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Garageband for ipad has the same crap problem as every other iOS music app....

N

nafai23

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 13, 2008
141
21
No record level on the mic or mic input!!!!

I am a professional musician as is my wife and we both play instruments that overload the levels on iphone and ipad apps if the ipad is placed on the stand in front of us and we play a healthy volume.

I eagerly downloaded garageband today because i assumed they could not release a piece of software like this and not have simple level control.

Sure enough under "help" It states if the levels are too hot to play more softly. Wow, really?

Are you kidding Apple?

That is not how you make music with acoustic wind instruments and string instruments. The timbre and color also changes with dynamics.

Very disappointing. Guess I cannot throw away the zoom mp3 recorder for practicing just yet
 
M87 said:
I think the problem is you play wind instruments.
Click to expand...

Yea, that's it.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Wait my wife plays violin.

Wait singers sing different volumes also and get different sounds, and acoustic guitars, acoustic drums.

If it is just for loops and banging on fake drums on the screen they should take the audio recorder out all together. You cannot have an audio recorder without levels.

What if your ipod had one volume setting and when you tried to look up help for this it told you to pull the headphones out of your ears or listen to softer music like piano if it is too loud?
 
Change the levels all you want, but doesn't the microphone itself have a physical range? You probably shouldn't be using the built-in microphone for music recording anyway.


If you really want to record on an iPad, maybe you should get a better suited external microphone, maybe one that has its own level controls or get some sort of preamp that will let you do what you want. A software level control can't compensate for hardware limitations.
 
Last edited:
Chalk it up another $5 wasted on cute, useless apps.

Your just mad because this one's actually made by Apple, and you thought they would be different.

Guess again :D
 
So if I understand you correctly you're a professional musician complaining that you cannot record quality music on your tablet? GarageBand for iOS was not designed as a studio quality recording program, but more as a "notepad" of sorts for making musical notes. Think of it as your musical sketch pad when you can't fully record.

It's like a professional mechanic complaining that his $20 Wal-Mart tool set didn't cut it for his professional garage.

Remember the software is called "GarageBand" not "StudioArtist"
 
nafai23 said:
No record level on the mic or mic input!!!!

I am a professional musician as is my wife and we both play instruments that overload the levels on iphone and ipad apps if the ipad is placed on the stand in front of us and we play a healthy volume.

I eagerly downloaded garageband today because i assumed they could not release a piece of software like this and not have simple level control.

Sure enough under "help" It states if the levels are too hot to play more softly. Wow, really?

Are you kidding Apple?

That is not how you make music with acoustic wind instruments and string instruments. The timbre and color also changes with dynamics.

Very disappointing. Guess I cannot throw away the zoom mp3 recorder for practicing just yet
Click to expand...

These will solve your troubles...

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/jam.php

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/mike.php
 
Just to explain,
In my business people usually have a zoom/edirol recorder (back in the day it was minidisc players)We lug these things around in our cases.

We use this for quick practicing, recording something quick in a session to relearn later, recording a symphony rehearsal from the hall. So levels are wildly different from over 100db to something very quiet.

Just usually for improvement and practice.

Not a single person in my business is not frustrated with the ipad and iphone not having level control over the mic. It would be one less thing for us to carry around.

This afternoon I was preparing for an audition and recording myself with a mac book pro. Ipad would have been alot more fun and easier.

It's like saying why use an ipad at all. Just buy a laptop for everything.

Crazy I am the only bothered by such a simple omission.
 
I could not agree more. I need a casual "notepad" that does not overload with more than speaking volume from a few feet away. I do not even care about quality for practice reasons.

There is NO reason not to have levels for the mic.


anonymous6237 said:
So if I understand you correctly you're a professional musician complaining that you cannot record quality music on your tablet? GarageBand for iOS was not designed as a studio quality recording program, but more as a "notepad" of sorts for making musical notes. Think of it as your musical sketch pad when you can't fully record.

It's like a professional mechanic complaining that his $20 Wal-Mart tool set didn't cut it for his professional garage.

Remember the software is called "GarageBand" not "StudioArtist"
Click to expand...
 
anonymous6237 said:
So if I understand you correctly you're a professional musician complaining that you cannot record quality music on your tablet? GarageBand for iOS was not designed as a studio quality recording program, but more as a "notepad" of sorts for making musical notes. Think of it as your musical sketch pad when you can't fully record.

