Garage Band on Macintosh Computers

[ThomasP]

Has anyone used this to record themselves? Does this provide a high enough quality recording to submit to auditions? I'm assuming that a good quality microphone and whatever components needed to hook it up to the computer are needed. Thanks for any input.

[Ryan_Beucke]

Nowadays you should be able to get very high quality recordings with computers. In fact, many if not most professional recordings are done on a computer, with Pro Tools. I haven't used Garage Band for recording though, but I imagine it would sound good but give you limited options in terms of editing effects. If you have Garage Band already, I would recommend trying it and worse comes to worse you have to buy a better suited program. I don't know however if it would be worth buying Garage Band to use primarily for this application.

[ufoneum]

Garageband is not exactly what you would want to use to do an high quality recording. It is simply not a high quality editing program. If you are a mac user, I suggest the following two programs that will do what you want:

- Soundtrack Pro (somewhat limited)
- Logic Pro (best)

These are not cheap programs, but they will however make what you are wanting to do possible. Another option is to see if your college/university/high school already has these programs available to you in a lab setting - most do.

- Pat Stuckemeyer

[mdc2d]

I do use Garage Band to edit my recordings I make with my minidisc. I record with a good mic onto minidisc, then record it onto the hard drive through Garage Band. In GB I am able to edit (cut, copy, paste), change acoustics, set the equalizer, change volume, fade in/out. I think it would work great to make an audition CD. I have not recorded directly onto the computer, but I plan experimenting with that in the future. But the minidisc into GB has worked great so far. I use a Sony mic (about $100 with 1/8 inch jack) with great results. I was even messing around practicing and recorded myself into GB with the buit-in mic on the ibook with surprising results. Also, depending on what Mac you have, not all Macs have an audio input, SO if you have one of these models (ibooks, mac mini, etc.) you have to by the imic ($35) which is basically an external sound card that plugs into your USB.

[chronolith]

GarageBand should not be scoffed at. If you think it is not good enough then chances are you have crappy equipment or you are trying to do more than record a single audio track and burn to CD.

GB is a great little program that is solidly designed and offers most of what people need to do high quality recordings. If there is a quality issue it is most likely with the recording interface or the speed and memory of the computer. GB2 does true multi-track recording also.

I run mine with an MOTU828MKII and have never had a problem recording more than a dozen tracks at once at super high quality.

I use GB for most of my professional recording. If you want a post-production powerhouse system with loads of FX and plugins then GB is not for you, but if you simply want to record, touch up and burn, GB will not fail you. I use LogicPro for my post work, and the cool thing is that GB and Logic trade files natively. GB's interface is very easy to learn so you don't have to hit a bookstore to learn to successfully use the product. And for the money you won't get a better solution.

Never once used it for the loops and toys. Never had to, but it can do that too.

[Leland]

^^^ What he said...

Before looking elsewhere, really give GarageBand a serious try. Just because it's bundled software doesn't mean that it sucks.

There's Audacity, too, which is still free.

[elimia]

Just because it's bundled software doesn't mean that it sucks.

...unless it is Microsoft bundled software, of which you can be guaranteed it will suck!

[DonShirer]

I've recorded from tape into GarageBand with satisfactory results, so if you have a good quality mic this should be a viable option.

Another possibility is to pay for the upgrade to QuickTime Pro ($30 to $40, can't remember exact value) which also provides a recording and editing modes. When finished, export the recording to an .aiff sould file which you can then put on a CD with iTunes.