[MPA] Garage Band...whoa!

[Steven Palm]

On Jan 8, 2004, at 8:35 AM, Peter Kirn wrote:
> 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.

  The AppleLoop format is supported, yes, and you can create your own. I 
believe the Soundtrack Loop Utility comes with SoundTrack. I doubt 
you'll find it included with GarageBand, but that's just a hunch. 
However, it *IS* available as a SDK from Apple (although specifically 
mentioned on that page that it's NOT intended for end users... :-) and 
you can make your own loops with it.

>>  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.

  Indeed. People got what they want, felt it was a fair price, and 
complain later that market conditions or other business decisions were 
made. I've never understood that viewpoint because if you felt 
something was a horrible value, you shouldn't have bought it. Better 
deals ALWAYS come along and you just have to live with it. :^)

  Consider that GarageBand comes with ~1,000 samples for $49.95.  
Soundtrack comes with ~4,000.

  You can add an additional ~2,000 loops to GarageBand for $99.95, 
bringing the price up to ~$150, and you are still 1,000 samples less 
than Soundtrack. I think that at that point, Soundtrack has enough 
extra features that you can say it's still a very fair value for the 
price if you are interested in doing that kind of work. I mean, it even 
supports 126 tracks instead of 64 in GarageBand, etc... Truly it is a 
Pro level application with a much larger scope. I wouldn't confuse 
GarageBand with a pro app.

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Steve Palm - n9yty at n9yty.com
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