Compose taiko on Mac - how?

1. This might be a stupid question, but does GarageBand allow me to compose music "from scratch"?

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Kind of like asking "Does a piano allow you to compose music from scratch?" You can play anything you like in GB and record the notes and later look at them on a staff.

2. What's the difference between GarageBand and Logic Pro?

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Apple has three products, GB, Logic Express, and Logic Pro.
All three use the same engiine but Logic exposes a much more complex user interface and also comes with many more software instruments.

Stay with garage band until you have some specific reason to upgrade to Logic. Logic will directly import your GB projects so you don't loose any work.

3. Do I need a keyboard or whatever in order to start composing on Mac?

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You can used what Apple calls "musical typing" to play music on the computer "qwerty" keyboard. The asdf row acts like the white keys and the qwerty row like black keys. It is clumsy and slow but some people get good at it. Buy a "real" music keyboard and it will be much better. I think also you can mouse click on a picture of a music keyboard but that is just awful.

But you want to play drums. Why not get a MIDI Drum controller and play on a simulated rubber drum head. I know you can play drums on a keyboard but I'd bet it feels un-natural if you are a drummer

4. Currently I only have GarageBand (which comes bundled within iLife). I did a search on Google and apparently GarageBand Jam Pack 4 comes with percussion which includes taiko drums. I haven't been able to find any reviews or videos on this, so could anyone tell me how good it is?

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Most of the instruments on jam pack are just "ok". Good enough for your own composing but not good enogh for profesional recording. But there are third party speccialized software instruments that work. Jam Packs are the best bang per buck because you get so many on the disc. but always there is something better.

This is one example of a 3rd party "plug-in" I think there are a few others. http://www.ninevoltaudio.com/products/taiko.html

Put use the jam pack first
EDIT: The link about says you need "Kontakt" (full version) to use it. That is getting expensive but if you need that quality then you need it.

ongchinkai said:

Am I right to say that the Jam Packs "extend" the range of instruments that I have at my disposal?

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Yes. Each "jam pack" has dozens or hundreds of instruments and many, many "loops". Loops are performance fragments a few bars long.

These are cost effective but don't compete with the quality of a good specialized single instrument from a third party. Start with one of these

Another way to get a large number of instruments is to buy NI's "Kontakt" or even to download the free version. But Kontakt adds yet another layer of user interface and has a learning curve. Apple's jam packs are transparent as all they do is make some of the menu selections in GB or Logic longer.