Metro vs. Garage band

[Scoot]

I would assume from polara's message, that a G5 may be required (or a high end G4 dual) to make garageband happy.

That's the thing about a macworld presentation. They are not going to show it running on a low end OSX machine struggling to keep up.


scoot.

[fastlanephil]

I was up to 4 A.M last night trying to figure out why it won't work with the iMic. Once I got it to stop the loud line noise. It works with the M-Audio Transit. I read that it takes ALL the cpu on a 1 ghz G4 just loaded. There's talk of a special 20th iMac G5 coming up. You'll need it! I can't even open up the system prefs after launching GarageBand without a spinning lock up on my iBook 933. I bought it so my daughter can play with the drum loops.

It's not going to revolutionize the computer music market but i'm sure it's going to do what Apple wants it to do; generate hardware sales. And it beats playing Grand Theft Auto.

[kaboombahchuck]

Bottom line, if I had to choose between Metro and GB, I'd go with Metro. Of course I'm comparing Metro 6 (full version) against Garage Band with the expansoin pack, running a 1.8 GHz G5 power mac with 1 gig of ram.

GB has some great loops, and some not so great loops, and killer effects (we made one of those $100 Estephan guitars sound like a $3000 taylor, recorded into GB dry), but that's about as far as it goes. There are no import features (audio, or midi), it does not appear that you can create, and save your own loops for future use (no import feature), The midi sequencer is very limited (only real time midi recording with limited editing tools). So far I have not found a way to use the effects, or instuments with other programs (like Metro), although some folks are claiming a program called Jack will do the trick (I'm doubt full). The program is just too limiting, but it will serve the perpose I bought it for (the ability to rapidly build a rythmic track with a certain mood so I can lay down a melody, before I forget what was running around in my head).

[Scoot]

It's good in a way.

If it was too cool, you could see emagic going to apple and saying 'hey......if you're making your own app, sell us to someone else'

[braj]

but it will serve the perpose I bought it for (the ability to rapidly build a rythmic track with a certain mood so I can lay down a melody, before I forget what was running around in my head).

And you could always import the AIF into Metro.

[fastlanephil]

From what I can gather by reading the posts at the Apple support site GarageBand eats dual G5s for breakfast. Possibly a cluter will due the trick. I took it off my HD so i'm not going to worry about it.

[Jerm]

What is a cluter?

[Scoot]

Phil means - get $5 million, buy 1100 dual G5's, build a cluster and then maybe garageband will run a little better.

[fastlanephil]

Or what is a spell checker.

Rumours have it the VT cluster got a processor alert after eight tracks so Apple is upgrading it for them with the new G5 servers to break the eight track barrier.

Maccentral May 18th 2008

With the introduction of the Powermac G7 users of Apple's vintage GarageBand are finally reporting few processing alerts.

Hargtuy Goober, a loyal user of Garageband, said that he has struggled for four years and second mortgaged his house but it has all been worth it to use GarageBand. He admits to actually possessing no real musical talent but GarageBand gave him the illusion that he was creating music. At least it sounded pretty good. Hargtuy said he did place some of his music on a commercial download site. They only charged him $200 per song to post and so far has recieved nothing for his work but he's not giving up. Not with a new Powermac G7 on order.

Thank You Steve Jobs!

[kaboombahchuck]

All kidding aside, I really don't see what the problem is... On my wimpy 1.6 GHz G5 I have made a song with 14 tracks at 6minuets and 40 seconds with minimul glitches. The only glitch being it will forget to play a track (ramdom) sometimes, causing a need to restart the program. Granted the progam is getting pretty sluggish at 14 tracks.

[Scoot]

All kidding aside, I really don't see what the problem is... On my wimpy 1.6 GHz G5 I have made a song with 14 tracks at 6minuets and 40 seconds with minimul glitches. The only glitch being it will forget to play a track (ramdom) sometimes, causing a need to restart the program. Granted the progam is getting pretty sluggish at 14 tracks.

Restarting the program is a minor glitch? I'd hate to see a really big one.

I was under the impression that a G5 may remove any problems but thats obviously not the case.

Under Metro (or I suppose other non garageband apps) I can get the same result with a machine 4 times slower and with a bus speed of 100mhz. I wonder what your limits would be with metro and the G5?

Does garageband consume CPU even on the bits of it you're not using?

[braj]

To be fair to GarageBand, all the setup you need to do in an app like Metro to get similar results (when you want a fairly simple song) is way too much for the average piano or guitar student who wants to make their own song with drums, bass, a few chords, and a melody line. I could start making just as many jokes about Metro and some other DAWs. I agree GarageBand isn't suited for pro work, and is limited as far as number of usable tracks, but there are plenty of good things about it, all being related to simplicity. I think Jerm and other developers should take it seriously in regards to usability and learn what there is to learn from it. There's an old saying that a wise man can learn from even a fool, but a fool can't learn from anyone. I understand you're all kidding, but it almost seems that it is coming from insecurity.

Metro is more powerful in most ways, and less powerful in some others (working with loops in Metro SUCKS IMO). My advice to Jerm is to improve the UI of Metro to make simple tasks simple (selecting software instruments etc), improve loop handling, and get Rewire support (GarageBand has that on a rudimentary level). Otherwise it will be left in the dust by GarageBand for newbies and Tracktion for those more serious about electronic music.

[Scoot]

I think there is enough looped music out there without metro having to add to it.

[Jerm]

Metro 6.2 has full ReWire support. There will probably be a small fee to upgrade to Metro 6.2 though.

[braj]

I think there is enough looped music out there without metro having to add to it.

I have pro jazz/rock drum loops, not techno stuff, and it sounds much more realistic than any drum pattern sequencing I can do (which are also loops BTW).

Nice to hear Rewire is coming, but I don't think it should be a paid upgrade, considering Metro's competition. I'm currently using Tracktion/Reason mostly now, and using Metro for step-sequencing and general midi sequencing. So I guess I'll just skip the upgrade until Metro 7.

Oh well.