02-10-2008, 11:49 AM

Hi this is my first post on the forum. I am doing all the research i can about mac books and macs themselves for when i come to buy and use it.

I am really interested in making my own music and i was wondering if you can input your own instruments to garage band?

If so is it as easy as hooking you instrument i.e. guitar to the amp then the amp to the mac?

How do you do it if not?

cheers

02-10-2008, 12:58 PM

well... It's not that simple... All Macs (from my knowledge) only have a 1/8th inch jack for a microphone (headphone jack size). So you can buy converters to convert a guitar cable down to that 1/8th inch jack. This is NOT meant for musical recording of any decent quality... To do good or great recording you need a Digital Audio Interface. They come in many shapes and sizes depending on what type of computer you get.

One that I've recommended many times is the Mackie Onyx Satellite. This is a firewire device that your mac will automatically recognize. You should be able to find it for 160 or 170 if you look. This product has been discontinued but there should be plenty out there still.

There are internal "sound cards" but I've not seen anybody use them who is serious about recording music.

There are also products from Digidesign and M-Audio that do a great job. hope this helps!

02-10-2008, 02:59 PM

could i just record my guitar from the internal microphone if i put my amp upto it?

02-10-2008, 04:13 PM

You most certainly can... It will sound rough (depending on your standards)...
That mic is definitely not meant for recording. It depends on what you are trying to do...

Recording for yourself/lacking quality = Record with built in mic

Record for good quality = Get the right gear like the stuff I mentioned before.

The simple answer to your question is: Yes, you can record into Garageband with the built in mic, it just won't sound very good.

02-10-2008, 06:00 PM

what about is i buy a microphone and record into that/ Can this be done/ Its cheaper you see.

02-10-2008, 08:14 PM

I hate to sound like a broken record, so I'll give this one more shot...

What level of recording are you trying to do? Just for yourself? To play for friends? To try and get some gigs? To demo songs you've written?

You can buy a "computer microphone" and plug it into your microphone jack and it will definitely WORK, but it will not produce good recordings. Those are meant for video and audio chatting.

If you were to buy a "real" musicians microphone (there are thousands of choices) you would have to run it through some sort of amplifier, then into the computer. If you were going to do that you might as well spend the money to buy a nice Digital Audio Interface like the Mackie I mentioned earlier.

You could try to go for the best of both worlds and get a USB microphone but I've never used one... I don't know how they sound. Here is an example.
here is another that looks better and cheaper... And says it's compatible with mac.

Again.. I hope I've helped. I'm just always hesitant to give you an answer about the cheapest thing possible because you'll probably want to upgrade when you start to get hooked by recording!

02-10-2008, 08:29 PM

buy Pro Tools. great quality and decent prices.

www.digidesign.com

02-10-2008, 10:25 PM

What I've been doing with GarageBand is I purchased a $40 cable from my local Target called a LightSnake which I've used to record quite a bit thus far. With that you can use the modeling amps in GarageBand, or you could plug it into your amp and use the sounds from your amp's output jack.

Audio quality is amazing for such a cheap solution, and it's definitely worth the price.

02-11-2008, 07:36 AM

Hay guys. Thanks for the advice. All i want to do is record some stuff and put it on myspace.

02-11-2008, 09:17 PM

bought a $ 40 connection that lets me plug my electric guitar into my mac and record in grange band. it was cool. not sure what the nice is ( i am not home right now ) but i got it at guitar center , same ash prob has it also. go to a guitar store and ask.