Using Garage Band for Pro use.

Can you use Garage Band for pro use? YES.

Most pro's will say NO. Cool pro's will say, if you ha

ve a good song, the platform (program) isn't important. In conversation with various recording artists I hear them often say that Garage Band 

is good for demos. I say go further. All the way.

I have used Garage Band, Mac's free application that comes with your Mac, to deliver music scores for television. I must admit I waited by the phone after uploading the finished files, completely from GarageBand, thinking they'd call and say "we can't use this, when are you going to send the pro version." I never got the call. I never even got feedback. A few days later I saw the show on TV with my cues. Then I got a cheque in the mail. Can you use GarageBand for pro use? I did and I continue to do so. Not only does it sound great but it is so user friendly. 

Once I finished the recording I used the following export settings, found under GarageBand>Preferences>Advanced. I had it set for 

Auto Normalization. That basically increases the overall volume to it's maximum level, and the Audio Resolution set at Best which is the highest setting offered. At the time of these cues, I was recording directly into the 1/8" input on the back of the Mac via a Eurorack desktop mixer. On your Mac, the default input bit rate is 16. At the time I never realized that you could change the bit rate to 24.

 

To change the bit rate to/from 16 or 24 you have to go into your Applications>Utilities>Audio Midi Setup. Select the Audio Device tab and you will see the option to change your Input source, Format and 2

ch-16 or 2ch-24, which is your bit rate. I found a great link that explains the difference between Bit Rates and Formats. tweakheadz.com

I will say that I have already used Garage Band on portions of the album. As I get closer to the release I will explain which portions, and how I went about doing so. There will also be a blog on exporting individual tracks from GarageBand into another program like Cubase.  Till then, if you use Garage Band for pro use, don't tell them. They probably won't even know.