Why GarageBand?

Course: Home Recording With Garageband

In this video

We discuss recording software or ‘Digital Audio Workstations’ (Known as ‘DAWs’). There are lots to choose from, we go in depth here.

There are a wide range of different software packages out there for recording. These are known as DAWs, meaning Digital Audio Workstations. Each DAW has its own strengths and weaknesses or is better for certain situations.

Why Garageband?

In my experience, Garageband is the most plug and play DAW that includes everything you need for home recording without the need for extra plugins or software purchases. If you have a Mac, it comes pre-installed and is free to use (optional premium extras available) and it has the capability of professional studio quality audio production.

If you don't have a Mac, then this is the obvious expense as Garageband is NOT compatible with PC. However, it is available on both iPad and iPhone, and we'll look at how to set this up for recording guitars in this course.

I personally use a Mac mini as my main computer for recording and video editing. These can of course be super powerful (expensive), but an entry level Mac mini is the perfect options for those on a budget, as well as any Mac laptop.

See below my recommended DAWs that work with PCs, plus other DAWs you should be aware of.

PC options - Reaper/ StudioOne

I mention audacity a few times in this course, but from my research, Reaper seems like a much more complete solution for home recording and a better "PC version of Garageband". PC guys - go for this option, loads of free tutorials online to show you where the buttons are, and you can use this course to get the principals of home recording to get you going!

Reaper website

I've also heard great things about StudioOne. I don't have any experience with it myself, but it's certainly a good PC option.

StudioOne website

Cubase/ Nuendo

I used both Cubase and Nuendo for most of the 2000s. They're particularly great for using audio with video, which was part of my studies at college and university.

Cubase website

Pro Tools

The top dog DAW for the past 25 years for Mac or PC. Most studios run Pro Tools still to this day.

Pro Tools website

Honourable mention - Logic Pro

https://www.apple.com/uk/logic-pro/

Logic is Apple’s premium DAW and is my personal favorite DAW barre none.. I personally mixed all the recordings for my online band program and it was brilliant for mixing drums and handling 20+ inputs. You can't do that kind of thing in Garageband, so the pro version of Garagerband is Logic Pro.

The best thing about learning to use Garageband is that the user interface of Logic is laid out basically the same - so you learn both at the same time!

Whatever you choose, remember; it's not what you use, it's how you use and what you use it for that counts!

Next Up: Mac vs iPad vs iPhone

Well done! Let's jump into the next lesson of the course.

Your choice regarding cookies on this site
We use video cookies to embed videos, audio cookies to embed music players, analytical cookies to improve our website, marketing cookies to improve the relevancy of advertising campaigns you receive, payment cookies to process payments, and necessary cookies to enable core functionality.