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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.
A friend brought over his Midi/USB keyboard, and it worked great in GarageBand. But I'm not that much of an audio head to drop significant cash on a Midi/USB keyboard...
The built-in Keyboard thingy in GarageBand kind of sucks, because you have to use the mouse to hit the keys... or do I? Does anyone know of a way to use the actual (qwerty) keyboard to record in notes?
I hope its not an obvious solution, because I looked around in the docs and couldn't find it.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Does anybody know if there is a (cheap) Midi keyboard to USB converter that will work with a Powerbook? Having already got a MIDI keyboard I don't really want to go buying another.
Has anybody found a good place to buy the M-Audio Keystation 49e? The King of Prussia Apple Store never has it in, and the estimated ship date from the online Apple Store is 4-6 weeks. I want that keyboard, God Dammit! For $99, it's a nice USB Midi keyboard.
... here:
...)
http://virus.info/
(That's Virus as in the hot synthesizer not the Microsoft kind
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Hi, I've been downloading loops from these guys for years. I've been bugging them to port Acid to the Mac since, oh, 1999? Recently, Mike told me they weren't gonna port it -- because their lead programmer moved over to Apple to write SoundTrack and GarageBand.
They put out an 8pack of loops every two weeks usually. I've got like 1000 loops now, and I've been thinking of writing a Konfabulator widget to automate the downloading, organizing, etc. of my loops.
www.acidplanet.com/loops/8packs/
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Don't need any third-party tool. Just drag your MIDI files into the iTunes Library (literally), then select the newly added song and convert to AIFF. Finally drag this new version of the song as a new track to GarageBand. Mind you, all the MIDI information is lost in the process, so make sure you're satisfied with it.
Doing it that way gives you crappy sounding aiff files that you can't do much with in garageband. Using Dent du Midi gives you individual files with the seperate instrument tracks like a real midi file...you can then change instruments and even edit individual notes in Garageband. The two methods don't even compare. Dent du Midi involves a few more steps, but makes a world of difference.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
I was Toys'R'Us checking out the keyboards. FOr about 150$ a yamaha keyboard, touch sensative keys (58 keys I think) and midi out. I think any of these inexpensive keyboards would be a good-alternative as they also work as stand alone players as well.
Mind you, all the MIDI information is lost in the process
:-) What Dent du MIDI does is converts each MIIDI channel into a separate file that can be imported as a separate track into iTunes, where you can then apply any software instrument voices and effects separately to each, etc. If you're really satsified with the crummy QuickTime Synthesizer sounds, and don't want to separately manipulate each channel, I suppose your method is OK, but ...
Yes, and that makes it almost completely useless.
The main feature I miss in GarageBand is "tap tempo", which is to say, you can tap a key on the keyboard in a 1... 2... 3... 4... rhythm and the software will extrapolate and average the tempo from your tapping. Does anyone have any recommendations for any little utilities that might offer this?
~jeff
It's fun to pipe Garageband's output into other more robust sequencers and apps - check out Jack for OS X: http://www.jackosx.com
He doesn't give GarageBand enough credit. First, the sounds: yes, the horn sounds are weak, and the string sounds are not much better, but the piano sounds are very good, and so are the guitars. Also, I don't think he really stresses how GarageBand is good enough for the music recording needs of most people. All most people need is what it does very well.
That said, I am grateful to him for his plea against people pumping out elevator music crap. Loops should be used sparingly, if at all. The only time I really use loops is for drums.
You're complaining about slowness during installing? That's not interesting. What you are experiencing is the "optimizing" process, in which the OS updates itself so apps can launch a lot more quickly. It happens only during install, and yes it takes longer to install than on other systems, but it is for larger performance gains after the one-time install.
Complaining about this is boring, and no, the same operation on Windows would not take 2 minutes, because Windows doesn't have this optimization feature. Google for "prebinding" to learn more.
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.
Like anyone can even know that
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
The link in the blurb is to the second part of the article. Here is the actual link.
I've heard excellent string and horn synth sounds, but not in a software package, it was all in hardware modules. That was years ago, though, I'm sure some software sounds exist that sound good. Anyway, in GB, it appears to me the good sounds (guitars, pianos) were samples (recording actual sounds), and the crummy ones (horns, strings) are FM synthesis or the like (faking it by manipulating waveforms until it sorta sounds right).
*sigh*
You of all people should know not to feed the troll.
- Sherman
I almost shot coffee out of my nose when I heard MacBand.com's #2 rated song, "Bounce". Definitely needs more cowbell!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I've been using an Oxygen-8, which works fine, and I've been hanging around with a friend who is using a 49-key machine.
I also have plugged a bass directly in (electric bass guitar) when I teach lessons, then had my student play along with a keyboard MIDI and drum loop. I record it, then burn it to a CD and have them listen critically to what they've done. As always with recording, they notice good and bad that they don't hear when they're "in the moment."
I also use Garage Band to make other practice loops for myself and my students. Most of them don't have macs, so they get burned CDs, where they can't change the tempo as they could with an original GB file. But they do love them.
A great teaching tool. Now all they have to do is some optimization so it isn't such a CPU hog!
Check out the "GarageBand Demo" on http://homepage.mac.com/pudge/. I just did that with electric guitar -> cable -> 1/2" mono to 1/4" mono adapter -> iMic. The adapter is just one of the many things I had lying around, got it from Radio Shack years ago. You can judge the quality for yourself; set your balance to the right speaker to cut out most of the synth and hear the guitar better.
But now that I have a Tascam US-122, I wouldn't want to go through the iMic anymore, and I would just go into the L input on the US-122, and record in mono.
I tested it with 10.3.2 and it worked just fine. I also just tested it on my Linux box (my PowerBook is at home) and it appears to work, granted I didn't play the files, but they are there.
Did you get an error?
Here is what I got:
I've just been to a great demo of GarageBand by the producer Steve Levine (Beach Boys, Culture Club, lots of others - http://www.stevelevine.co.uk/ - which has various free stuff to download) at the VideoForum/SoundsExpo exhibition in London.
He thinks its a serious recording tool, good enough to produce records on. The pieces he'd recorded (in just a few hours) were complex, multi-layered, and did show how much it could do, and that it didn't need to sound like just another GarageBand composition.
He built up massive rythm sections (using multiple tracks), often taking just a snare or high-hat from a loop (open it and delete the other parts of the drum kit you don't like). He also made great use of the different effects to make them sound very unlike a straight-forward loop.
The audio tracks are similarly easy to cut bits out of and use to set up your own riffs.
He also showed off The Hit Kit (published by Dorling Kindersley [Mac and Windoze], which includes a cut-down version of Logic, a microphone, a CD of samples). It provides a very cheap (UKP25 - about $40) next step for GarageBand users - most of the power of Logic (including synching to video), less of the complexity. As he said, it is easy to move tracks from one app to the other.
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