[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

Ok-
I have GarageBand now, played a bit, and have listened to a bunch of samples people have upload here and around the web.

While I concede the app is less than a week old and has yet to be fully flexed, I can't help but have a creepy feeling about it. And that's this:

The music it creates is soulless. The loops are perfectly, computerly, sterile. It's so easy to create what sounds like machine-edge accurate "pro" music, but I have yet to hear anything that had any true feeling like a real person playing. Even the tracks where someone recorded their live keyboard or guitar still sound lifeless.

So-- is this just a case of a new app that people really haven't gotten their hands around, or do we accept that commercial music now is so programmed and over produced that an app like GB, which mimics this, is all but inevitable and accepted?

[kulverse]

Its just new. People are mostly just playing with it and learning it. I, personally, have not even really gotten deep down into it. I have just played with it. I, personally, expected the stuff people are putting up now, to be more amature that what we have seen. But your right, it has a way to go. When people have more time with it, you'll see amazing things come out.

Personally, I have it just to play around. I have a band with real people.

[goMac]

So far I didn't think there is nearly enough strong string parts.

Maybe the expansion pack has some, but it really dull-fies the music, especially from the standpoint of a violinist.

[hmurchison2001]

Silk. A program is just a tool. It will not imbue any "soul" into the final product. That is the job of the artisan.

I've played music for over 10 years(sax) and I can tell you you'd have to be a genius to crank out good music with absolutely no training or practice. GB in the hands of a pro will yield the soul that's missing from the rank and file amateur.

The nice thing is that once people see how to actually construct a musical piece their appreciation for Music Artists should increase tenfold.

Strings really aren't condusive to good loops as they generally are played as back ground support. Pads the same. Loops will be best served on Rhythm Guitar, drum tracks and other supporting instruments.

[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

Originally posted by hmurchison2001:
[B]Silk. A program is just a tool. It will not imbue any "soul" into the final product. That is the job of the artisan.

Precisely. That's why I'm wondering if GB is even geared to allow this.

GB in the hands of a pro will yield the soul that's missing from the rank and file amateur.

Do we know this? I mean, if you use GB purely as a recording tool for your own playing sure, but then you might as well use any audio mixing software.

The intent of GB seems focused on the use of the samples and loops, and I fear we're going to be overrun by "loop kiddies".

[ambush]

well
they're just combined beats -- whadya want?

It gets a LOT more interesting when you plug your keyboard/guit in (which I plan to do soon ) and THEN combine this with loops.

if you really want to get into looping, get Reason or something.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn:
Do we know this? I mean, if you use GB purely as a recording tool for your own playing sure, but then you might as well use any audio mixing software.

Yes, a person could use 'any' mixing/recording software if they were really into creating audio on their computers. People could also have easily gone out and bought digital moviemaking software too prior to iMovie... but iMovie made it a ubiquitous, free part of the Mac experience when it was bundled on all new macs. A lot of people (myself included) have used iMovie that probably wouldn't have gone out and bought software specifically for that purpose. I have 4 or 5 pages of pictures on my .mac homepage too ... only because it was so easy to do thru iPhoto. I'm sure I wouldn't have bothered otherwise.

That, I think, is the importance of GarageBand. It isn't a substitute for high-end mixing but it IS rapidly going to become part of the default Mac experience and many non-musicians will create things with it who would never have thought to before. People who are musicians will now be able to make quick and dirty, digital, multitrack recordings ... something a lot of them may not have done before.

[ambush]

http://www.garagebandcreations.com/a...r_Techno_1.mp3

This is almost pro-grade music. The song is almost perfect (altho there's one part I'd flush)

Add lyrics to that, and it's a GB Hit!

[kovacs]

Originally posted by ambush:
http://www.garagebandcreations.com/a...r_Techno_1.mp3

This is almost pro-grade music. The song is almost perfect (altho there's one part I'd flush)

Add lyrics to that, and it's a GB Hit!

It's nice, but you can still easily hear that it's made by a computer, the quitar sounds a little dull and artificial, a real guitar doesn't sound like that, it sounds more complex with more very small variations in the frequency. Most instruments still sounds too monotonous. A violin is one of the hardest instruments to recreate with a computer because it creates such a complex mixture of frequencies in different layers ( if that makes sense ). I think you can make some nice music with Garageband but you have to make it sound real, use short loops and change them during the song, use some unprocessed guitars, add some live voice recordings even some distortion and noise, do everything you can to avoid that it sounds monotonous and artificial...

