Growing up and out of Garageband
Saturday, January 31 2009 @ 01:24 PM CST

Slightly controversial title as many would argue that my work doesn't merit a move "up" to Logic but whatever...
A few years ago now, late '04 early '05 I think, I became aware of Garageband. At the time I was a relatively recent Mac convert, having bought a G4 iMac and also owning a G3 iMac. I'd fully gone Mac in 2003, mainly after seeing OSX.
I had been interested in music and songwriting for many years but had limited exposure to opportunity in the field. My work means I'm out and about at odd hours and leaves me physically and mentally exhausted quite frequently.
In 1999 I had a major upheaval in my life, leading to divorce and a change of circumstances. At that time I bought a cheap nylon stringed acoustic guitar and tried to learn chords, using the internet.
The guitar stayed dormant for a long time, until I iLife arrived in my life. I'd played with nasty cheap PC based loop sequencers before but they tended to revolve around dance/techno music which doesn't appeal to me.
Garageband was included in iLife and got me thinking. If I could string a few chords together, maybe I could record a song? I've written "lyrics", "poems", whatever you want to call them, for years. I dug out one of my books and found a short sequence which still has a lot of meaning to me.
I was playing with the recording function on Garageband and realised that the acoustic guitar, recorded through the internal mic, sounded awful. Truly terrible, but... if I added amp modelling to it, it sounded ... well ... a little less terrible. Deliberately lo-fi? I guessed I would get away with it. One of my all time favourite albums is Varnaline's "Man of Sin" and I felt that the sound I was getting wasn't a million miles from the opening track "The Hammer Goes Down". So I recorded the vocal, using the internal mic and it sounded ... woeful.
What to do? Add a telephone line type ditortion to it of course. Suddenly I had the makings of a lo-fi "demo". The song was called "Liz" and I was hooked. I knew I needed better kit and of all the things I needed a mic and a decent interface were the essentials. I bought a £10 dynamic mic at a local store and an iMic USB interface, the recordings got a little better, Garageband got a version 2 and I started to write songs from the ground up.
I've no musical training, no musical background. I'm a limited guitarist and I stumble by on the bass and drums purely on what I feel sounds right. Over the past 3 years I've pushed Garageband further and further, even upgrading to a Core2Duo iMac based on its suitability as a music making device.
Garageband opened a world to me, not least the community here at MJs. It allowed me to discover the music in me. There's not a lot of software I could name that has had such a profound influence on my life. My spare room (my ... ahem ... studio) is now teaming with kit, from control pads and midi controllers to pedals and guitars. I found a part of me through this multi layered application, which reveals its power only as you push it harder and harder.
I've just upgraded to LE8 and I love it. I have a special soft spot for GB though. I recently posted what I claimed would be my last GB song (http://www.macjams.com/song/49601) but now that I think about it I'll probably return to it from time to time. It's more intuitive than Logic and it produces some stunning results, as evidenced by some of the excellent work posted here at MJs (in particular I'm thinking of Tempie and his multi layered vocal arrangements.)
So there it is, how Garageband changed my life. A simple story, that's got a long way to run.

Peace

Paddy

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Saturday, January 31 2009 @ 01:43 PM CST

Isn't it sweet to discover such a fulfilling and worthwhile hobby?

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Saturday, January 31 2009 @ 02:06 PM CST

Thanks for posting your experience. Garageband filled many musical holes in my life, and Macjams, added a lot of nice people to my life.

It is still a challenge to balance work-life, practicing woodwinds, playing out, writing tunes and doing collabs.

Also, now that my son has grown up, I feel life has awarded me enough time to catch up with the creative side of my life that I had to put on hold for a long time.

I'm just about to move up to Logic8, but today in preparation, I'm backing up with SuperDuper, in order to install Leopard which I have been putting off for awhile.
I have a PowerPc G5 1.8ghz and thought to avoid possible conflicts, I'd get up-to-date.

Fortunately for me, since I work at an Educational institution, mac software is alot cheaper.
So first, it's leopard, than if all works well with my GB2, and I don't ruin a project I'm finishing up, I'll go forward with getting Logic and then update to GB4 as well.

Always looking forward to that next adventure in working on a new tune. Sure does keep life exciting.

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Sunday, February 01 2009 @ 08:36 AM CST

Hi Paddy...

Without a doubt my work doesn't merit more than a simple digital note recorder man... Even GarageBand has too much power...

