Music software?

First of all, I need to thank all of you who have contributed to all my topics, helping me, answering me and been very nice to me.
You are great! Without you I would never have accomplished what I have. Thank you!

What program would you recommend for a beginner who want to make his own music to his projects?

What do I get when buying a software? Do I get all kinds of instrument? What do I not get?
There´s lot of information out there, but I don´t know what to choose. Some say I should combine 2 softwares.

Give me your best advice

To start off with, GarageBand, hands down.

It comes with a nice library of instruments and loops and sound effects. FCP X, GarageBand, Logic, SoundTrack Pro (now dead) all share the same libraries, so you'll actually have access to the iLife sound library in FCP X when you get GarageBand.

Super easy to learn. I mean really super easy to learn.

You can even record live instruments and vocals.

GarageBand if you're just starting out. Later down the road you can look at more complex apps like Logic Pro.

But as a beginner, GarageBand. Can't beat it.

You say that Garageband and Logic share the same library. What can I do with Logic pro that I can´t do with Garageband?

I have Garageband, so I´ll give it a try and learn some.

Logic can run a full professional recording studio. More expensive, more difficult to learn, made for very complex, high end composition, recording, mixing, mastering, export. Most of what Logic does you will probably never have user for. And if you ever do, it will be down the road when you learn audio mixing in more detail.

GarageBand is for individual users like you. Easier to learn, cheaper, fits with FCP X as well as anything else does. Better for beginners.

If you're not a composer or audio engineer already, go with GarageBand. Very powerful, lots of features, easy to learn and use.

Also get Mainstage for 30 bucks or so. That gives you extra Jam packs that have cost couple of hundred bucks before.

BenB wrote: Logic can run a full professional recording studio. More expensive, more difficult to learn, made for very complex, high end composition, recording, mixing, mastering, export. Most of what Logic does you will probably never have user for. And if you ever do, it will be down the road when you learn audio mixing in more detail.

GarageBand is for individual users like you. Easier to learn, cheaper, fits with FCP X as well as anything else does. Better for beginners.

If you're not a composer or audio engineer already, go with GarageBand. Very powerful, lots of features, easy to learn and use.

Then I´ll stick with Garageband for a while, or all the time.

Looks like I can connect a keybord to Garageband. Do you have any easy, inexpensive one to recommend?
And then I think I need some sort of converter, or can I just plug the minijack from keybord to Mac?

And also, how to I remove the small drum beat and the background of a new project. It´s always there. Cant remove it.
It´s on every project I start. A thin drum beat on loop. However, the drum beat is not there if I start a project with voice. Why? But when I do that, I don´t have any instrument to add tones...

I found the sucker. It is the metronome(at least what is called in my language). I just turned it off.

May I also recommend this - dingdingmusic.com/DingDing/GB11.html - to help learn how to get around garageband. At least I found it quite helpful.

marchyman wrote: May I also recommend this - dingdingmusic.com/DingDing/GB11.html - to help learn how to get around garageband. At least I found it quite helpful.

Think I might go for this, so I don´t bother you to much with all my questions

There is also this course.
www.macprovideo.com/tutorials/garageband-application

Lots of hours with learning. I want to, and I like this so it will probably be fun!

A friend of mine told me that not all of music software has authentic sounds, but computer made sounds. Made to sound like real instruments. How is it with Garageband?

Is there a sound pack for Garageband. Reason amongst other music software has sound packs around 20GB. The one I have had "only" 1.5GB.
Maybe I should go through the courses?

Why do you have negative karma?
You are very helpful, so I´m surprised.

But why karma and thank you?

Neguah wrote: Why do you have negative karma?

Some folks disagree with my opinions, but it really doesn't matter.

A friend of mine told me that not all of music software has authentic sounds, but computer made sounds. Made to sound like real instruments. How is it with Garageband

You have both. Apple Loops are recordings from real instruments, the Instruments built into GarageBand are mainly MIDI sounds.

The Dingding book explains that very well. Totally worth the money.

cgbier wrote:

A friend of mine told me that not all of music software has authentic sounds, but computer made sounds. Made to sound like real instruments. How is it with Garageband

You have both. Apple Loops are recordings from real instruments, the Instruments built into GarageBand are mainly MIDI sounds.

The Dingding book explains that very well. Totally worth the money.

I will try that one!
And last question before my Dingding, can I get instrumental sounds?
Does Logic Pro have instrumental song? If they do, perhaps I can get it to Garageband since they´re sharing the same library.

BenB wrote:

Neguah wrote: Why do you have negative karma?

Some folks disagree with my opinions, but it really doesn't matter.

Oh, and that´s a reason to give something bad karma... People are funny.

There's a bunch of songs in GarageBand already. As mentioned before, spring the 30 bucks for Mainstage. It'll give you the complete Apple sound library.

As for some software not having realistic instrument sounds, well, it is not the software that does that.

An instrument sound can be synthesized or sampled. Today's synthesizers are very sophisticated, software based, and can mimic real world instruments very well, mostly. Sample sounds, if handled properly, can give a more realistic sound. This only matters if you are a composer and want to write your own music.

I am a composer and I have collections of instrument sounds that are both. Some 100% realistic, some very obviously not real. I use them both. There are times the "faked" sounds work for what I need in a composition. Some times not.

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software like GarageBand, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Studio One, Cubase, all can access libraries of instrument sounds and loops. What sounds real or not depends on the collection of sounds, who put them together, and such.

This really is an issue I'd not worry about right off the bat. All reputable DAW applications will have a mixture of both realistic and not so realistic sounds. Get up to speed with GarageBand, and when you get to the point where you want to compose, THEN start to think about what instrument sounds you need, and how realistic they have to be.

It is like learning anything, don't take it all on at once, or you'll get overwhelmed, frustrated, and give up. Step 1 is to simply learn the GarageBand application. Don't worry about much else until you get the basics under your belt.

Because the truth is, pretty much all DAW applications will do the same thing. Just like all NLE apps end up producing the same end products.

I have now bought both the course and Mainstage, but I think there´s few instrument to choose.
Look at this:
bildr.no/view/1387259

I opened MainStage, closeted it and then opened Garageband.
Do I have to update Garageband in some way?

On the piano selection, I only have around 8 different instrument. Scott Freiman from the course have a lot more. Trying to figure out how to get that many.
Maybe I need Logic?

You have to download the extra content (some 20 GB iirc)

cgbier wrote: You have to download the extra content (some 20 GB iirc)

Is it the jam pack?