Garage Band

One of the things I want to use my laptop for is helping me with my music. I've been wanting to get some sort of MIDI setup where I can make some drum and bass loops to play guitar with. I thought I might be able to use the iBook for that with some software, and during my lengthy wait for the right Mac buying moment, Apple added GarageBand to the iLife suite. It looks like it is just the thing for what I need once I get a USB MIDI keyboard and a Griffin iMic (yet more accessories you will note).

I was playing around with it to get some practice. I just put together some of the included loops once I finally figred out how to get at the loops. It's pretty easy to use, but you quickly find out that it can't be all that simple, as you realize you need to learn more about music that you might have known (at least for me). It's a bit like getting into digital photography, where you realize you hav to do some of the things that the photo lab used to do, or running Linux and finding out you now have to be the bearded, long haired sysadmin as well as the oblivious user. The main thing that became apparent is that it takes quite a lot of work to make just 30 seconds. I'm sure it gets easier with practice, and I was trying to use it too much without the regular keyboard and mouse hooked up - the trackpad is rather tedious for this application. I can now understand the usefulness of the Griffin Powermate.

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