But I decided as a present to myself to upgrade first to Logic Express 8 then to Logic Pro Studio.

Since upgrading I like I've used a maximum of 20 tracks. I know logic is capable of way more and I figure in Logic studio I'm probably tapping about 0.1% of the power.

I felt guilty about it but then I realized that this is a hobby... If my hobby were expensive cars then I'd have a Lamborghini or something in the garage and have a lot more money tied up in it. I figure $500 or so for software is not to bad for my little hobby.

My goal is to someday tap more than 1% of logics features! Hee hee!

M

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Monday, February 02 2009 @ 02:30 PM CST

Update. Yesterday I installed Leopard. Took me a little longer than I expected, because when backing up with superduper, I discovered I had way too much to store on the backup drive (120G. My only option was to preserve only the user files.
After backing up, I installed Leopard without problems(knock on wood).

Next stop, after I make sure Leopard is stable, my latest garageband project files work properly, and I finish up my long overdue tune to post, I'll go make the splurge for Logic 8.
Fortunately for me, I'm able to pick up a copy for $159.00 (such a deal). One of the perks from working at a University.

Well, Garageband and Macjams has certainly filled the creative holes in my life, and looks like it will remain so in the future, with learning Logic.

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Monday, February 02 2009 @ 02:58 PM CST

I feel the same way about GB ...Even tho I haven't opened GB in a couple years it still holds a solid place in my heart as an eye opening and soul changing program ...It really allowed me to solidify a dream Id had for years and years ...Logic once you learn it is without a doubt superior in every aspect but the simplicity of GB allowed me the patience to continue to want to learn about sound recording . Ahhhhh I love making music .

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Monday, February 02 2009 @ 03:07 PM CST

nice post - lot of good info here. I tried to shove a bunch of gear together and make it work with old school stuff and was NEVER happy with it.... analog and all that required too much in resources. Technology when it attains terminal velocity is a great thing and releases creativity. Thanks.

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Monday, February 02 2009 @ 04:12 PM CST

I was all set to buy ProTools or Logic to start with. I'd saved the money and was deciding which. Then I went to this GarageBand workshop. The presenter was a very good guitarist. In 15 minutes he'd created a really, really fine piece of music.
I asked him, afterwards, which of the two "heavyweight" programs to buy. He asked me what I was going to record. When I told him "mainly solo fingerstyle with a few extra tracks, occasionally, for vox or leads/fills", he advised GarageBand, a great mic and interface.
I saved a lot of money and am very happy with my setup (though I'd like a new Mac).

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Monday, February 02 2009 @ 05:23 PM CST

Quote by: guitapick I was all set to buy ProTools or Logic to start with. I'd saved the money and was deciding which. Then I went to this GarageBand workshop. The presenter was a very good guitarist. In 15 minutes he'd created a really, really fine piece of music. I asked him, afterwards, which of the two "heavyweight" programs to buy. He asked me what I was going to record. When I told him "mainly solo fingerstyle with a few extra tracks, occasionally, for vox or leads/fills", he advised GarageBand, a great mic and interface. I saved a lot of money and am very happy with my setup (though I'd like a new Mac).

I agree! I often think about wanting to upgrade to one of the 'bigger' DAW's, and always end up telling myself no! I figure that what with Garageband 08 being capable of 24bit recordings, there's no need for me at the moment. I'd rather spend the money on an interface, preamp or outboard gear, rather than trying to polish a sub-par recording in the mix. I like to spend much more time learning about signal processing or mic techniques so i can get as good a signal going into garageband as i possibly can, and then hopefully all i need to really do is some gentle eq'ing or compression and effects etc 'in the box' (which garageband is more than capable of doing!)
I really want to upgrade though, but being on a 7 year old g4 means i'd have to upgrade my mac, which i just can't afford at the moment..so, looks like i'll be sticking with Garageband for a while yet!

Re:Growing up and out of Garageband
Tuesday, February 03 2009 @ 06:16 AM CST

I bought LE7 some while ago and gave up using it as it was too complex for what I needed. I then bought Logic Studio 8 as the demo I saw was very impressive and I wanted the mastering patches (or so I thought)

A year down the line and I still use GB to track all my stuff as it's so much easier than Logic. Once it's tracked I then open in Logic and find that I don't know enough about mastering or use of effects to actually make use of what Logic offers but it still seems to be better simply going through the Logic process!

I barely scratch the surface of Logic tbh and I don't have time to learn it but I know it's there if one day I really want to use it

Cheers

Dick