[geeks] Garage band??

[velociraptor]

On 1/15/06, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:
> I had a Casio midi keyboard and an Apple II clone with a midi card
> circa 1985. I found that with the keyboard and software, all I lacked
> was talent. :-)
>
> So I would be no help to them.
>
> Is there anyone out there who is a GarageBand user who could give me
> a reasonable idea of how this would work out? Are there "GarageBand for
> Dummies" books? downloadable tutorials?

Speaking from someone who never had used any music programs other
than a sequencer (played around maybe an hour or two with Acid on the
PC), Garageband is pretty straightforward as far as the basics go.

>From my foggy memory of some reading on GB I did back when I first
got my G4 laptop (GB was included), GB starts chewing up memory
and CPU when you start doing stuff with the instruments--the loops
do not have that much impact on performance.  It's probably wisest
to stick with the 1.x versions of it given your machine constraints.

I don't know that there are any books pub'd on it--haven't researched
that--but I imagine that there's probably quite a lot of material out, just
hit the usual Mac suspects.

M-Audio also has some fairly cheap USB->Midi devices, as do some
other manufacturers.  There was a panel @ MacWorld about 3 years
ago that dealt with entry level music making--at that time you could
get a decent start with new gear for about $500 USD if you already
had the Mac.  So, used, I'd guess a basic setup would run $250 or
so?  If you still have that Midi keyboard, you just need one of those
USB-Midi devices.

The M-Audio "Uno" lists for $50.  A entry level M-Audio Midi keyboard
starts at $60.

One of my friends has one of their keyboards that he hauls with him
when he travels for work--he loves the thing.

=Nadine=