GarageBand - Mac Software Review

GarageBand, a program that comes installed on most Mac computers, is a great program for making and producing music. GarageBand includes a flawless music recording studio, which you can record in with any instrument that can connect to the Mac using either USB or the 3.5mm Line-In jack. GarageBand also has an extensive library of loops, which can be combined to create some pretty sweet songs.

So let's start with the loops. These are a lot of fun to make songs with, but the songs you are going to create will be average at best. The problem with the loops is that eventually, you are going to have to use some of the more popular loops, which greatly detract from the quality of your song. Also, you'll find your song becoming extremely random. You'll hold the same drum beat throughout the song, but you'll fluctuate from Harmonica to Orchestra with your lead instruments. This will sound good when you're working on your song, but after you export it to MP3, you'll realize that your song could have been written by a 5-year-old. This could be easily fixed if Apple would release more loops, more drum and guitar loops specifically, because there aren't enough rock riffs. And besides, nobody uses the marimba anyway. Replace those useless ones with good ones!

Now there's the recording. This is GarageBand's best aspect. If you plug your guitar in and record a riff with it, you can adds effects to it to make it sound like it was played with an amplifier. You can even turn on these effects so when you play, the computer's speakers will act like an amp. This is an amazing feature, because it takes a ton of computing power to be able to edit sound in real time. You can add things like distortion, wah-wah, and reverb. This is amazing, because if you have a Mac, you don't need an amplifier. There are a few flaws to the recording though. When you are playing with the amp turned on, it might skip if you have other programs open. This is fine, because you can close those other programs, but if you can't, the computer will automatically cut the bitrate of the song, which will make it play without skipping. The seconds problem is that recording with GarageBand is awkward, because there is no wait time after you press the record button. You have to wait a few seconds to start if you want to match up with other clips. This isn't good, because that means you are going to have to split and cut the audio tracks to match them up.

In the end, this is a fantastic program. Though it isn't anything professional, it is a nice consumer product. I like it, and have used it to record a ton of different songs. It sounds really good. I would rate this product a 4 out of 5. The only reason I don't give it a 5 is because of the loop problem and the lack of countdown for recording. Otherwise, this is a great product.