iBook G4 & Garage Band 2 Question...

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Hello everyone...

Just posting a quick question,

I purchased an iBook G4 less than 6 months ago. It's exceeded my expectations and is the new love of my computing life! One of the reasons for me buying the iBook was because i am a musician, I play guitar and so wanted to record into Garage Band. I have just ordered the griffin garage band cable and am soon going to order the iMic so i can get recording and having some fun!

Now, Not that garage band isn't amazing as it is but Apple bring out iLife 05 with Garage Band 2! Which when i watched the keynote that has the demo of it in had me hooked. I now want to buy iLife 05 so i can take advantage of Garage Band 2's many cool new features such as the 8-track recording etc...

My question is, Will my iBook support all these features and will i need any additional hardware/software for any of the features to work correctly (such as the 8-track recording). My iBook is relatively new, below are the spec's:

• 512MB DDR266 SDRAM
• 30GB Ultra ATA drive
• DVD/CD-RW
• Bluetooth Module
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Keyboard & Mac OS
• 1.2GHz PowerPC G4
• 12.1-inch TFT display
• Two USB ports
• One FireWire port
• Power Adapter
• Battery

Any comments/information would be very helpful as i want to make sure i can use this program to its full potential before buying iLife 05.

Kind Regards,

Chris,
 
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I read a first impression of Garageband 2 today over at http://www.macilife.com/ and apparently there is a new feature to 'lock' tracks:

Say you've got your drums the way you like 'em with all the effects etc you want. If you 'lock' that track, it's saved to the harddrive with all the effects processed, meaning they aren't processed in real time, freeing up resources for other tracks.

So I think performance will be better, good news for us iBook users!


As for multi-track recording: You'll obviously need an external device that has multiple inputs, such as the M-box or the tascam Us-122. Whether or not the harddrive in the iBook is up to recording that many tracks at once remains to be seen, but seriously: How often will you be recording 8 tracks at once? :)
 
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MrChris
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Aptmunich said:
How often will you be recording 8 tracks at once? :)

Yeah i see what you mean.

I would only be recording at the most 4 tracks at once (and even then thats when i can afford the equipment to record more than 1 thing at once! (anyone know any cheap resources for this sort of stuff?)

So you think i should go ahead and get GB2 then? If the HDD speed becomes a problem, i do have an external USB2.0 7200RPM 30GIG doing nothing. :robot:

Kind Regards,

Chris.
 
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MrChris said:
Yeah i see what you mean.

I would only be recording at the most 4 tracks at once (and even then thats when i can afford the equipment to record more than 1 thing at once! (anyone know any cheap resources for this sort of stuff?)

So you think i should go ahead and get GB2 then? If the HDD speed becomes a problem, i do have an external USB2.0 7200RPM 30GIG doing nothing. :robot:

Kind Regards,

Chris.
Yeah, go get it and use the external hdd for projects - that should improve performance!

Check macmusic.org forums for info on interfaces...
 
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psychoschematic

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MrChris,

After the you get the iMic let me know how it works for you, I am also a Guitarist and looking for a cheap way to jack in my Guitar to my ibook.

I look forward to hearing from you!!!



MrChris said:
Hello everyone...

Just posting a quick question,

I purchased an iBook G4 less than 6 months ago. It's exceeded my expectations and is the new love of my computing life! One of the reasons for me buying the iBook was because i am a musician, I play guitar and so wanted to record into Garage Band. I have just ordered the griffin garage band cable and am soon going to order the iMic so i can get recording and having some fun!

Now, Not that garage band isn't amazing as it is but Apple bring out iLife 05 with Garage Band 2! Which when i watched the keynote that has the demo of it in had me hooked. I now want to buy iLife 05 so i can take advantage of Garage Band 2's many cool new features such as the 8-track recording etc...

My question is, Will my iBook support all these features and will i need any additional hardware/software for any of the features to work correctly (such as the 8-track recording). My iBook is relatively new, below are the spec's:

• 512MB DDR266 SDRAM
• 30GB Ultra ATA drive
• DVD/CD-RW
• Bluetooth Module
• AirPort Extreme Card
• Keyboard & Mac OS
• 1.2GHz PowerPC G4
• 12.1-inch TFT display
• Two USB ports
• One FireWire port
• Power Adapter
• Battery

Any comments/information would be very helpful as i want to make sure i can use this program to its full potential before buying iLife 05.

Kind Regards,

Chris,
 
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Actually I own the iMic and have had mixed experience with it so far:

If you directly hook up a guitar without an amp, the signal is quite quiet, but if you turn up the input volume, you get a bit of hissing...

Apart from that, it works nicely with garageband, feels sturdy enough and gets the job done for rough songs...

I wouldn't want to produce an entire cd with one though..:;)
 
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MrChris
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Hello.

Got my iMic the other day and after an hour or two of trying it out here's what i have to report.

After a bit of setting up connecting my guitar to the amp, from the amp tot he iMic etc etc... (i have purchased and am waiting for the garage band cables that griffin supply to eliminate the need for an amp) i am very pleased with the iMic. It is simple to set up, i just plugged it into my iBook, changed the audio in to the iMic int he system settings and garage band's settings. Thats it basically. I have founs that the sound is of a good quality. I suggest you make sure you have the iMic set to line-in, you can do this by making sure the black switch is set towards the microphone icon.

If the sound is set to MIC and not line in, you will get a light hissing because of more power being supplied to the system, because microphones requite more power than normal line-in level appliences.

Regards,

Chris,
 

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