Cannon fodder for NedFodder

While things may seem to be quiet on the 50th Anniversary Edition, there has been some noisier bustle elsewhere.

In short, I've been involved as a web designer in the launch of NedFodder.com and as a result I've been invited to contribute some music to the site.

So, having a copy of Garageband to hand, I decided to compose a dance mix of 'Keep On' as an opportunity to learn more about Logic Pro's little sibling.

Garageband is praised, like so much of Apple's software, for being simple and intuitive. It's probably true for most folk too. But for someone who has been using music software since Steinberg Pro 24 on an Atari ST I find it completely baffling.

A simple example: I wanted to import a 4 bar drum loop from the original recording in Logic. I created the drum loop (another story - why is it so simple to export a tight loop from Reason and so complicated in Logic?) and then opened the loop browser in Garageband to import it.

Strange... no import menu?

I hunted the 'net for answers and discovered the Apple soundtrack utility - a kind of simplified version of Recycle, which lets you mark up the beats in your loop and then adds it to your loop library with some extra meta tags. (Please tell me to stop if I'm boring you).

Of course, after half an hour of fiddling the loop still didn't appear in the Garageband loop library.

Another hunt on the net...

Well, it's simple isn't it! Just drag the file you want to loop into the Garageband track window. D'oh!

Still doesn't show up in the loop browser of course, but at least now I can sit and listen to the loop going round and round and occasionally mutter, "Woh - Groovy".