creativity/machine

GarageBand: Usability vs. Hackability

I don’t have a Mac, so I haven’t used GarageBand yet, but I’ve been following its release and its take-up by users very closely. To hear the fruits of this explosion of creativity, visit one of the many online distribution channels for GarageBand recordings that have already begun to appear: MacJukebox, iCompositions, or MacJams.

As I’ve said before, I reckon any software that enables complete novices to make their own music (and not just Rip. Mix. Burn the music of others) has to be pretty much a Good Thing. Good, not only for the self-cultured individual, or for those who want to see more independent cultural production, but even for Culture as a whole. As far as I can tell, GarageBand is ridiculously powerful for its price, and while very simple to use, it is at least to some extent expandable. But the questions I have are more long-term: in the end, does its seamless ease-of-use, its smilingly simple interface, enable or close off the serendipity, misuse, and productive errors that accompany our learning of more “difficult” (Logic) or more “open” (AudioMulch) creative production software? Is it too much to ask for a radically simple entry-level interface that won’t condemn the novice user to following only preset production paths?

It’s too early to tell that story about GarageBand (and I am probably not fully equipped to tell it), but there have already been a few developments that suggest users will pressure Apple to make GarageBand even less a toy, and more a tool for serious leisure, than it already is (and what it “already is” is quite an achievement).

Even the amateur users have quickly tired of simply dragging and dropping the supplied “apple loops” – they are demanding to know how to reverse audio loops, import MIDI files, change the tempo mid-song, and even (god forbid!) escape the four-walled prison of 4/4 time. And the limitations of the software are beginning to show – in fact, the more newbies use it, the more they come to realize what they are missing. For example, GarageBand doesn’t support MIDI out (meaning you can’t use external sound modules like drum machines or synths with it), it doesn’t support Logic’s EXS sampler (despite being built on Logic architecture and sporting some of Logic’s native effects), the software doesn’t come with much sound-editing capability beyond cutting the supplied loops (although you can create loops in another program like ACID and import them), and it is impossible to record more than one track at once.

These limitations seem to be experienced even by “amateurs” as effective limitations on creativity, and as we would expect there are already signs that the hacking has begun.

jeanburgess

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28 responses to “GarageBand: Usability vs. Hackability”

  1. “although you can create loops in another program like ACID and import them”…. actully Acid does all that GarageBand does and more! GarageBand seems to be an entry level app compared to Acid! I think its sad that GarageBand is getting all this “Hype”. Dose GarageBand do video? Does GarageBand allow you to stray away from 4/4 tempo? Does GarageBand allow midi controle? No, no, and um, no. I can only hope Apple will make a “Pro” version of GarageBand or GarageBand users will hear about Acid and just try it!

    Full version: http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=704

    Free version: http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=268

    Official site: http://www.acidplanet.com/

    -gautch

  2. I keep asking around Apple enthusiast sites and no one can/will answer: How does this product differ from the basic ($69.95) ACID or even the less costly/featured “Styles” versions of that product from before Sony’s acquisition of the title?

    I’ve been using ACID to make music for years, and this sounds like it’s much the same, but I haven’t seen it in use or heard from anyone who’s used both enough to compare.

  3. Gautch…

    Apple does make Pro audio products. They are Soundtrack (the intermediate level product) and Logic Pro (the top level product).

    And GarageBand doesn’t do video… thats because iMovie (which comes with it) does video, and the two are tightly integrated. (GarageBand is also integrated with iTunes, iPhoto and iDVD…)

    Finally, GarageBand users aren’t interested in Acid – because its not available on the Mac…..

    Mph – How does GarageBand differ from Acid? Its easier to use, its cheaper ($49 as part of a suite of programmes, or free with a new Mac), and its available on the Mac 🙂

    Cheers 🙂

    Jeremy

  4. Garageband will be the litmus test for the long proclaimed creative superiority of the Apple client base: Will drag and drop music made by the musically unskilled with a Mac be any different than drag and drop music made by the musically unskilled with a PC?

    k

  5. Thanks for mentioning our site, MacJukebox, in your article. The link for it is incorrect, however: we can be found at http://macjukebox.net .

    The URL currently in the link (gbxchange.com) was forfeited to GarageBand.com in order to satisfy a trademark dispute claim; it currently leads to their website (which is not an Apple GarageBand users’ community site).

    Great discussions, by the way! 😉

  6. Jeremy,

    Thank you for clearing it up! There is a diffrence between GarageBand and Acid. Being an Acid fan and a Mac fan its going to be a big deceision for me (or anyone) to make. It does sound as thought Apple is making a great step, expecially if it comes with the new Mac’s!

