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I am a music therapist and I use BIAB all the time for work with my clients and students. I would like to develop a presentation for our regional conference on the use of BIAB for music therapy geared toward my Windows colleagues. Many have presented/talked about the virtues of Garage Band, and I see BIAB as a viable alternative. I have Garage Band on my ipad and I'm not impressed. Does anyone else have experience with Garage Band? How does it compare to BIAB? Thank you!
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Short answer; Garage Band is a recording tool, BIAB is an accompaniment generator. Apples and oranges. Later, Ray
Asus Q500A i7 Win 10 64 bit 8GB ram 750 HD 15.5" touch screen, BIAB 2017, Casio PX 5s, Xw P1, Center Point Stereo SS V3 and EWI 4000s.
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Short answer; Garage Band is a recording tool, BIAB is an accompaniment generator. Apples and oranges. Later, Ray Generally speaking, Ray is correct. However, the latest flavor of Garageband for iOS devices blurs the lines between Apples and Oranges with the smart-instrument features. These allow one to generate accompaniment on the fly according to some pre-programmed patterns which in the end result in editable midi data. What Garageband does not do is allow one to enter in a song structure, style, chord progression, etc. and generate an accompaniment directly from only that input. I haven't tried Garageband on my sons Mac to see if it has the smart instrument features or not. I don't believe so. Garageband is a pretty easy program to use in some respects, and frustrating in others. Some of the love that it gets is simply because of it's ubiquity on the Mac platform. That said, I think for $4.99, it's the best music program value on the iOS platform. Just the guitar amp simulations are worth $4.99. Also, the tonewheel organ simulation in all versions is a thing of sonic beauty. Ranks right up there with the NI B4 and GSi VB3 simulations, in my opinion. Same can be said for the included electric piano simulations. Very well done. How you use either tool is probably the most important thing. Each will have it's pros and cons.
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Short answer; Garage Band is a recording tool, BIAB is an accompaniment generator. Apples and oranges. Later, Ray Exactly. They work wonderfully together. FWIW the loops and canned songs that come with GB are absolutely zip compared to BIAB's capabilities and do not invite comparison in that arena.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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The only difference I see is in garage band it is an instrument generator and Daw in one. you pick a specific pattern you want on a track, and it plays it. For example an arpeggio guitar, it will then play the same arpeggio without variation, like a loop which is all it is; until you tell it to do something different or end. [A feature I wish was available on Band in a Box for Realtracks; you could choose the patterns you wanted to use when it was all midi.]
With Garage band You can choose different variations on your own, when he gave us the finished version there were variations, but fitting the song, he went in and edited just for effect, as what we did would have surficed. For the song I was a part of recording using it, the gentleman chose an arepeggio guitar and acoustic bass and a stick driven drum; we recorded the song and the music just continued to play when we were done, because he had not set an intro or end, he just put in the pattern he wanted and the chord changes and it played. In less than a minute we had drums, guitar and bass, there were other instruments but those three were all we needed for the song. We recorded the vocals live using the external mic on his ipad, I failed to mention we recorded this on an ipad. In the matter of probably 5 to 7 minutes we had the song done recording, vocals and all. The instruments do sound very, very good. To my ear though the realtracks in biab are far superior, [Have I said; I only wish they would add the choose your own pattern feature as band in a box players will sometimes play as though it is a different song and style, which would be ok if they didn't get so far off of the feel of the song, of course you can correct it, but it is way to time consuming, even since they added the feature to take it into real band and regenerate. I wish they would either make it where you can pick you own pattern or where you can freeze bar by bar, and then regenerate only the bars needed. In garage band you choose what you want, when you want it. Which to me is much better. He then went in later and added an intro and and end. I believe Garageband is geared more toward Rock and hip hop genre music, but I have heard songs done in other genres that sound very well. If I had only one to buy for the overall features I would choose Band in a Box. For ease of creating a song without need to edit I would choose Garage Band. I hope this helps!
My TunesPsalm 57:7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music.
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Welcome to the forum Deb. You say you're a music therapist, are you a musician as well? If you're not a player you may not understand some of the things being explained here. Also, Biab has been available on Mac's for years and PG just did a major Mac update a couple of years ago so the Mac version is "almost" as good as the PC version now.
Depending on how much of this you understand and how important the differences are to you it's correct that GB and Biab are vastly different to the point of apples and oranges. Or not. The differences are huge to me as a keyboard player for over 40 years.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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I am a music therapist and I use BIAB all the time for work with my clients and students. I would like to develop a presentation for our regional conference on the use of BIAB for music therapy geared toward my Windows colleagues. Many have presented/talked about the virtues of Garage Band, and I see BIAB as a viable alternative. I have Garage Band on my ipad and I'm not impressed. Does anyone else have experience with Garage Band? How does it compare to BIAB? Thank you! Deb, I am extremely interested in the subject of Music Therapy for patients in my nursing home. I have seen, first hand, the nearly miraculous improvement in quality of life when music is reintroduced to Alzheimer, Dementia, and end of life patients here in my nursing home. I need help in overcoming Corporate reluctance and inertia and would be very happy to discuss it by PM. Please?
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Thank you for that detailed explanation. That helps.
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Thank you for your response, jazzmammal. One can't be a music therapist without being a musician. Music Therapists use live music with their clients. I use BIAB to assist with song writing, as an "extra pair of hands" to supplement live music, to make practice tracks for students. Though BIAB may be available for Mac, Garage Band is not available for Windows users who are feeling left out. From what I've read here and in my research of both products, BIAB blows GB out of the water, but I don't know many therapists who are familiar with it. Hopefully, if my presentation is approved, that will soon change!
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Deb, do you ever allow the patients to use your iPad as part of the therapy? There are many music apps for the iOS platform that aren't really like Garageband or BIAB, which I could imagine might be very useful. Brian Eno has his name associated with a few apps which I think could be useful (Bloom was the first, but there are some newer ones that I can't think of right now). The iPAD touchscreen has a bit of velocity sensitivity with the accelerometer that's in the iPad, and that coupled with the x-y capability offer up some very unique and easy to learn controls of music for the end user. I've used it and as a musician, it gets a little boring, but for someone who has never been able to express themselves with traditional instruments, I can imagine it might do wonders. There are other music apps which take advantage of the accelerometer in other ways and take advantage of the touch surface in other ways. Jordan Rudess is also involved with an app company where there might be usefulness as a therapeutic device. http://www.generativemusic.com/bloom.htmlhttp://www.wizdommusic.com/products/geo_synthesizer.html
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Hello, rockstar_not:
Personally, I haven't clients to use my ipad. I know many therapists who do allow clients access to ipads, though. I use my ipad for documentation and to store sheet music. Thank you for those suggestions! It's funny sometimes how a new application can change your approach with clients. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas/ways of doing things! Deb
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