It's like a professional mechanic complaining that his $20 Wal-Mart tool set didn't cut it for his professional garage.

Remember the software is called "GarageBand" not "StudioArtist"
Click to expand...


I agree with this. GB is quite obviously not a full studio recording program. I didn't realize it came across that way. I'm buying it for my 6 & 4 year old children. A tablet simply does not perform like a laptop of desktop.
 
nafai23 said:
I could not agree more. I need a casual "notepad" that does not overload with more than speaking volume from a few feet away. I do not even care about quality for practice reasons.

There is NO reason not to have levels for the mic.
Click to expand...

I'm not an audio expert, but my question is whether a software level control will really solve the problem? What if the physical hardware of the microphone can't handle the range that you want?

I think an external microphone solution might be much better for this, and depending on the setup you'll still have something more portable than a full size laptop.
 
nafai23 said:
I could not agree more. I need a casual "notepad" that does not overload with more than speaking volume from a few feet away. I do not even care about quality for practice reasons.

There is NO reason not to have levels for the mic.
Click to expand...


So get the mic dongle, that may help? Feck knows. Why not use a laptop to record your stuff. I'm not sure a tablet is the best tool.
 
I'm a musician. I own an Edirol. If you're expecting the same quality from the iPad's built in mic as you get with an Edirol you're barking up the wrong tree. You can make the iPad work just fine for what you're trying to do, but not with the tablet alone. I'd use external mics and a portable four channel IO. iPad is not intended to be an all in one audio solution for professionals.
 
The ipad is a failure when it comes to audio recording.

The apps are fairly cheap, but you would need expensive custom hardware to make them work (unless you don't mind ambiguous mono). An exercise in futility.

Perhaps this will change

Now, for wireless midi it's a godsend :)
 
As an audio "notepad" for quick dirty recording software level control would stop the overloading enough for it to be useful.

My crappy 5 year samsung smartphone had an stereo audio recorder on it with software levels.

There are so many threads here that people could just say "Use a laptop!" for.

Why release garageband or imovie....just use a laptop. Why have a camera in the new ipad just use a red one camera. It is better.

Chad
Stetrain said:
I'm not an audio expert, but my question is whether a software level control will really solve the problem? What if the physical hardware of the microphone can't handle the range that you want?

I think an external microphone solution might be much better for this, and depending on the setup you'll still have something more portable than a full size laptop.
Click to expand...
 
you do realize were all buying an ipad two because of garageband and imovie and a lot of you guys just said "well ya the ipad versions dont work if you want working ones get a mac". so ya im not getting an ipad 2 anymore :p
 
mac jones said:
The ipad is a failure when it comes to audio recording.

The apps are fairly cheap, but you would need expensive custom hardware to make them work (unless you don't mind ambiguous mono). An exercise in futility.

Perhaps this will change

Now, for wireless midi it's a godsend :)
Click to expand...

Not even that expensive. it looks like apogee has an input foryour guitar. Get a mixer and plug it into that and you should be good to go. Is it really that big of a deal?

Dude - its an iPad not a MOTU piece or even Maudio.
 
I never said anything about quality. Just to be able to control levels to the point of it not completely distorting for practice purposes.

I cannot win.
Why are you guys are all for apple not having software recording levels?


Surf Monkey said:
I'm a musician. I own an Edirol. If you're expecting the same quality from the iPad's built in mic as you get with an Edirol you're barking up the wrong tree. You can make the iPad work just fine for what you're trying to do, but not with the tablet alone. I'd use external mics and a portable four channel IO. iPad is not intended to be an all in one audio solution for professionals.
Click to expand...
 
nafai23 said:
As an audio "notepad" for quick dirty recording software level control would stop the overloading enough for it to be useful.

My crappy 5 year samsung smartphone had an stereo audio recorder on it with software levels.

There are so many threads here that people could just say "Use a laptop!" for.

Why release garageband or imovie....just use a laptop. Why have a camera in the new ipad just use a red one camera. It is better.

Chad
Click to expand...

There are a few people saying just use a laptop, but I also see a few giving real advice on various audio input options and external mics.
 
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