“iLife ’04 (for the Mac OS X operating system) also includes a new program called GarageBand. It’s designed to let people with even the feeblest musical talent, or even musical interest, create professional-sounding digital recordings. It puts at least as much power into amateur hands as its i-predecessors; all it lacks is the traditional first initial,” David Pogue writes for The New York Times.
“You can build a song using three distinct tools. First, GarageBand comes with 1,100 loops: snippets recorded by studio musicians (bass, drums, guitars, strings, keyboards, mallet instruments, horn and string sections, and synthesized choirs). You can drag these snippets into a sequence as though they’re tiles, stretch the blocks on the screen to make them play over and over, and layer one instrument upon another. It’s a lot of instant gratification, even if you don’t know a quarter note from a quarter-pounder,” Pogue writes.
“The loops almost always sound good together – even when you layer Island Reggae Drums 03 with Nordic Fiddle 01. That’s because all of the loops play essentially the same, unchanging chord. (Of course, these days, building a song whose harmony never changes is no barrier to commercial success, as Pink demonstrated with “Get the Party Started.”),” Pogue writes.
“You can transpose these loops, making them play higher or lower, and even change their tempo. (Indeed, that’s one of GarageBand’s most impressive bits of magic; how can software make a digital recording play in a different key, or at a different tempo, without distorting it?) Still, that’s not quite the same thing as complete freedom to choose chords or melodies. In terms of compositional choices, nonmusicians are pretty much limited to fooling around with when various instruments play, not what,” Pogue writes. “…even in version 1.0, GarageBand is an exciting breakthrough. Not so much for established musicians (although even they may find it useful for practicing, experimenting with arrangements, and rough-draft composing), but for musicians who are yet to be established.”
“In the ‘American Idol’ era, it’s clear that commercial talent, if not great musical talent, is always out there, untapped and undiscovered. How can a gifted singer or talented play-by-ear instrumentalist reach what could be a grateful audience? Not by mailing out demo tapes recorded with the church accompanist, that’s for sure,” Pogue writes. “It won’t be long before the GarageBand creations of no-name singers and players start popping up on Web sites – indeed, it won’t be long before Web sites start popping up just to accommodate them – bypassing the talent scouts and gatekeepers of the American recording industry. GarageBand and the Internet give tomorrow’s stars their own democratic recording and distribution channels.”
Pogue writes, “That prospect of new artists growing from grass roots is probably what inspired Apple to name the software GarageBand, abandoning its lowercase i naming tradition. But when you consider both the fledgling state of the 1.0 version of this program and the immense musical and commercial forces it could one day unleash, you might conclude that there is, after all, an i-name that might have suited this remarkable software: iPotential.”
Full article here.
This will be another iPOD/iTUNES in terms of an innovation and market mover.
The PC world has nothing comparable to this product anywhere close to the price range, and nothing as easy to learn and use.
i want it right now
Wait till tomorrow…then storm your local Apple Store
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A good, detailed, article (look carefully, it’s 2 pages).
I was unaware of GarageBand’s limitations, but I am glad to there has been an addition to the software category “Cool Stuff Not Available On Microsoft”. This has HUGE expansion potential. I can’t wait for it to arrive tomorrow!
If you were trying to think of a new idea for a website, David gave a not-so-subtle hint. (…and if you need professional quality artwork or logos, try… http://homepage.mac.com/gmadigan/index.html )
Well if you “outgrow” GarageBand…you can move up to Sountrack and if you “outgrow” that them move to Logic.
I’ll be at the Apple Store when it opens tomorrow … provided I don’t drink too much tonight.
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The days of buying electronic music are ending. GarageBand websites will be the future.
I love the garage band concept and cannot wait to buy it!
“how can software make a digital recording play in a different key, or at a different tempo, without distorting it?”
I’ve been wondering exactly the same thing. I can’t wait to find out. I have MOTU’s Digital Performer, but sometimes I just want something simple. I think GarageBand is going to be exactly it.
something like this has been available in windows for at least two years… Sonar… Loops, Software instruments…. and the more advanced versions had better mixing options, way better MIDI functions…
sure, it’s harder to learn, costs a whole lot more, crashes three times a day, and doesn’t come free with every new machine… but it does exist… thank god apple came up with garage band….
musicians will soon be flocking to the mac once they see the reviews on Keyboard mag/Electronic Musician…..
people will be grabbing iMacs because of this free app, just like musicians picked up the atari because of its built in midi port
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Hey, didn’t Apple get started in a Garage? I think “Garage Band” is a very fitting name. I can’t wait to sit down and jam with it. Gotta get that USB XLR/Line level digitizer for all my gear to plug in to though.
