Been out of the loop, have some Newb questions... (GarageBand)

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
My apologies for asking dumb questions, but I've been slammed to the wall with teaching duties at the university since roughly September, and life will begin again soon! I keep hearing about "Garage Band", and am not sure what it is exactly. Is it a part of iLife for OSX? Is it free? If not, how much is it? Yes, I'm embarrassed to be asking these questions! But, if anyone could kindly point me to a pertinent link or two, I'd be extremely grateful.



Also (and this might not be the best place to post this but I'm a serious newb at this stuff!), I've just heard about a great sounding product called the "Nomad Jukebox", which apparently has the capability to do uncompressed live audio recording, then upload via USB or Firewire into the computer. There has been some question about whether this device can be used successfully with OSX. So I guess I have two questions:



1) Is the iPod still not capable of doing live audio recordings?



2) Has anyone here used the Nomad box for live recording with OSX?



Thanks in advance, and mods feel free to move this post by an ignorant but interested newb if it's completely in the wrong place.



P.S. - In case anyone has been wondering, I have run some searches on these things, but don't really understand the plethora of information I've found.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    messiahtoshmessiahtosh Posts: 1,754member
    www.apple.com/ilife



    GarageBand turns your Mac into an anytime, anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measure. It?s the easiest way to create, perform and record your own music whether you?re an accomplished player or just wish you were a rock star. And GarageBand is the newest member of the iLife family, so you can add your original music to your slideshows, your DVD menus, burn it to CDs or score your iMovie projects.



    http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...More=T7419LL/A



    Belkin Voice Recorder



    The iPod's abundant storage capacity lets you record hundreds of hours of high-quality voice recordings. You can easily review your audio notes using the built-in speaker, your earbud headphones, or your computer. Just like your music, your voice memos will sync automatically to iTunes (version 4.1 required) for storage, editing, or sending to others via e-mail. Your Voice Recorder even works as a travel alarm clock. The Belkin Voice Recorder brings a whole new dimension to your iPod.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Garageband is Apple's consumer oriented multi track Audio/midi production software. It utilizes pretty sophisticated midi instruments(some of the best I've heard in some cases) As well as thousands of very high quality audio and midi loops. In addition to that it is capable of live audio recording, and comes complete with built in Software Amplification so all you need is an adaptor, plug direct into your computer, and GB does the rest(well you still have to do the playing part



    It comes free with any new mac(as of the date it was released which was a couple months ago) Or it is $50 as part of the iLife applications suite that includes iPhoto, iDvd, iTunes and iMovie.



    Garageband is incredibly easy to use, If you want to hear what people have done with Garageband check out iCompositions



    and if I may toot my own horn, what I have done



    So that's that.



    As for your second question(s):



    The iPod is capable of recording, but it's low quality and not really worth it, but Belkin makes the adaptor to do it. From what I understand though, it's really best suited for recording speech and such, not music.



    As for the nomad/OS X compatibility, I'm not sure, Every nomad I've had any experience with was on windows based machines. I think it's a pretty shoddy product though, the nomad, it is loaded with great features, but none of them seem to work as advertised. My friend and his dad both went through 2 nomads in the span of about 4 months



    Of course that's not to say they didn't juts get unlucky, but it makes you wonder why the iPod has such market dominance



    I think Mini disk recorders are presently the best solution for good quality audio recording, but that's just my opinion.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    ah you beat me to the bunch 'tosh, well, maybe if I hadn't been interrupted by that phone call.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Oh yeah, Garageband is *not* capable of multitracking(although some people have figured out elaborate work-arounds) And it is fairly processor(and RAM) intensive, but nothing your 20" iMac can't handle.



    It offers unlimited audio and midi tracks, assuming you have the power to process them all And it's fscking easy to use.



    Ultimately I think it's most useful as a scratch pad for musical ideas...and berklee projects
  • Reply 5 of 16
    messiahtoshmessiahtosh Posts: 1,754member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Wrong Robot

    ah you beat me to the bunch 'tosh, well, maybe if I hadn't been interrupted by that phone call.



    We still pals?
  • Reply 6 of 16
    formerlurkerformerlurker Posts: 2,686member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Wrong Robot

    and if I may toot my own horn, what I have done



    WR, I really enjoyed ClaviFunk! Are you familiar with the work of The Funky Meters? "Considered by many to be the founding fathers of funk, The Meters created a unique sound that lasted through the sixties and seventies and was reborn in the late eighties. Their trademark sound blends funk, blues, and dance grooves with a New Orleans vibe."





