GarageBand 3 in iLife '08 for Mac: review

[John McClung]

Re: GarageBand 3 (in iLife '08) on the Mac (MacBook)

I'm not an expert yet, but spent a day doing my first recording to GB08, and now that I have a better understanding of the app, it's pretty easy and I really like it.

The new features really worth having are:

Multitake: extremely easy way to take a bunch of passes at recording a section of the song, and easy to pick parts of a couple of takes to use for the final mix.

24 bit recording if you want to.

Automated effects, volume, EQ to tracks. Very easy to use.

I recorded direct through my PODxt, that worked very well.

I haven't figured out how to do a decent import of BIAB rhythm tracks rendered was WAV and imported to GB, so my simple method is to simply record BIAB as it plays in an app called Audio Hijack Pro, save as MP3, then just bring that in to GB. Then I just overdub to that. Simple, effective.

There was annoying latency when monitoring in GB, so I turned monitoring off, ran the 2nd output of my volume to my NV400, and just listened to that in the room while hearing GB playback in headphones.

Hope other Mac users will post reviews, tips, etc. here!

[b0b]

I haven't figured out how to do a decent import of BIAB rhythm tracks rendered was WAV and imported to GB, so my simple method is to simply record BIAB as it plays in an app called Audio Hijack Pro, save as MP3, then just bring that in to GB. Then I just overdub to that. Simple, effective.

You're probably better off importing BIAB tracks as MIDI, and assigning them to virtual instruments in GarageBand. GB has access to much better sounds than BIAB. One thing to watch out for: the BIAB bass is an octave too low in GB. Easy to adjust.

[John McClung]

Thanks, Bob; I do want to figure that out, but lacking time to do the MIDI thang, just settled for a simple approach, for now at least. There was a post a while back about how to fix that bass being too low issue, I'll review that when time allows. I remember your BIAB > GB sample track you posted sounded great!

[b0b]

You just drag and drop the BIAB-generated MIDI file onto the GarageBand workspace, and it imports the tracks. Select the bass track in GB and transpose it +12. That fixes it.

This is actually a lot easier than what you've been doing with audio, plus it gives you power to "fix" any BIAB-generated parts that you don't like.

[John McClung]

Sounds easy, Bob, I'll try it soon, thanks again for the tip!

Have you tried the new MultiTake feature? It's awesome.