ESP, what’s the product you’re talking about (the “USB XLR/Line level digitizer”)? I’ve been looking to get something like that myself.
I am wondering if GarageBand fidelity is 24bit or 16bit? I also wonder if the hard drive speed of my eMac will be fast enough to record and playback at least 6 simultaneous tracks with effects? This was a major issue with Deck 2.something on an old PowerMac with a separate hard drive at 7200 rpm. Any reverb effects got “disk too slow” messages. More than 8 tracks with effects also got “disk too slow” messages. Can any one verify or help with these questions? I ordered iLife last week and am expecting to try this out any day now.
re: ..different key…different tempo…
It’s probably done with Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT’s). This math would allow for very precise transformations in key and tempo.
Soundtrack can change project key mid-stream for chord progressions–or transpose a single loop if needed. I didn’t even realize this power was there at first.
So maybe GarageBand can do this too?
Maybe I just don’t get what he means by one unchanging chord. Really, that’s not the case unless you CHOOSE to leave it at one chord.
What he probably should say is that the program automatically re-processes loops recorded in different keys and makes them match the same key so they sound good together. A nice feat of math!
Acid Pro is basically the same concept. I also remember Groovemaker and MixMan. I thought someone told me once that the lead programmer for Acid Pro was also the lead programmer for Soundtrack and he/she probably also did GarageBand since they are quite similar. But I cannot seem to confirm that notion. GarageBand has it’s limitations that Soundtrack covers.
How does it transpose or time-shift without distortion ?
The simple answer is that it doesn’t. At least not particularly well. i have Soundtrack and the quality of anything that is slowed or shifted down suffers the more further you stretch it. You lose tone too and the samples on Sountrack are way to limited for making full songs.
having said that, Soundtrack is a great tool for making short bursts of music to put into TV programmes. The sort of thing that can be repetitive without getting monotonous because it’s background.
What’s needed is a big catalogue of very narrow genre Apple loops that have sets of loops that go together in the same key (“Guitar Em for use in keys D,A,E” or whatever) if real quality is to come out of GB or ST. Chord progression sond bad in Sountrack because the same sound transposed sounds false and chords with the right offset are probably played by a different player on a different instrument through a different amp, so if you have 4 chords in your progression, it sounds like there are four guitarists each playing the right chord at the right time.
GarageBand will be much more suited to making songs, but the inability to change song tempo is a severe limitation if it’s true. I understand how you might have to re-record some audio to make it sound OK again, but that’s something that people could live with. If there’s a great vocal
Maybe after the Pepsi promo is over Apple will finally promote some of its great software, like GarageBand, with some cool new ads. They have alot of momentum now and need to keep it up!
NDELC – The M-Audio MobilePre USB Audio Interface
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=mobileinterfaces
Neat stuff.
Hywel, thanks for the info. I think maybe a better way of going about supplying the loops would be to create MIDI loops as opposed to audio loops. That way you could not only change tempo and key without distortion, but also instruments, chords, and individual notes within a chord. It would be much more customizeable, plus the file would be much smaller. I was hoping that was how they were going to supply them. Still, though, it is cool that the drum/percussion, and guitar loops are real instruments as opposed to synthesized.
ESP: thanks for the link. I’ll check that out.
What I wonder is will we see proliferation of GarageBand sites that allows music swapping in GarageBand data format royalty free; thus, allowing others to download, modify to ones’ taste, collaborate, and published them right back? Kinda like GPLed music, you know, good works inspire other good works.
Will the sites planned to open publish music in MP3 and AAC formats?
for years I have thought I was listening to the same 100 songs over and over. Now it will be the same 1100….over……..and over, or fewer, since “all of the loops play essentially the same, unchanging chord….”.
Musical talent has never been definable. After this, it won’t even be a criterium.
Why would you “morons” need a 10,000 song ipod when you are listening to the same few licks over and over, with some embellishment? Technology at cross purposes, as happens so often.
Maybe Apple could reserve a small uploadable section for demos recorded with GarageBand on the Apple store where anyone could check them out for free. I’m sure they would have to sort through alot of junk, but it would allow an easy way for people to get discovered. Even the record companies would check out this section because it is so easy to do so. I’ve put demo tapes in a sock tied with knots and hurled it onto stage from the 20th row. Send a CD to a record company and it goes into a pile larger than anyone can ever imagine. It is so hard to get discovered and this idea would make it easier and another way.
By the way, I just received my iLife at work and am currently installing Quicktime 6.5 on my old Lombard Powerbook before iPhoto 4. It comes with a DVD install for Garageband/iDVD and a CD for the rest, thank goodness. If only I had a DVD on the Powerbook, then I could give some input on GarageBand.
Anyone know of a USB DVD player deal on the web? I’m all ears.