Apple's Garageband?

[RevGroove]

Depends on how fast you want to go and what kind of comuter you have. The one I want is $350 but I know there are cheaper ones.

I'd love to upgrade to a faster G4 processor...which one are you looking at?

 

[basss]

I'm looking at the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

 

[RevGroove]

I'm looking at the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

Thanks for the link, I'm definitely interested in that upgrade!!!

 

[Kael]

Garage Band is the DAW version of crack. I sit down to just mess around with it for a few minutes and realize that I've been playing at being Moby with loops for the past 6 hours or so.

I've never done any tracking into Garage Band, although I know people who have with ok results. I just use Digital Performer, much more flexibility while still being simpler than Protools.

 

[andy_cooper]

Well, the new version of GB enables you to import midi, so, if you exported a midi file from BIAB then you could play it back in GB.

Band in a Box DOES let you take a song, and save it as a midi file. The problem is that it's not broken down into individual tracks that GB can use (i.e. bass, piano, drums, guitar, etc.) There's a shareware program that lets you drang 'n drop the midi file and it separates and saves the tracks so GB can use them. It's called "Dent du Midi" Any google search will get you to the web site to download it. It works perfectly.

btw - a friend just got his copy of GB version 2. Apparently, this feature is now built in, so I guess you wouldn't need the Dent du Midi application any more. But if you have GB 1, you do need it.

 

[fretlessrock]

I'm trying to get an idea of how GB operates. Its loop based, right? So that means you are stuck with whatever loops are available and these loops are basically one chord vamps. This would make it difficult to sequence a complex chord progression unless you actually played it on a midi keyboard, correct?

Not really true. You can split individual tracks into segments and change the pitch on each section so you can at least transpose the figure to make a progression. The loops come in similar "series" so you can switch between similar loops and break up the repeat monotony. What I liked doing in ACID was working with a complex drum pattern over 8 separate tracks, then bouncing it to a stereo track. This frees up a lot of tracks, and lets you be more flexible with the cut and paste.

Since you can track live instruments, midi instruments, and loops, you can pretty much make it sound however you want it to sound. I like GB for making drum parts and then working out over them. But you could be using the drum tracks as a scratch part and record real drums later.

As for being stuck, you could use a program like Peak LE to edit your own loops, so you are only "stuck" if you don't want to make your own.

Pete