Garageband class... ?

[SubYeoman]

I attend the University of Iowa and they offer a class on Garageband software through their music department. I never used Garageband and don't own a Mac, but I decided to take the class anyway because hey, why would you take a real class when you can get college credit for recording music?

Problem is, my modest home recording setup uses a PC and they don't make Garageband for PC, so I can't really work on stuff for class at home (where my drum kit is). I can use the Mac music lab at school, but would really like to work from home if at all possible.

I was hoping that some of you guys who know a hell of a lot more than I do might be able to help me come up with a solution to this problem. I was thinking I could just use some simple WAV or MIDI recording software (recommendations?) to record the drums then put them on a thumb drive to bring to school, but that makes it really tough to mess around and tweak stuff on the fly when you have to drive 10 min back and forth in the snow. I heard Mixcraft 5 is modeled after Garageband and is very similar, so I was thinking I might pick that up to use at home, but we have to turn in our projects in Garageband format so that doesn't really help me on that front. Unless anyone knows of a program for PC that could "save as" Garageband format? Probably not, but doesn't hurt to ask, right?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

 

[wheelema]

I have no experience with Garageband but it took about three minutes to Google this. Hope it helps.

1. In GarageBand, record any audio from any input device and save the document.
2. In the finder, view the "Package Contents" of your song document and navigate to the Media folder.
3. Rename your existing AIFF song to the name of the file in the Media folder (ie: Recording#01.aif) and replace the audio file from step 1.
4. Re-open your document in GarageBand. When you play your audio input, it is now the prerecorded AIFF! You can now stretch, crop or do anything to it that you would do with prerecorded loops.

Import AIFF files into GarageBand - Mac OS X Hints

I'm using Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 and it exports AIFF files.

Luck.

 

[SubYeoman]

I understand I can record bits of music at home using something else and then bring them to school to import into Garageband, but I want to be able to arrange and edit at home. I know it's probably impossible to use another program (especially on PC) and actually "save as" a finished Garageband file, but if I could more or less complete a song at home using say, Mixcraft, and then spend 5 minutes at school plugging the finished pieces into GB and clicking "save" in order to turn it in that would be nice. Is that feisable? My apologies if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about... this is the Newbie forum, right? :/

 

[wheelema]

I understand I can record bits of music at home using something else and then bring them to school to import into Garageband, but I want to be able to arrange and edit at home. I know it's probably impossible to use another program (especially on PC) and actually "save as" a finished Garageband file, but if I could more or less complete a song at home using say, Mixcraft, and then spend 5 minutes at school plugging the finished pieces into GB and clicking "save" in order to turn it in that would be nice. Is that feisable? My apologies if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about... this is the Newbie forum, right? :/

As long as you can import and export AIFF files in GarageBand at the university (and though it's a little kludgy per the instructions above you can), and as long as you can import and export AIFF files at home (true for Sound Forge) then you can do what you want where you want, always saving your work in AIFF format to remain compatible with GarageBand.

All the best.

 

[SubYeoman]

Sounds simple enough, I'll try it. Thanks for your help.

 

[Hakea]

I understand I can record bits of music at home using something else and then bring them to school to import into Garageband, but I want to be able to arrange and edit at home. I know it's probably impossible to use another program (especially on PC) and actually "save as" a finished Garageband file, but if I could more or less complete a song at home using say, Mixcraft, and then spend 5 minutes at school plugging the finished pieces into GB and clicking "save" in order to turn it in that would be nice. Is that feisable? My apologies if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about... this is the Newbie forum, right? :/

Yes, you can do whatever editing you like at home and then drop it straight into Garageband. You can simply drag and drop files into GB using WAV, mp3 and AIFF formats (those are the ones that I've tried anyway). However, you'll probably need to save them as individual tracks first.

You can drop a midi file into GB and it can split it back into individual tracks but I doubt that it would do that for audio that was in a complete project file created by another program, although you could try and see. However, if you save the tracks individually from the other program then you should be fine.

Going the other way, saving out of GB can take a few steps, depending on your preferred format. You can export as mp3, or if you export to itunes it will use AIFF, but itunes itself can easily convert that to WAV format. There are many other converters around too. As far as I recall, GB saves or exports the whole 'song' rather than individual tracks but if you mute the other tracks then you can save each track individually and name it accordingly.

Whatever you choose there's going to be a few steps involved, but it's definitely possible and it's all a good learning experience. Good luck with the course.

Chris

 

[flyingace]

My local Guitar Center and Apple Stores both have intro course for GB, both are too beginner for my needs. I wish a university around us offered something like that!

I'm obviously on a mac, but if I was on a PC, I know that Cakewalk is a favorite, and Reaper is really inexpensive!

Yes, as others have said, my guess would be that you'd simply have to save out tracks as individual files. Retaining the AIFF format for mac compatibility.
Good luck!