Recording onto a MAC

Alan Miller · Post by **Alan Miller** » 9 Apr 2007 3:59 pm

Does anyone have information on recording onto a Mac? I have recently bought a iMac and it has garageband studio as part of the OS so Im thinking of playing around with backing tracks but the piece of equipment available as an interface between guitar and Mac seems to get varying reviews from users. Some are saying the recorded volume is very low, anyone with expierience of this before I part with £86 ?

Jonathan Shacklock · Post by **Jonathan Shacklock** » 9 Apr 2007 11:18 pm

Hi Alan, there are many different devices for getting audio into your iMac via a USB interface. Look at M-Audio, Presonus and TC Electronic products. I would recommend using a Line6 POD 2 (about £99) or even better a PODxt (£199). You can do all the effects processing and amp modelling on the POD leaving your iMac free to deal with all the other software instrument and MIDI requirements on your other tracks. If you are recording via a mic'ed up amp a POD can act as a Mic Preamp or if you want to DI into Garageband "dry" a POD still makes a fine audio interface without all the sound processing turned on.

Garageband is great but you may find it starts to get very slow with more than a few tracks. Get as much RAM in your Mac as possible.

Alan Miller · Post by **Alan Miller** » 10 Apr 2007 12:30 am

Hi Jonathan, thanks for the info, Im a computer novice and most of the reasoning for getting a MAC was I was not knowledgable enough to work around all the problems with a PC.
This iMac works great, so far not one problem.
I have 1gig Ram , I know thats quite a lot but do you think that is enough to run garageband without slowing down ?
What other programme would you recommend or will garageband be enough considering I am just playing about with it at the moment.....it could get me more involved though !

Edward Efira · Post by **Edward Efira** » 10 Apr 2007 9:14 am

Alan, get yourself Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
(freeware) and Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba.
these are great and do pretty much all you wanna do with audio on your Mac. Also BIAB runs really good on a Mac with 1 gig.
Hope that helps,
Ed

Jonathan Shacklock · Post by **Jonathan Shacklock** » 10 Apr 2007 11:41 am

Alan, what Ed said. These are great applications for recording and editing audio. Band In a Box (BIAB) is excellent for doing MIDI based backing tracks.

Garageband is more of a multi track recording thing with good built in sounds and efects, loops and software instruments. It does do MIDI but chokes quite quickly with more than one MIDI track. It will keep you going for ages though and there's a lot more to it than first meets the eye. 1 gig should be fine. If it starts to slow down you can always 'bounce' multiple tracks down without losing quality.

Mackie's Tracktion runs more smoothly and is very easy to get on with although it doesn't have all the built in software instruments.

Have fun!

Alan Miller · Post by **Alan Miller** » 10 Apr 2007 12:26 pm

Jonathan and Ed, thanks for all the help and a few choices i am checking it out to see what i can get my brain around. These things are probably not as complicated as I fear them to be but when I tell you I didnt know what BIAB was you will understand how novice I am. Thanks again your replies are much appreciated.

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 12 Apr 2007 12:09 pm

Alan, I am a record producer/engineer/musician working in the pro world of music.
This is what I think you should consider :-
Line 6 Tone Port UX 2, TonePort
The Best way to run DI, and mikes with phantom power, PLUS it has a LOT of other features.

E-Z drummer (A MUST) E-Z Drummer

Logic Audio Logic Express And I can help you with anything else you need.

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Alan Miller · Post by **Alan Miller** » 13 Apr 2007 1:38 am

Basil, Thanks for your help and offer of more, you must be one of the busyest steel players/ music industry people anywhere ( and other things too numerous to mention here )and yet still likes to find time share your considerable knowledge.
I will look at the things you pointed me towards ( I might not understand what Im looking at though ! ) and I will probably be in touch.

Mark Butcher · Post by **Mark Butcher** » 19 Apr 2007 12:28 am

Just run a line level input into the audio inputs on your iMac then select line in the audio panel under system prefs. You do not need anything else.

Garage Band will produce fantastic results if you learn how to use the parts of it you want. That will be easier than learning any other program. You can then spend the next five years getting all the hardware and software on the market and learning it. Your music may not improve though

Mark

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 19 Apr 2007 12:43 am

Alan, these were done with just the TonePort UX2 and Logic..

