[MacDog]

My brother-in-law teaches the drum line/marching band at a high-school, as well as private lessons. He wants to switch over to the Mac, and has asked me to help him choose the right hardware and software.

I'm not sure if I want to point him to the Intel iMac, even though I think it would fill his needs as far as power, etc. I'm leaning toward an existing G5 tower due to the fact that all the software he needs will run on it NOW. And considering the page after page after page of headaches with the new Intel Macs at MacFixIt.com, I'm just not inclined to recommend them for a while.

As far as software, I'm not sure where to start. He does write and record his own music. Is GarageBand enough? Apple Soundtrack? What else might he consider looking at? I believe he already has a keyboard that he hooks up to his PC.

Any help is appreciated.

[steveedge]

Logic is very good and I would say is the premiere Audio Application for Mac. If Logic is above his budget, there is Logic Express which is also very good.
Pro Tools is the music industry standard and also comes in several price ranges.
So, It depends on what kind of recording he will be doing and what other needs he will have such as a scoring editor. Garage band may be enough if he is just recording by himself.
There is a ton of software and hardware out there for audio. The best adivce is to read a lot of product reviews.
If he is recording just himself or a couple of instruments he can go with a less expensive audio interface. However if he is going to do multi-channel recordings he will need an interface with more inputs and outputs. You can buy interfaces with anywhere from 2 on up.
Think of it as a chain, starting from the instrument or mic, the sound travels into an audio interface which converts it to digital signal, then it is processed by the audio software, then the signal goes back out of the interface into monitors or head phones or both.
Note: Some interfaces come with preamps built in and some do not, so if the interface has no preamp, then a preamp will also need to be added to the chain. he will need some sort of preamp for line level signals outputted by electric guitars, studio mics, keyboards, etc...
Good luck.

[MacDog]

Thank you so much for your input. I knew about ProTools, but I completely forgot about Logic. Got any sites you think are good (trusted) to read up on the hardware that I can pass along to him?

[Todd Madson]

Logic and Cubase would be the heavy hitters.
Heavy in features and also heavy in price - they tend to be spendy.

iMac CoreDuo comes with iLife06 which has Garageband.
Garageband looks deceptively simple but can do quite a lot.

What isn't commonly known is that once you grow beyond Garageband,
Logic Express reads Garageband sessions and allows you to use them in
that application so you don't lose your old music once additional functionality
happens down the road (i.e. better sounding software synthesizers).

I would bet Logic Pro also allows for this functionality as well.

Protools is fine for recording but honestly it lacks in the MIDI implementation.

It's popular in the industry but for really doing some amazing stuff you need
the bigger apps IMHO. But if you want to show kids what is used in "real" (read:
studios that are on the way out due to people having this kind of stuff in their
spare rooms and bedrooms) studios then that might be the way to go.

You can do surprisingly many things with Garageband - I find it very fast
for writing tunes without belaboring over the complexities of some of the
bigger more expensive applications.

See:
http://www.myspace.com/aliensporebomb

The track "Iterations of a Scene" was 80 tracks and done in Garageband
on a G5 DP 2.5.

"Life" was done in Cubase in its entirety on a G4/400.

"Galaxy" was started in Cubase and completed in Garageband
started on a G4/400 and finished on the G5 DP 2.5.

"Eta Carinae" was started in Cubase and completed in Deck II
pretty much entirely on the G4/400.

For the most part, Garageband has replaced DeckII as my "once the
synthesizers are done part, I need to overdub some audio bits now"
application.

[ecking01]

I think the new logic programs became universal binaries in feb.

[analogika]

Logic 7.2 is a universal binary.

[madflava54]

I've recently started using logic express, (I've been forcing myself as i'm after a core duo and logic is already universal). But it seems so damn complicated... probably because i normaly use cubase se/sx. It seems a real headache switching over, i would never have expected it to be.

Has anyone heared any news of cubase or reason becoming intel native any time soon?

[italiano]

I use Logic Express and Ableton's LIVE - both are great - I'm recording real guitar and the plug-ins are fantastic to play with. I plug my LP into an M-audio AUDIO BUDDY (small 2 channel pre-amp) and from that directly into my Imac G5 using a 1/4" -> 1/8" adapter (going into my audio in) and I use amp sims (ROCK AMP LEGENDS, Amplitube and Guitar Rig software) although the amp sim in Logic Express is fairly nice - Garageband 3 too.

[fisherKing]

garageband is a good place to start, and you could move up to logic express.

logic is amazing, but it is not as intuitive, or logical (pun intended!) as most apple apps...
as it comes from outside apple (originally).

but it IS a universal app already.

so...garageband now, logic later...?


just my 2cents...

[analogika]

Logic has made HUGE leaps in usability since Apple has taken over the helm.