Messing around with GarageBand


I’ve been playing around with GarageBand on Michele’s Mac, and I think I may need to buy a one of the new MacBooks just so I can use this software. It quite literally puts a recording studio in your lap. Here is a riff on Bruce Hornsby, blatently stealing the chords from his song “Country Doctor.”

Country Doctored

Disclaimer: I quantized some of the MIDI, partly because there is a ridiculously large latency in my USB MIDI interface, but also because I play piano like a palsied badger. Other than the quantization help, however, it’s all me playing. I didn’t speed anything up. The beauty of multitracking is that it averages out the mistakes, and often turns them in to “happy accidents,” to quote Bob Ross. It’s amateurish, but what you probably can’t appreciate is how much less it sucks than it really should, given my ability.

If you can’t listen to the file, right click and download it and listen to it in separate software. For some reason the latest version of the QuickTime plugin is choking on this, at least on Windows.


7 responses to “Messing around with GarageBand”

    • It’s incredibly easy to use. It does have quite capable music notation, though I haven’t played with it much and can’t vouch for the quality of sheet music it produces, or even if it gives you the abilty to print out the music notation in a nice way. By the way, I think there’s something buggy about the QuickTime plugin on Windows. If you want to hear the song, just right click it and download it.

  1. Wow! That’s amazing. And you say it’s incredibly easy to use. By listening to that, you’ve created quite a show! Thanks for the information! I appreciate it.

    If you create any more audios…be sure to post them here. I’ve subscribed to this blog so I’ll be notified if updates are made.

    Thanks Man!

    Matthew

    • Thanks, Matthew. Yes, it was very easy and intuitive, yet surprisingly powerful. I’ve recently purchased Logic Express, and I can say that it’s amazing what Apple was able to do with GarageBand. It’s got 80% of the ability of the professional-level software, and yet 20% of the complexity.

      I’m working on a lullaby to play for our baby when it arrives, so I’ll post that when I finish it.

  2. Oh, wow! I would love to hear the lullaby.

    I’ve always used Windows, but now that my website is up and running successfully, I want to begin doing my own videos too. Most of my instructional videos are produced by a guy who uses a Mac.

    The more I learn about Apple, the more I’m finding out that Windows pretty much suck at video software. But Apple, on the other hand I hear is pretty awesome.

    From what you’re telling me, if Garage Band is easy to use yet powerful, I’m thinking that !imovie is probably the same.

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