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by ambush:
http://www.garagebandcreations.com/a...r_Techno_1.mp3

This is almost pro-grade music. The song is almost perfect (altho there's one part I'd flush)

no.

That's roughly equivalent to all those four-track recordings people were doing in their living rooms before computers took over.

Which, of course, is *exactly* what GarageBand is supposed to do.

-s*

[eevyl]

GarageBand have not invented computer-like music... Kraftwerk anyone?

I mean, it's not the instrument an art piece make.

It's more "music" if it is played live? Or it is more music if it is a string instrument than a piano? It is better with classic guitar than electric guitar?

Well, the artist is in the soul, not in the computer

[starman]

Originally posted by eevyl:
GarageBand have not invented computer-like music... Kraftwerk anyone?

Kraftwerk?

You have to go a lot earlier than that. Their first album was, when, 1973?

Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, Suzanne Ciani, and don't forget the Theremin.

Mike

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by starman:
Kraftwerk?

You have to go a lot earlier than that. Their first album was, when, 1973?

Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, Suzanne Ciani, and don't forget the Theremin.

Mike

Kraftwerk's first was 1971 (though mostly acoustic - there wasn't much around in terms of music electronics at the time.

Jean-Michel Jarre didn't put out "Oxygene" until 1977.

Pink Floyd is not "electronic music"; it's rock with synths, which is rather different.

And while the Theremin dates back to 1928 or so, a Hindemith composition for chamber orchestra and Theremin is hardly "electronic music", either.

There was a bunch of truly "electronic" music in the 50s and 60s (much of it simple tone generators and tape splicing), and that led to the development of modern synthesizers (starting with Buchla and moog modular systems in the late 60s), but that music, in general, bears little resemblance to electronic music as produced today.

Kraftwerk most definitely almost single-handedly laid down much of the foundations for modern electronic music.

</rant>

-s*

[starman]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Kraftwerk's first was 1971 (though mostly acoustic - there wasn't much around in terms of music electronics at the time.

Jean-Michel Jarre didn't put out "Oxygene" until 1977.

Pink Floyd is not "electronic music"; it's rock with synths, which is rather different.

And while the Theremin dates back to 1928 or so, a Hindemith composition for chamber orchestra and Theremin is hardly "electronic music", either.

There was a bunch of truly "electronic" music in the 50s and 60s (much of it simple tone generators and tape splicing), and that led to the development of modern synthesizers (starting with Buchla and moog modular systems in the late 60s), but that music, in general, bears little resemblance to electronic music as produced today.

Kraftwerk most definitely almost single-handedly laid down much of the foundations for modern electronic music.

</rant>

-s*

Jarre's first SOLO album was Oxygene in 1976. However, he'd been doing a lot of experimental stuff long before then.

Regardless of how Pink Floyd used it, they still used it.

I never saw Kraftwerk as laying down anything since so many people BEFORE them had already become established.

Mike

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by starman:
Jarre's first SOLO album was Oxygene in 1976. However, he'd been doing a lot of experimental stuff long before then.

Regardless of how Pink Floyd used it, they still used it.

I never saw Kraftwerk as laying down anything since so many people BEFORE them had already become established.

Mike

I see what you're saying, but I disagree.

Having a basic rock instrumentation - drums, bass, guitars, and organ - and adding synths to that is very different from loop-based music using purely electronic beats.

You're right about Jarre - he was doing TV commercials in the early 70s (much to the chagrin of his "serious composer" collaborators of the late 60s/early 70s). But he was pretty much a complete unknown still when Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" hit the charts in 1974. Jarre didn't really happen until 1976.

-s*

[Eug Wanker]

A software program does not a musician make.

[starman]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
A software program does not a musician make.

I think you mean to say that a software program can't be a musician. Lots of musicians use software programs. I think the first was Larry Fast who used the Apple II for his Synergy albums.

Mike

[Troll]

A lot of the music out there today is just loops with a bit of guitar over it. Look at David Gray's first album. Aside from the vocals, acoustic and bass guitars, and the odd drum, it was almost entirely made of loops. No one would call his music electronic! John Mayer's albums make extensive use of loops too.

I can't see that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the design of GarageBand that would make it impossible to create a "Babylon" or "Bigger than my Body" using GarageBand. How long after Logic or ProTools came out did the first song hit the 'net and what was the quality like? Give GarageBand a chance.

[starman]

Agreed. I think that GB has the potential to be the "sequencer for the rest of us". How I would have loved to have something like it when I had my ESQ-1.

