GarageBand Roundup

Wired covers the GarageBand revolution. Matt Van Horm writes "MacBand.com is an online directory of songs and loops created by users of Apple's GarageBand software who submit their work. Songs are organized by category and loops are organized by genre, instrument and mood, and are rated with a system similar to the one in iTunes." franklinrh writes in about the free loops available from Access, and others note free loops from Bitshift Audio and Drums on Demand. And if you want to import MIDI files into GarageBand, check out Dent du MIDI. What other software -- and equipment -- are you using with GarageBand? I've got my setup pumping out tunes.

Comments

Re:Keyboard?

[krist0]

download a program called midikeys

Midikeys

Re:USB - MIDI converter

[pldms]

MOTU, Yamaha and M-Audio all have MIDI-USB intefaces. The question is how cheap is cheap?

I found the cheapest online was the M-Audio Midisport Uno, at $40. I was impatient, however, so I went to my local music shop where they had a Yahama UX96. More expensive, but more features (though I may never use them). Worked fine.

Also try ebay, of course. There were plenty available.

HTH

Re:Importing MIDI

[Anixamander]

Don't need any third-party tool. Just drag your MIDI files into the iTunes Library (literally), then select the newly added song and convert to AIFF. Finally drag this new version of the song as a new track to GarageBand. Mind you, all the MIDI information is lost in the process, so make sure you're satisfied with it.

Doing it that way gives you crappy sounding aiff files that you can't do much with in garageband. Using Dent du Midi gives you individual files with the seperate instrument tracks like a real midi file...you can then change instruments and even edit individual notes in Garageband. The two methods don't even compare. Dent du Midi involves a few more steps, but makes a world of difference.

Re:USB - MIDI converter

[jeffehobbs]

I can vouch for that M-Audio USB Uno; it works great and could not be simpler to set up. Just make sure to download the newest OS X drivers as in the box it may come with a bunch of OS 9 stuff that won't mean anything to GarageBand.

After installing the drivers, though, it's completely plug and play, the best MIDI experience I've ever had.

~jeff

Re:tap tempo

[Anonymous Coward]

I use iTunes BPM to do that from iTunes.

My Setup

[dwightk]

Right now it is just a PB 12" 867. You can check out 3 songs I made here (my blog). I have a Roland USB MIDI keyboard, but it is at home, and I am also going to get my electric guitar from home to make more tracks.

GB is pretty cool, but just like iMovie, I am finding the limitations really fast.

Non-apple loops can't be effectively transposed...

All the loops included don't show up if you start a song in either not-4/4, or not-C.

None of the included loops are transitions, they are all groves or effects.

On my computer the recording is too laggy... If I just want to bump all the notes to the nearest quarter note it is all-good, but it doesn't put them close enough to bump them to smaller notes.