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Dave N · Jan 22, 2004, 12:47 AM

I've had GarageBand installed on my iBook for a couple of days now (see specs below), and the performance is pretty disappointing. The first little loop song I put together ran fine (4 tracks, 40 seconds or so), but then I tried plugging my guitar in via an iMic and got severe latency problems. Setting GB to "better response" and setting the iBook CPU to "highest" didn't seem to help. I then was messing around with a few organ loop tracks and got massive processor slowdown and failure (only 3 tracks this time, but I guess they were larger than my first song).

Nothing I've tried seems to help, so I'm assuming that this program really needs a G4 to run right. That's too bad, because I've wanted something like this for my guitar for a long time. Maybe I'll buy a G4 desktop in the near future...

sniffer · Jan 22, 2004, 06:07 AM

Well, it says it needs at least 600 G3, so you are within the recommendations. There could be many reasons for why it doesn't work for you. I don't have GB my self, neither am I an musician, but I'll guess you should compare your results with what other have experienced. The GB have been a very popular topic in the SW section. I recommend you to check it out.

dracoleb · Jan 22, 2004, 06:22 AM

That kind of sucks, I have an iBook G4 800 and it runs great, BTW, have you gotten the guitar to work w/ the iMic? I have been looking for a way to hook up my guitar to my iBook but have never gotten a definitive answer if the iMic works or not, or how it should be set up (pre-amp, ect.)

Dave N · Jan 22, 2004, 10:18 AM

GB worked fine for a day or so, but after I hooked my guitar up it started having problems, and even the "song" that I had put together before ran the processor low on resources. The timeline triangle at the top of the screen tells you how your processor is handling the load. The colors (as I remember) are grey=ok, orange=low resources, red=really low resources, then crash. Maybe something got corrupted in the program or prefs. I'll try reinstalling it tonight.

The iMic *does* work, but if you use any of the guitar effects there is horrible hum. This topic has been discussed on garagebandcreations.com, and I think it is just part and parcel for the iMic. People have recommended $150 USB inputs if you're serious about recording.

Would someone else with an iBook be wiling to run the BG file that causes mine to crash? If it runs OK on another iBook, then I guess it's something wrong with mine. I have the file at home and I'm at work right now, so I'll post it tonight or tomorrow.

druber · Jan 22, 2004, 12:50 PM

Hmm. Have iBook G3 900, getting said $150 USB audio interface for m'birthday. I was planning to record live audio to the iBook, then dump it to a G4 tower for actual manipulation. Maybe this would best be done in a different, lightweight app? Especially considering the iBook only has 384 megs of ram. Does it really matter what app I use to initially record with if it's still 24bit? Then could just dump the AIFF to GB.

Stinks that performance is so low. I was really looking forward to mixing on the road.

OreoCookie · Jan 22, 2004, 01:41 PM

1. GarageBand needs hell-of-a-lot of RAM, 384 Megs may not be enough.

2. GarageBand uses Altivec.

SupahCoolX · Jan 22, 2004, 08:23 PM

From the the system requirements: "G4 or faster required for GarageBand software instruments."

khufuu · Jan 22, 2004, 10:33 PM

Why do you think that they put G4's in the new iBooks. The writing was on the wall.

druber · Jan 23, 2004, 12:19 AM

Apple put G4s in iBooks because GarageBand was coming? That's a bit of a leap. Maybe it was just time the G3 came to rest.

Please leave off with quoting sys reqs. I didn't read anyone specifically saying they were working with software instruments, and a G3 900 is well above the base specs for recording live audio.

Just trying to see what actually works here...

Dave N · Jan 23, 2004, 12:49 PM

After playing with BG some more, I think that basically it depends on which and how many tracks you're trying to play. The organ tracks (I was using the souther rock organs) seem particularly processor intensive, and when played with a drum track and some horns thrown in will nearly overload my G3/900 iBook. Other instrument tracks seem to put less of a load on it.

I guess it's kind of like Photoshop advice -- yeah, you can use it with a G3, but if you're doing serious work get a G4.

SupahCoolX · Jan 23, 2004, 08:55 PM

Originally posted by druber:
Please leave off with quoting sys reqs. I didn't read anyone specifically saying they were working with software instruments, and a G3 900 is well above the base specs for recording live audio.

I quoted the requirements for a few reasons:
1) His trouble started when he plugged in his guitar. So, he's either using it for live recording or for software instruments. So, chances are very likely that his problem is just that his iBook doesn't meet the requirements, not that there's any bug in the software or anything.
2) The software requirements clearly state that a G3 is not sufficient for this purpose. Therefore, the original poster should not be "disappointed" with the performance; it should not have been a surprise.

evilmac · Jan 25, 2004, 12:03 AM

OK. after days upon days of using this program on my ibook, the conclusion is this. You can use the loops that come with GB, though a few can be over powering for the G3. For the most part, basic tracks. simple loops will work fine. 10 minute songs with 15 tracks will not.

I use a mobilepre usb guitar input. i get about 10-30 seconds of recording using one of the "real instrument" "guitar" effects. (dream shimmer or whatever its called is actally the only one in the guitar section i can use. BUT, but using the basic track, i was able to record up to 10 (so far) differnt tracks from my guitar with no issues. Honestly the guitar effects are pretty crappy. The vocal effects and other sections can sound cool with a guitar and can be use because they arent so heavy on the G3.

I think alot of people expected this thing to be a super-recording-gonna be a producer-rap star-rock star-gonna make money-soundin SWEET kinda program. well it isnt....but im not complaining. this does what i want for what i need.

(a cheat to get more tracks in... make a full song with a few basic tracks. export to itunes. after it mixes down. open a new GB window. drag the mixed down song from itunes into GB and it is all just one track, with out the processing drain....)

By the way, i use a 12" 700mhz ibook G3 with 640mb RAM and 20gig HD. I also have a lacie 120 gig external and a black fender tele with a black pick guard...

Monde · Jan 25, 2004, 05:23 PM

I have had similar problems with my iBook. What seems to work is hooking up a fast 7200rpm external drive and saving the project there first. I do not believe it is the processor that is the problem as much as it is the iBook hard drive at a piddling 4200 rpm it just cannot keep up with real time recording. Also, the iMic works well for recording-though I've never run any distortion through it. Shouldn't that be done in GarageBand?