There was a sequencer for the Atari ST by Steinberg-Jones but I can't remember the name of it. A lot of albums were made using that.

Mike

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Jarre didn't really happen until 1976

... "Officially", yes - but one notable thing he made before was the soundtrack of the 1973 film (with Alain Delon and Simone Signoret, among others) Les granges brul�es (excerpt: very "romantic", in the best Jarre tradition): it has even been re-issued recently, as one can read on Jarre.net:



BTW, I liked Jean Michel much more in the past than in his recent achievings of today: he's losing some momentum in trying to "experiment" too much in areas where he isn't quite in his natural environment, so to say, IMHO...

[starman]

Originally posted by Sven G:
... "Officially", yes - but one notable thing he made before was the soundtrack of the film (with Alain Delon and Simone Signoret, among onthers) Les granges brul�es (MIDI): it has even been re-issued recently, as one can read on Jarre.net.

BTW, I liked Jean-Michel much more in the past than today's: he's losing some of his momentum in trying to "experiment" too much in areas where he isn't quite in his natural environment, so to say, IMHO...

Oh, God, have you heard his last album? Awful. I couldn't get into it at all.

I bought Les Grange Breulees on CD about 3 months ago. It's an interesting listen, but nothing that I'd like to revisit. I'd like to see how that music integrates with the film.

Mike

[Sven G]

Originally posted by starman:
Oh, God, have you heard his last album? Awful. I couldn't get into it at all.

I bought Les Grange Breulees on CD about 3 months ago. It's an interesting listen, but nothing that I'd like to revisit. I'd like to see how that music integrates with the film.

Mike

Yes, I agree: I think he should try to "regenerate" his roots (electronic-symphonic, etc. music), rather than trying to appeal to the "new" techno (and jazz) crowd - we'll see what happens, anyway...

BTW, obviously Steve Jobs isn't a Jarre fan: otherwise, he would have called it JarreBand...

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by starman:
I think you mean to say that a software program can't be a musician. Lots of musicians use software programs. I think the first was Larry Fast who used the Apple II for his Synergy albums.

Mike

No, I mean "A software program does not a musician make."

Yes, a good musician can make good music with good software, but good software doesn't make your Average Joe� a musician.

Actually, there is MIDI software out there that will "soulify" your music. You play it, and it will correct the timing if you're off, but more importantly, it can automatically adjust the music so it has intentionally slightly imperfect timing so it doesn't seem so computer-generated.

[starman]

I understand what you mean, but remember that sometimes creative people might not realize how creative they are until they get the right tool in their hand.

Mike

[Toyin]

I liked the 2 minute clip done by John Mayer at MWSF. The bass felt electronic but it had plenty of 'soul' to it.

For hobbyists, this will be a fun tool to play with. For professional musicians, this will be a sketch pad. I don't expect that a ton of quality music is going to be made entirely with GB. I do expect that several hits will have started on GB and maybe one or two hits entirely composed with GB

[JohnM15141]

I think a critical fact is being overlooked here. There is now a learning curve in place where there was none before. These "amateur" musicians every one is talking about are now under going a change in their thought process about music. Before GarageBand was released and not possesing any musical talent whatsoever I gave no thought into what goes into making music. After the release of Garageband and having played with it for a few hours I still have absolutely no music talent but I am having fun, I have made some sound tracks that sound good to me and my friends and I find when listening to music now, I pay attention to the different instruments, when they start, how they're mixed, and how they sound. Then I incorporate it inot my own tracks(as best as I can.) I find I want to learn more, maybe I will? And my creations will someday have a "soul."

This is the real benefit of Garageband.

Originally posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn:
Ok-
I have GarageBand now, played a bit, and have listened to a bunch of samples people have upload here and around the web.

While I concede the app is less than a week old and has yet to be fully flexed, I can't help but have a creepy feeling about it. And that's this:

The music it creates is soulless. The loops are perfectly, computerly, sterile. It's so easy to create what sounds like machine-edge accurate "pro" music, but I have yet to hear anything that had any true feeling like a real person playing. Even the tracks where someone recorded their live keyboard or guitar still sound lifeless.

So-- is this just a case of a new app that people really haven't gotten their hands around, or do we accept that commercial music now is so programmed and over produced that an app like GB, which mimics this, is all but inevitable and accepted?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Yes, I agree: I think he should try to "regenerate" his roots (electronic-symphonic, etc. music), rather than trying to appeal to the "new" techno (and jazz) crowd - we'll see what happens, anyway...

