[MPA] Garage Band...whoa!

[Peter Kirn]

On Tuesday, Jan 6, 2004, at 15:56 America/New_York, Jay Shaffer wrote:

> I'm wondering how easy it'll be to create  "apple loops" for 
> Soundtrack and Garage Band.
> Could be a biz opportunity to market your drum loops.

I should hope they open this up to us, yes, since they're pushing the 
"file format" angle here. If not, creating ACID loops works for 
Soundtrack, perhaps Garage Band, too? One of many unanswered questions.

>  Also the question has come up of how many of the "apple loops" are 
> shared with Soundtrack. I know of at least one recent Soundtrack 
> purchaser who is pissed with today's announcements.

Well, understandably, BUT this is a different product. And anyway, I've 
heard enough griping about buyer's remorse with Apple. Companies have 
the prerogative to make business decisions; Apple decided to release 
Soundtrack separately only after demand, and may likewise have 
responded to demand for a real music-specific product.

Look at how these products differ:

Soundtrack:
- Geared at pro, video markets
- Video editing
- Frame markers for scoring
- 24 bit / 96 KHz (unconfirmed in Garage Band)
- 4,000 loops (instead of 1,000!)
$299 separately, free with Final Cut Pro

Garage Band
- Geared at home, musicians (no video!), integration with iLife suite 
-- video export, no video import
- Guitar amps (also useful for home musician)
- MIDI support, software instruments (and anyone who bought Soundtrack 
WITHOUT this may have been making a mistake anyway!)
$49 with iLife, free with new Mac

Garage Band is definitely the FAR, FAR better value -- I expected a 
price of at least $149 on it, not integration in iLife. But let's not 
complain to Apple about that! Soundtrack is easily worth the $299, so 
just because Apple's giving us this even larger break on Garage Band, 
what's the problem?

Peter