Show 103 – GarageBand and Songwriting In Your DAW

In this week’s show, Jesse talks about the features and uses for GarageBand and Ryan talks about suing your DAW software as a songwriting tool.

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16 thoughts on “Show 103 – GarageBand and Songwriting In Your DAW

  1. Thanks for the show guys, just want to second the comment from the last show regarding Rodrigo y Gabriela, great stuff if you like nylon strings. A while back I had the same question regarding what they used in the studio. Here’s the link to a post from their guitar tech…
    http://www.myspace.com/rodrigoygabriela/blog/537451413
    Only two classical guitars, but a lot more to the sound than just a couple of condenser mics.

  2. Hi guys,

    Just want to say you’re doing a great job over here, and I feel it doesn’t get enough publicity for the quality it has.

    After listening to a tip from one of your old podcasts, regarding the mic from Apple laptops… I went ahead and tested the built-in mic on the Ipad, and guess what…I plan on recording some tracks on it!! Once I have a finished product I’ll let you know.

    Keep it up guys,
    JP
    Portugal

  3. There’s just no love for Logic!

    I’ve been using Logic Express for several months and have been pretty happy with it. Like any DAW there’s a bit of a learning curve. I think whoever does the AU plugin GUI should be fired. The plugins sound fine but they are not very intuitive to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

    By contrast many of the stock plugins that comes with Pro Tools (EQ III, Dynamics III, D-Verb) are laid out so well that you just can’t wait to start turning the knobs.

  4. Oh man! Had to pause mid-show to comment: you should set up a “bleep” button with a clip of john saying “d112” oh his most dry of John-voice tones. You know, when somebody swears (or whatever).

    Anyway the band I’m working with right now did pre-pro demo tracks using garage band and it’s given us a good “sketch” to work on for the album sessions. Back to the show!

    -j

  5. @thatgtrguy
    I know it’s quite well known that I don’t have much love for Logic, I was trying to avoid bringing that up. You did hit the nail right on the head. The AU plugin layout is not the greatest at all. I don’t understand their reason for doing it that way.

    And J, garage band is a great way to sketch a song out before you go into the studio.

  6. @thatgtrguy

    Ha. I never even thought about the plugins in Logic being non-intuitive.

    I’ve just always assumed that everything in Logic is non-intuitive. As I”ve said “The only Logic in Logic is the name.”

    Anyway, I’ve used it for long enough that I’ve just adapted.

    CD

  7. The funny part of it is that I never saw the merit in a summing mixer until I became a Pro Tools user. One time I put a boatload of vocals into a pro tools bus and I could hear a distinct differences from when they were just assigned to the main bus. That was in version 7. I ditched PT then. But now that PT9 can be bought without hardware, I’m thinking of dipping my toes back in the PT waters

  8. @thatgtrguy – What? Jesse diss’d Logic again? I’ve trained my ears to ignore my kids until there’s that specific pitch that indicates blood has been drawn.

    After he dumped on Logic a while back, I’ve kind of done the same thing to his voice on the podcast – totally missed the Garageband segment as a result… 😉

    Seriously – yeah, I’m the same on the stock plug-in interface design. It totally needs a facelift. I think they’ve had this look and feel from pre-version 7 days. Don’t know why Apple hasn’t wrestled that UI out of EMagic’s hands…

  9. “Has litigation gone this far. Man, you can’t blame your DAW for everything! Snigger!”

    Agree!Thanks for the laugh HRS!

  10. There’s an interview with Rodrigo y Gabriella in an old copy of R2 magazine (an excellent folk/roots publication in the UK) where they explain that they tried recording in commercial studios with producer John Leckie but couldn’t get the sound they wanted, so they bought an apartment back in Mexico, ripped it out, and had a studio built inside it. Rodrigo produced the album himself. Jon will be pleased to know that they are major metal heads and used to be in a metal band, and feel a stronger affinity for metal acts than any world music artists!

  11. Man, u guys slam Logic all the time! I use Pro Tools 8 and Logic Studio 9, and love them both. I must say, though, that Logic is WAY BETTER for composition and songwriting. There are many more outstanding virtual instruments, and a lot more MIDI and audio loops. Plus you can do everything in Logic that you can do in Pro Tools as far as editing and mixing. Further, Logic is less of a suck on CPU power, runs more efficiently, is still better for MIDI, and crashes far less often. I have yet to see it crash.

  12. Was kind of cool to hear you riffing on GB being a gateway drug. It’s been the banner of my blog for a while even though by the time I started writing it I had stepped up to crack (Ableton Live).

    Great show even though I did almost choke on my coffee when Jon said the drums don’t really matter (in the songwriting in your DAW segment, Jon says, “It’s not like drums are the important part of a song”… and Ryan says, “unless, of course, they are”). LMAO. Just a little ironic after defending the total overkill of Chris Holmes’ drum recording methods (which are totally awesome too).

  13. I think it’s funny that Ryan never noticed the type and completely misunderstood Paul Ward’s comment.

    • We all take turns editing the show so it certainly is not me pushing up my own fader! I just talk louder. The other guys actually have dynamics. My voice and way of speaking is it’s own loudness war.

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