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Alan Miller · Post by **Alan Miller** » 19 Apr 2007 1:41 am

Basil, Wow , that is all top notch, love the sound/ tone you have with that steel................ it "rings".
There is a lot here for a low techie to absorb , I will need to find out what it all means and what I can get my head around.
Thanks to everyone for the replies.
Alan.

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 20 Apr 2007 2:08 am

Glad you like the sound, remember it's

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 5 May 2007 8:21 am

Are there any other drum packages for the Mac (that can have tracks dumped into Garageband - I have no idea how, but assume it can be done) that are a bit less expensive? In my case Garageband seems to have the simple capabilities I need (not being experienced at all in digital audio - I"ve only recorded on tape with live musicians) but the drum parts are difficult to use and seem limited...the one Baz linked looks interesting, but very expensive for a home noodling-around studio.

Randy Phelps · Post by **Randy Phelps** » 5 May 2007 12:31 pm

Garageband will be all you'll need. Audacity is a fine program but not nearly as full featured as GB.

The toneport is a really good solution and will work well.

For drums, there are some inexpensive jampaks available if you want to use loops (which are dead simple)

for more professional recordings I recommend http://www.submersiblemusic.com/Templat ... ntentId=51 Drumcore

If you are a novice, start with Garageband you can get lessons on it at
apple.com or at atomiclearning.com

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 7 May 2007 8:24 am

I've used GarageBand on my G4 Powerbook, but when you get into multi-track recording the hard disk can't keep up. They say that you need to have an external FireWire hard disk to do any serious recording with a Mac.

Jerry Gleason · Post by **Jerry Gleason** » 7 May 2007 9:01 am

I've used GarageBand on my G4 Powerbook, but when you get into multi-track recording the hard disk can't keep up. They say that you need to have an external FireWire hard disk to do any serious recording with a Mac.

I imagine that newer iMacs with 7200 rpm SATA drives would fare better. FWIW, I haven't done much multi-tracking in Garage Band, but my G4 iBook, with it's 5400 rpm ATA drive is able to record and play back at least 10 24-bit audio tracks at a time with MOTU's Digital Performer (although I wouldn't depend on it with an important recording). CPU overload is the biggest problem I've had with GarageBand and Logic Audio, especially when more than 3 virtual instruments are used.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 7 May 2007 10:02 am

You're right about Garage Band's virtual instruments, Jerry. I generated MIDI files from Band In A Box and imported them into GarageBand. Each BIAB instrument uses a virtual instrument track. With four of these playing, I could only lay down two audio tracks before the computer gave up.

The error message said that it couldn't access the hard disk fast enough. Other Mac recordists have told me that a fast FireWire external drive is needed for serious recording on the Mac. I haven't taken that step yet. My current project is still on the Roland VS-1880, awkward as that may be.

Jerry Gleason · Post by **Jerry Gleason** » 7 May 2007 3:29 pm

I've seen that error message, too, even with a fast Firewire drive attached. I believe that it's erroneous, and that it's really the CPU spiking.

In Logic Audio, which uses the same virtual instruments, you have a CPU / Disk meter showing machine activity. If I'm running three or four V.I.'s, and 10 or so audio tracks, the disk meter is usually showing below 25% , while the CPU meter is spiking into the red constantly.

If you were to freeze (lock) your V.I. tracks, which temporarily renders them to your HD as audio, you'd probably be able to record as many more audio tracks as GarageBand would let you, which is a total of eight, I think.

Maximum audio performance is also going to depend on a healthy and (un)fragmented hard disk.

Randy Phelps · Post by **Randy Phelps** » 7 May 2007 5:26 pm

It is not the hard drive it is the processor. GB is very processor intensive vs. Logic. To run lots of tracks a fast processor and ram is necessary. a G4 is gonna be taxed... one trick that you can try maximize is to 'lock' the tracks that you are not recording this will almost double the number of tracks you can run.

Mark Butcher · Post by **Mark Butcher** » 8 May 2007 11:32 am

M audio now sell idrum which is a low cost and effective virtual drum machine made with Garage Band in mind. It works stand alone or as an AU insert.

Mark