    Quote:

    ! I keep hearing about "Garage Band", and am not sure what it is exactly.



    Chris, for real musicianship with GarageBand, you will want to connect your instruments directly to your computer with a USB-MIDI adaptor, and/or a 1/4" to 1/8" (stereo headphone to mini-stereo) adaptor plug.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by FormerLurker

    WR, I really enjoyed ClaviFunk! Are you familiar with the work of The Funky Meters? "Considered by many to be the founding fathers of funk, The Meters created a unique sound that lasted through the sixties and seventies and was reborn in the late eighties. Their trademark sound blends funk, blues, and dance grooves with a New Orleans vibe."





    Am *I* familiar with the meters of course I am! george porter Jr. is one of my all time favorites



    thanks for listening to my track, clavifunk was the first thing I recorded with GB, it's silly, but it was fun



    Quote:



    Chris, for real musicianship with GarageBand, you will want to connect your instruments directly to your computer with a USB-MIDI adaptor, and/or a 1/4" to 1/8" (stereo headphone to mini-stereo) adaptor plug.






    Well, real musicianship(which Durrl has plenty of) has nothing to do with gear
  • Reply 8 of 16
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    funnyest little ditty I have ever heard from GB!! the lyrics are great, the accent is sweet, sounds like some people around here



    http://www.icompositions.com/auditor...cat=529&page=1
  • Reply 9 of 16
    Thanks for the info, everyone - and special thanks to BAD BORG for the props. I think the MIDI capabiliy might be useful in my upstairs office, but from what I'm hearing, GB isn't really in the same league as DP, which is my regular Audio program. The problem with DP4 is that I got in right when it came out and barely got past the "this new OSX version is so buggy it makes me nuts" stage before my new full-time school gig started and I had to quit recording for a while in order to get settled in. :hmm: Now that the summer's here, I'll try to work the kinks out on the old music room G4.



    About the other issue though - I was hoping that either the Nomad or the new HiMD format might be the answer to my prayers for quick high-quality stereo recording of live gigs. I've used MD and like it, but the real-time copying thing is a drag, and the idea of Firewire seems too good to be true. As a bit of an audiophile, I'm kind of afraid of the whole iPod scene (although it seems like an amazing device) because of the compression scheme. What would be the best options for uncompressed and portable live stereo recording devices that can connect to a Mac through USB or Firewire? Once I can get a file into Sound Studio, I can split the tracks into as many AIFF files as I want pretty easily and load into iTunes. But what devices can help me get that far, and/or where can I look for info and perhaps discussion about them?



    Thanks again - this site is really helpful!



    Ooh, and WR - if I get time next week I'll check out your tunes at school where I can download the files on DSL (not worth it on the old home dial-up). \
  • Reply 10 of 16
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    No offense Chris F but that's a real Rip van Winkle of a post. For a minute I thought you were going to ask if Apple had released an mp3 player yet.
  • Reply 11 of 16
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by It's This Feral

    but from what I'm hearing, GB isn't really in the same league as DP





    Not even close, DP can do like...everything. GB can do a bunch, but you'd be hard pressed to make a professional sounding recording with GB. GB's biggest boon is that it's so damn cheap!



    The audio loops in GB are actually pretty unique, they not only store audio, but they store data related to key, tempo..etc. so rather than working with a processed audio loop, you end up working with, more or less, the same thing that the engineer that designed it was working with. So that's pretty neat.



    Garageband is seriously cool for jotting down ideas. Since I got it, I've recorded little snippets of material almost every night. Since it's pretty damn easy to use, it's more..um... encouraging than some other more beefy and hard to use audio programs.



    Hopefully in the future, 3rd party developers will really sink their teeth into what Garageband has to offer. And, if apple keeps up good support, then it may very well become quite the beast.





    Fwiw, Apple owns eMagic, the makers of Logic Audio. So, Garageband while never usurp it's bigger cousins, but I'm sure it will improve vastly. Same goes with Logic audio, which hasn't really received the Apple treatment yet.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    Renaming and moving to the appropriate forum...
  • Reply 13 of 16
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    pardon my ignorance, what is DP?
  • Reply 14 of 16
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    pardon my ignorance, what is DP?



    Digital Performer.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    Ummm...



    Stupid question. How do I set up garage band to record live via mic?
  • Reply 16 of 16
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Robot what do you mean by multitracking.



    I wish it displayed MIDI as notes like Sibelius! That'd be the coolest thing I think to add. Besides more instruments. It's so perfect. And man does it mulch CPU and RAM. It's a big boy. But that's ok it runs fine on the original PBG4 12" without other stuff running.
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