Digital Home Thoughts: iLife '04 Retrospective

GarageBand 1.0


Product Category: Software
Company: Apple
Price: $49, part of iLife suite
System Requirements: (PC) Windows XP or 2000. Mac OSX. Requires a DVD drive or Burner to install

Pros:

• Intuitive interface
  
• Lots of software instruments
  
• Apple loops
  
• Effect generator

Cons:

• Sluggish performance, especially when importing audio
  
• Lots of bugs

Summary:
In iLife ’04, Apple has introduced a whole new app; GarageBand. By far the coolest app in the suite. Aimed at amateur musicians and audiophiles, GarageBand allows Mac users to record audio and create their own songs using Apple Loops, software instruments, or audio tracks. Even a complete musical novice can use this software to create audio. But GarageBand lacks the robust tools and features found on Apple's professional audio apps.

GarageBand Rocks!


Figure 1: Garageband

Unlike other apps in the iLife suite, GarageBand has a look all its own. Featuring a user interface modeled after sequencer hardware, the interface looks more like a piece of hardware rather than software. But its design is purpose built. Artists and musicians are more accustomed to sequencers and synthesizers than a mouse, and Apple designed GarageBand with this in mind.

GarageBand does the job of three audio apps in one; Looping, MIDI keyboard, and live audio recording. There are a lot of professional apps out there that do the same thing, and much better in some cases, but GarageBand brings them all together simply and effectively in one app. And this is precisely what this software was designed to do. Like other iLife apps, it takes the complexity out of complex tasks (audio recording and authoring in this case), and turns it into a simple visual process.

Though the interface is easy to understand and finely tuned, I did find one caveat when editing or creating long tracks. They can require a lot of screen relestate. So a small iBook screen may not be the best interface for working with GarageBand.


Figure 2: Instruments

The project workspace centers around tracks. You can drag and drop tracks right into GarageBand and they are immediately presented as a timeline complete with signatures. You can also choose from a number of Real instruments built-in to the software; ranging from strings, drums, keyboards, bells, drums, synth pads, woodwinds, guitars, mallets, bass, or drums.

Additionally, Software instruments are available as well. These include Electric Piano, Grand piano, Smokey clav, Smooth clav, Swirling electric piano, or whirly.

To add any of the afore mentioned tracks, simply click on the + sign located on the lower left corner of the app window. This brings up a file browser window listing both categories of tracks.

Not For Pros
As I mentioned in the summary, GarageBand may look like a full blown professional tool, but don’t be deceived. It is intended for consumers, amateurs, and hobbyists. As such, it is limited in scope and capabilities to only the core functions average audiophiles would expect.

For example, GarageBand is rather restrictive when it comes to handling audio file formats. You cannot directly import MIDI audio. And you can only export audio in AIFF format, nothing else. MP3s gets converted into AIFF as well once imported.

Serious musicians looking for more in the way of features will need to look at professional apps like Logic Express, Logic Pro, or DigiDesign’s Pro Tools.

Performance Woes
Like any first generation software, GarageBand has some noticeable performance issues. Particularly when it comes to importing or exporting audio, which can take several minutes at time. Even opening a project can feel painfully slow at times. The problem is exaggerated by older hardware. I encounted poor performance on 1.2GHZ PowerBook, but the experience was downright miserable on my 700MHZ G4 iMac.

Conclusion
For a first generation product, GarageBand is innovative and offers a good user experience. But performance issues needs to be addressed, and more features need to be incorporated before it can be declared ready for prime time.