    I do have to disagree that its easyier to use, but thats me. I cant disagree with it being cheaper! $50 bucks is good for this type of product. But $700-$2,000 for a new Mac, it better come with this App and many more! Shoot why not make me a famous muscian while im writing this check! hah

    If i were to give any one advice on choosing an app. id say to use the free trials! The best way to buy anything is to try it out. Click, click, click… hit all thoes buttons!

    CaptKevMan,
    Thanks for the updated link!

    Kaden,
    Good point!
    “musically unskilled” is “musically unskilled” i dont care what your keyboard is attached to!

    -Gautch

  8. Good God how and why is GarageBand suddenly cutting edge when PCs have had these cutesy sample drag’n’drop managers for a decade? Sony’s Acid is just the latest in a succession of literally hundreds of such programs.

    And before them, in the 80s on Amiga and ST, you had Trackers. Same idea, different sound format.

  9. I followed the links provided above.

    For $49.00 dollars you get…

    1. Garageband – loop arranger/sound recorder/amp simulator
    2. iMovie – video editor/input controller
    3. iTunes – wav/aiff/mp3/aac encoder and organizer
    4. iPhoto – photo editor and manager
    5. iDvd – DVD editor/creator

    For $499.00 you get acid pro

    Their really is no comparison. Acid is specialized. iLife is entry level, and FREE.

    If you have an older machine… 5 programs for $49.00… that’s the cost of a video game. It is by far the best value for MOST people.

    As for people that need other than 4/4 time… just nudge the tracks where you want them. I realize GarageBand, Acid, etc… are sort-of ‘paint-by-numbers’ types of programs, but heaven forbid they actually go outside of the lines.

  10. GarageBand can most certainly allow you to record out of 4/4 time. I don’t know where contrary information is coming from, but when you create a song, you can choose the time signature you want to record in, and if you need to change it you can access the master track info and do it there.

  11. Thanks for the info – I must restate that I haven’t actually gotten my hands on garageband yet (but that’s all about to change very soon!), so I’m only going by what the users and reviewers have said about it. But I understood it was difficult to change time signature and tempo *during* songs – is there a workaround?

  12. Does anyone know of similar software to Garageband that runs on IBM pc’s.

    James

  13. I was in a working band for ten years, then went back to my day job, that was seven years ago. I messed around with permanently crashing PCs and could never fathom out how to use Cubase. Now, I’ve had GB for a month and have produced an albums worth of pro sounding dance tracks, without using any Apple loops, I use the Soundtrack Loop Utility to get my drums in order and have never looked back. It’s got me making music again! There are things that I need now (midi in, drum sequencing etc) but this is a 1.0.1 release and it’s only going to get better! It’s put me back on the creative road again and that’s all that matters. Fair play to Apple!

  14. Hi all,

    I just wanted you all to know that DOT-POD – the ultimate iPod web server is now available.

    DOT-POD allows you to share any of your own iPod music tracks with others. Simply connect your iPod to your Mac, open DOT-POD, select the music you’d like to share, and listen to those tracks using any web browser, anywhere in the world.

    DOT-POD was conceived by a group of professional musicians who use their iPods for transporting their own copyright music and recordings and who wanted to be able to easily demonstrate their work to clients and to share ‘works in progress’ and other original compositions with others.

    Feel free to download the demo from
    http://www.dotpod.net/

    Enjoy 🙂

    Jeff
    DOT-POD

  15. Garageband is brilliant!! For a software package less than 50 bucks you can’t go wrong.

    some +’s,
    1. Built-in Software Synths
    2. Soundfont / DLS support through the QuickTime Instrument
    3. Custom Time Signature
    4. Export to iTunes feature
    5. Multi-band Compressor (as well as other plug-ins that come with OS X)
    6. AudioUnit support for expandability.

    go to
    http://www.audio-units.com/
    You can download effects, instruments (try Crystal), applications, and SDKs.

    Since there is audiounit support it is only a matter of time before someone writes a MIDI out AudioUnit plug-in to allow people to use their external synths/samplers.

    But, for $50? That’s a steal. That that’s just enough power (maybe more so) than a novice electronic musician would need. WHY would you compare Garageband to ACID pro? That’s funny considering the price difference. Completely unfair.

    For the musician that needs a little more than GB, pickup a copy of Logic Express. It is an awesome application with lots of power, nice routing features, powerful software instruments, great effects. Plus, support for VST and AudioUnits is standard.

    If you are a student to can buy Logic Express from the apple store HALF-OFF. It is worth it.