He did that with "Oxygene 7-13", which came off sounding like a bad Jarre imitiation IMO.

"Chronologie" was better, but really, Zoolook is the last album of his that I liked.

I saw him live a couple of years ago, and it was downright embarrassing to see him floundering between his legacy, his "art" attitude, his pandering to a music scene that he helped create but never became part of, and flat-out sales pitches for hardware and software (I couldn't believe it - pay $40 to watch someone peddling equipment...).



-s*

[Thor]

Please let's not forget Walter/Wendy Carlos ('Switched-On Bach' 1968) and Isao Tomita (Started working on 'Snowflakes are Dancing' in 1971).


Interesting note about Wendy Carlos:
1986:
"...She next collaborated with (Weird) Al Yankovic on a humorous musical album, coupling a parody of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with a whimsical extension of a Saint-Saens classic, called Carnival of the Animals - Part Two. This tongue-in-cheek blend of verbal and musical parody continued her LSI Philharmonic timbres and orchestral recreation, was performed directly into a Macintosh computer, using all the latest MIDI and SMPTE technology, allowing both precision and human feel in the instrumental ensembles."

[starman]

Originally posted by Thor:
Please let's not forget Walter/Wendy Carlos ('Switched-On Bach' 1968) and Isao Tomita (Started working on 'Snowflakes are Dancing' in 1971).

Yup. Good calls, except I personally despise Tomita's music.

Mike

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
He did that with "Oxygene 7-13", which came off sounding like a bad Jarre imitiation IMO.

"Chronologie" was better, but really, Zoolook is the last album of his that I liked.

Yes, probably Chronologie was his last "great" album. Of course, his classics such as Oxygene 2, Equinoxe 4, Rendezvous 2, and so on were his most soul-catching, "pure genius" pieces, so to say (at least for those who like this kind of music). Anyway, I also rather liked his more recent C'est la vie and Hey Gagarin, "new Jarre style" pieces...

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Thor:
Please let's not forget Walter/Wendy Carlos ('Switched-On Bach' 1968) and Isao Tomita (Started working on 'Snowflakes are Dancing' in 1971).

Yes, "Switched-On Bach" was groundbreaking.

Adapting existing work to new instrumentation is very different from writing original music specifically for electronic drums and synths.

-s*

[Thor]

Adapting existing work to new instrumentation is very different from writing original music specifically for electronic drums and synths.

Perhaps.

BTW, Carlos' "Sonic Seasonings" and the score for "A Clockwork Orange" were both released in 1972.


Wendy seems to be a SERIOUS Mac head:
"Carlos consults for several Macintosh developers including Mark of the Unicorn, Opcode, and Coda, has designed PostScript music fonts for Casady & Greene, and has developed libraries and tunings for Kurzweil/Young Chang."

[Spheric Harlot]

yes, she's known as a Mac-only person.

Mark of the Unicorn's Digital Performer as the chosen platform.

-s*

[DeathMan]

I think there is potential for a lot of people to be discovered as a result of this software.

Though in reality, it seems like more people will just enjoy music more as a result. Look at iTunes, or iPhoto. It just lets you get more out of your hobby. iMovie brought us something we couldn't normally do, so it is slightly different. GarageBand is just an extention to a hobby many of us already enjoy. It will allow us to add beats, baselines and rhythm sections to our little made up crap. PLUS we get to share that crap with people.

Yes, a lot of crap will be made with this software. The same can be said with iMovie. When you get good enough, and you want more power, you'll upgrade. Thats the whole marketing.

But I think that for a quick little demo tape, or a practice loop, this stuff is incredible.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn:
The music it creates is soulless. The loops are perfectly, computerly, sterile. It's so easy to create what sounds like machine-edge accurate "pro" music, but I have yet to hear anything that had any true feeling like a real person playing. Even the tracks where someone recorded their live keyboard or guitar still sound lifeless.

a) This is a $49 app.
b) Most of our friends posting their creations are not professional musicians.

Let the people have fun making music. It will inspire more of us to take music lessons, and perhaps better all of us and our children in the process.

[darcybaston]

Part of what makes GB sound soulless is because the instruments have horrible envelopes that hardly change to velocity. I'm biased because I can't stand the sound of Yamaha piano anything, and predictably their GB addition sounds twangy and horrible at low velocities. Many other patches suffer the same. I've had to tweak these soft synths for hours trying to get many of them to sound decent (rich and full bodied with a warmth that's low in midrange) compared to the sounds in this Roland XP-60. Yes, I know, GB isn't supposed to be a kick ass synthesizer hehe. I'm just noticing that the softpatches are part of the problem. But hey, for $49...they're not useless.

