.