  17. Er — as of v6, Logic doesn’t support VST anymore.
    Check out Tracktion at rawmaterials.com for a fresh take on music production that’s still quite affordable ($80).

  18. Hi, can i get a free download of garage band on any site of the web in the whole f***** world??!!

  21. GarageBand kicks out the jams

    Wired is running a feature on Apple’s new music-recording software, GarageBand. Apparently the software is gaining quite a following, with user groups forming on social networking services like orkut and Tribe.net. There’s also a great link to the Crea…

  22. Think I forgot to jump on the GarageBand-wagon?

    ” Dent du Midi (what a beautiful name!) is an application that allows you to convert MIDI files into GarageBand loops or tracks.

  23. […] I sometimes talk about a tension between ‘usability and hackability‘, and somewhat pessimistically about how, most of the time, technology (in the broadest, most social sense of the word) teaches us what we should do with it, and how we should do those things. I need to get more across current thinking in interaction design/critical design theory though. This patient, careful post by Dan Hill, a transcript of an interview where he outlines his contribution to a forthcoming book on the subject, is a big help: The discourse around hackability is often littered with “hooks, sockets, plugs, handles” and so on. With adaptive design, drawing from the language of architecture more than code, we have a more graceful, refined vocabulary of “enabling change in fast layers building on stability in slow layers”, “designing space to evolve”, “time being the best designer” and so on. This suggests that there could be a distinction; that adaptive design is perhaps the process designed to enable careful articulation and evolution, as opposed to hackability’s more open-ended nature. […]

  24. I’ve used both garage band and acid pro.
    I have had my music that i’ve created in acid pro placed on tv and in film.
    I have made money from this with royalty checks paid by publishers and major recording organizations.
    i’m not tooting my own horn, merely giving reference as to weight of opinion, professional versus bedroom enthusiast.
    If you need felxibilty and attention to detail acid pro is worth every penny, even though it is chronically unstable as a program, once (if) they remedy this, watch out, there’ll be zero comparison bewteen the two.
    I also use a mac powerbook, the mac is wonderful, very dependable, but garage band is …….. well lame.
    It’s like a childs toy. There is no (as in zero) ability to create detailed pieces of music, down to the single one shot, and have it be useable for serious production. As in none. Ableton live is the way to go.

    On a cost versus cost basis, garage band looks like a better deal, but at what level of creativity are you willing to sacrifice detail and useability for price?

    If acid pro were more stable, then garage band would be sentenced to the bedrooms of the world forever (provided it remains in it’s present state).

  25. To clear up the time signature question, what is meant by not being able to switch out of 4/4 probably means, although you have a wide variety of tempos to choose from, you cannot switch tempos in a song. It is kind of limiting… For example, If you wanted the first part of the song to be in 4/4 and a 2nd part to be 6/8 and then back to 4/4, you are SOL buddy. The same goes for changing keys in the song.

    If you are using this as a simple recording unit, with an external drum track, and you are an actual musician, this isn’t a problem. You can be as creative as you want. However, you don’t have accurate control over editing tempo, pitch change, etc.

  26. The thing that I am impressed by Garageband (08) is the quality of the sounds. I looked at some of the samples of the orchestral sounds and that are huge, long samples that sound nearly as good as software synths like the Garriton Personal Orchestra. While GB is very limited as a sequencer, (I’m used to using Sonar 7 on PC and Digital Performer 5.1 on Mac), it would make a great software synth. I hope they make a “rewire” version or patch to allow this so that I could access GBs sounds in Performer just as I would rewire “Reason” of “Abelton Live”.

    If someone creates a “mod” (hack) for this, let me know!

    Paul

  27. […] creativity/machine » GarageBand: Usability vs. Hackability – MPhil Project: Brisbane’s Contemporary Chamber Music Scene M. I don’t have a Mac, so I haven’t used GarageBand yet, but I’ve been following its release and its take-up by users very closely. To hear the fruits of this explosion of creativity, visit one of the many online distribution channels for GarageBand recordings that have already begun to appear: MacJukebox, iCompositions, or MacJams. […]

  28. Nice article about Garageband. I hadn’t heard of AudioMulch so that was interesting. Being a Mac user and a having a copy of Garageband I fould this software to be more of a fun basic tool for sound recording (I personally use Cubase for my projects because that is what I started out with and it works for me). If Grageband had been available when I first started recording it probably would have been an ok choice although I suspect it would be very easy to outgrow. With the variety of recording /audio creation software out there at relatively low cost (and an increasing number for Mac users) I personally think there are far better choices out there. Still it’s worth tinkering with if you like to experiment.