Daw Comparison

Nicholas Hine                                                                        Audio Tech 2

DAW Comparison: Garageband

        Garageband is a piece of software for OSX and iOS that allows its users to record or sequence Midi.  Apple developed Garageband under the direction of Dr. Gerhard Lengeling who formerly from the German company Emagic, makers of Logic Audio (Apple acquired Emagic in July 2002).  Garageband was introduced on January 6th 2004 and could support any sound format other than MP3 and those that are lower than 8 bits or lower.  Since then six Garagebands have been released and is currently up to Garageband 10.  Since the first Garageband was first released many new features had been added including the ability to view and edit music in musical notation, record up to 8 tracks at once and to fix timing and pitch of recordings.  Apple added automation of track pan position, master volume, and the master pitch. Apple had added transposition of both audio and MIDI along with the ability to import MIDI files.  Garageband was also first developed with the ability to create podcasts but since the realease of Garageband 10 the podcast functionality was removed.  

        Garageband acts as a DAW and music sequencer that can record and playback multiple tracks of audio and midi.  The built in audio filters the audio unit standard allow the user to use various affects to enhance the audio track.  The only sample rate Garageband runs at is 44.1 kHz and you can choose between 16 or 24 bit.  Garageband comes with a different variety of software instruments and sounds. An on screen virtual keyboard is also available as well as using a standard keyboard with the “musical typing” feature. In addition to the standard tracks, Garageband allows for guitar-specific tracks that can use a variety of simulated amplifiers, stompboxes, and effects processors. These imitate popular hardware from companies including Marshall Amplification, Orange Music Electronic Company, and Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. Up to five simulated effects can be layered on top of the virtual amplifiers, which feature adjustable parameters including tone, reverb, and volume. Guitars can be connected to Macs using the built-in input (requires hardware that can produce a standard stereo signal using a 3.5mm output) or a USB interface.  Garageband can import midi files and offers piano roll or notation style editing and playback.  By using the midi standard the user can edit many different aspects of a recorded note such as: pitch, velocity, duration and Garageband can quantize the recorded notes into various note rates.  GarageBand does not include several features of professional-level DAWs, such as a sequencer for drum tracks separate from the normal piano roll. However, many of these shortcomings have been addressed with each successive release of GarageBand. Also of note, MIDI sequences edited or created in GarageBand cannot be exported to other DAWs or programs without first being converted to audio.  Garageband is also offered on iOS so you can use Garageband on any Apple iPhone 3GS or higher.  The iOS version of Garageband comes with different drum, bass, guitar and string instruments and sampler for recording different sounds that can be used within your Garageband session.