Posts Tagged ‘garageband’

A Tale of Two Stratocasters, Pt. 1

// April 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Guitar

There is a hierarchy, or ladder, in the world of stratocaster guitars and my Squier may not be at the very bottom of that ladder, but it surely wont get hurt if it falls off. Somewhere near the top of that hierarchy is the Fender American Standard and while there are plenty of better strats than the AmStd, it’s high enough up that ladder to get a nose bleed.

This past weekend, I was able to get my hands on a friend’s Fender American Standard for the whole weekend to play with and I figured this would be a good opportunity to highlight the differences between the these two strats.
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GarageBand Guitar Sampler

// March 23rd, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Guitar

Welcome to my GarageBand electric guitar amp/effect sampler. With the release of the Apple iLife ‘09 suite, came a big update to the GarageBand program. There were a lot of enhancements to the product, such as lessons, interface tweaks, and some new songwriting features, but none of those come anywhere near as important (to me) than the new guitar amp and effect models now built-in to GarageBand. The following is a sampling of the default amp/effect models included with the software. They are infinitely customizable and they very well may contribute to the retirement of my Line 6 POD 2.
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Garageband a POD Killer?

// March 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Guitar

The latest version of Garageband in iLife ‘09 includes a number of new features and of all those new features none were as interesting to me as the new built-in electric guitar effects. A little over a year ago, I got my hands on an old, beat up, non-functioning Line 6 POD 2.0. At the time it was a critical (missing) piece from my home studio and I desperately wanted an amp/effect processor to liven up my recordings. I spent about $80 getting it back up and running again and while it still has some issues, it generally works OK. With the new guitar amp/effects built-in to Garageband, the question was, can it compete with the POD? If so, could I simplify (or even improve) my recording environment by simply removing the POD from the mix?
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My Studio Finally Has a Mic

// December 23rd, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Music

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I wasn’t expecting the delivery to come until after Christmas, but Santa (Amazon) made an early delivery. Only two days after we got socked with snow, I received my Blue Snowball USB Condenser Microphone. I had originally planned to get an MXL 990 Condenser, but to run a mic like that I would need a new interface with phantom power. While the MXL mic was under $100, the Presonus Firebox was going to set me back another $250. In the end, I decided that $80 for a stop gap mic would suit me just fine for now.

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For a test, I enlisted the help of my two girls. This is the first real creation with the mic. I used the omnidirectional setting and recorded both girls standing side by side. The guitar was recorded in directional mode and the volume knocked down a notch for the final mix. This was also the first recording where I played around with GarageBand’s builtin compressor and was amazed at the difference it made. A little reverb for both tracks and voila.

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Who Said You Can’t Play Music w/ Rock Band

// November 3rd, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Music

Unlike a die-hard musician friend of mine I can see the fun-factor in games like “Rock Band” and “Gutiar Hero”. There are quite a lot of people in this world who couldn’t carry a tune in a basket or even fret a note. Heck, I’m always amazed at how many people have no sense of rhythmn. With games like “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” individuals with no musical talent at all can delude themselves into thinking they can play an instrument. Now thanks to Joe Rybicki, they just might be able to create some real music with those silly USB pseudo-instruments.

In a how-to on MacLife.com, Joe steps through the process of connecting the USB drum kit from the hit game “Rock Band” to your Mac and actually using it as a software based drum kit in Garageband. Essentially, you need one or more game controller drivers for your Mac for either $15 or $95 bucks. The cheaper option would appear to be fine for someone who simply wants an oversized midi trigger device, while the more expensive option responds quick enough to actually act as a software based drum kit. Overall, it is an intriguing option that I might consider if I had the room in my little home studio or even had the game.