I haven't even tried the loops yet, but here is a file of a live recording : just_listen.zip

I played each track once, didn't edit a thing. Let me know if it sounds like it has some kind of soul? I tried to make it sound like a human being did it.

It's just a .band file that's zipped (36k).The tracks have customized instruments assigned to them. I've never had a lesson and know nothing of theory so be kind if you decide to critique more than if it feels 'live with soul'.

[killer_735]

Hmm...is it possible that people are noticing here with music the exact same thing that happened in the design world when Illustrator and Photoshop came out? That there will be a number of kinds of materials that are now super easy to produce, but for which people will quickly lose taste, unless they happen to be imbued with a certain distinctly human characteristic, which upon being asked to describe causes us to:
1. Look at our feet and mutter something unintelligible
or
2. Follow in true internet (and mac user) fashion and go off on a tangent about what art is, which is, ultimately, us spouting off our opinion, all the while claiming that we are some kind of expert, and flaming those who disagree with us.

So now music has an AOL, just like design and photography and painting and pretty much everything. Americans especially seem to love to dumb down something that's an art form and make it accessable, and that's okay..let the fourteen year olds make their 'Ode to Counterstrike in C minor'. The rest of us will laugh at and ultimately ignore them. There will be exceptions, however. Music already went through this once when synths came out, and we discovered that even if a computer can reasonably fake a human art form, we'll never accept as art anything that doesn't have some kind of passion running through it.

See, it's just the walmartization of music. There's garbage out there. It's practically free, and there's a huge selection of it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be online buying the slightly more expensive version that's infinitely more thought out and could actually be called art.

Which is why I'm sitting here using a mac in the first place.


So yeah, garageband excellent, contrary to what you might think. Anyone can make music, but the people we should be interested in are the ones who couldn't before because they didn't have the money or the gear, and now can, and will someday come up with something to make your a$$ smile a little.

Nobody panic. It's all part of the process.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by killer_735:
So yeah, garageband excellent, contrary to what you might think. Anyone can make music, but the people we should be interested in are the ones who couldn't before because they didn't have the money or the gear, and now can, and will someday come up with something to make your a$$ smile a little.

Nobody panic. It's all part of the process.

[Thor]

...in the design world when Illustrator and Photoshop came out?

Ugly fonts, drop shadows, and lens flares... oh my!

[dwishbone]

GarageBand is good for me. i can do my music without worrying about the problems a band brings...such as wishy-washy members. i can do the music all myself. i can do any genre i want.
i know there are other programs out there...but i am very spoiled to the easiness of the mac interface. i have tried protools, live, n-track, cubase, deck, acid, and many others. nothing comes close to how easy GB is to use. sure it lacks some of the power features...but it isnt a "pro" app. also in regards to some recent griping about GB's lack of samples. there are plenty of places online you can get pro quality samples for free. personally i have the samples from GB, Soundtrack, Acid and one of its expansions, and some ive downloaded off various sample web sites. im quite happy with it.

[Nonsuch]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
There was a bunch of truly "electronic" music in the 50s and 60s (much of it simple tone generators and tape splicing), and that led to the development of modern synthesizers (starting with Buchla and moog modular systems in the late 60s), but that music, in general, bears little resemblance to electronic music as produced today.

Just wanted to point out a notable exception: Delia Derbyshire's arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. Still sounds cutting-edge today, and I read one of the guys from Orbital saying he still can't figure out how she did it. (One of the "instruments" she used was a lampshade.)

Anyway, back on topic: I've already said that for any sort of professional musician, GB would make a good demo studio�just a quick way to knock together a new song to offer your bandmates or the local indie label's A&R guy. As for everyone else, I imagine GB's main purpose will be in providing custom soundtracks for people's iMovie projects, and for that reason alone, it's something Apple needed to do and is very welcome.

[The Ginger Rat]

Originally posted by Nonsuch:
Just wanted to point out a notable exception: Delia Derbyshire's arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. Still sounds cutting-edge today, and I read one of the guys from Orbital saying he still can't figure out how she did it. (One of the "instruments" she used was a lampshade.)

That Dr. Who theme is my fave. Hmm, gotta go dig up my file and play it now...