I don’t pretend to be a virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination, and though I’ve been doing music for years, I’m plenty rusty and have much room for growth as with any other musician. With that disclaimer aside, I’ve been playing around with GarageBand a bit lately, an application part of iLife ‘08.

All in all, it’s a good application and can do quite a bit with so little. I’ve managed to throw together a few samples of what I’ve done with it so far; just messing around really and getting used to the interface, how things work, and some of the various quirks associate with the application. You can hear a few tracks here:

demo test 1.mp3 (1.8 MB, 1:18)
demo test 2.mp3 (3.6 MB, 2:38)
demo test 3.mp3 (5.7 MB, 4:07)
demo test 4.mp3 (2.6 MB, 1:51)

They’re nothing fancy; mostly midi stuff with a few guitar tracks or loops thrown in here and there, but gives you an idea of what you can do with the application. I’m sure if you’re a prodigy you could create some amazing things with it. I’m not, so the results will be ordinary.

Anyway, all that aside, it’s a decent little application that has a few drawbacks. The biggest drawback is the lack of sounds and instruments that come with it. You are essentially given an over-glorified Casio keyboard in terms of your options; not quality-wise necessarily, but in terms of volume. There really isn’t a whole lot to work with and after a few songs you may find yourself getting bored with your options.

This is where Apple decided that they could make a little more money off of you — give you a taste of what you can do, but leave you empty handed and wanting more…more instruments, more soundbanks, more effects. Personally, I find myself on Google searching for freebies to keep me somewhat satisfied.

I don’t think I’ll use GarageBand for any of my projects unless I’m able to acquire some more decent sounds; namely some quality stringed instrument sounds, a wider array of pads, and other cool instruments that could add value to your recording. Presently there just isn’t much going for GarageBand in terms of instruments unless you buy the expansion packs.

I’ll pass.

September 18, 2007, 11:13 pm

Filed under: Applications, Music, Recording

1 Comment »

1. Jamison said,

   September 19, 2007 @ 7:17 am

   Ya. I agree about the lack of instruments. I think that for a performing musician, the real strength of GarageBand is being able to prototype quickly and simply. You’ve got an idea for a tune and you just want to hear what it would sound like with a simple drum track behind it and such. Or, I used it a lot when I was in the band and you’d send out an mp3 of a track you were working on. I’d just drag the mp3 in to GB and then record over it to get an idea of what to play and how it would sound together.

   For heavy duty recording, ya Logic is the way to go, but for quick and dirty mixes, I think GB can fill a good role.

RSS feed for comments on this post

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.