Soundtrack 1.2

Rating:
Summary: Soundtrack is GB's big brother
Review: If working with Digital Audio and Video is your thing, then Soundtrack is a must buy. Unlike GarageBand (Which works with digital audio clips just like SoundTrack), this is geared toward the professional. It comes with a track just for video which allows you to sync up your audio with what's happening on the screen easily. It also comes with 4000 loops as compared to GBs 1000. You can get GBs accompanying software, Jam Pack, but that still offers much fewer loops than Soundtrack alone. Built in effects to each track also far surpases GBs effects. Pan your volume left and right with just a few clicks to name one. I enjoy GB and have written tunes based on it (Check macidol.com artist name Guy Serle) and it's fun. But when you're ready to do more, get Soundtrack.

Rating:
Summary: What, no MIDI? (even garage band has MIDI!)
Review: Musical Talents,

i used to use Opcode's Studiovision Pro for my MIDI and when Gibson bought out Opcode and ceased production of their MIDI software, I went to Steinberg. I now use Cubebase SX3. It is emensly flexible, has many sounds and effects, records audio, has many mixing options and, unfortunatly, (...) and requires an expirianced MIDI engineer to get good results.

On the opposit side of the world is Garage Band, a drag-and-paste music creation tool that is only a fraction of the Apple program available as Ilife. It includes about 1000 canned sounds that can be assembled together and called Music.

Soundtrack meets a middle ground. For about [$$$], you get about 4,000 samples to drag and drop into a timeline on multiple tracks to creat music. It is great fun and useful for backround tracks, but you must accept the provided melodies. Soundtrack, unlike even Garage Band, has no means by which you can create YOUR melodies. You can not use a keyboard interface to create a melody. It is a great loss that earned Soundtrack only 4 stars from me. I found no intros or exits from certain genre of music. In consolation, I'll admitt that you can supply Soundtrack many menues of downloaded and/or purchased blocks of music in the ACID, WAV (and other) professional samples. From there, you'll find an almost endless list of expasion sounds for a price.

I use Soundtrack, which was an added bonus in my Final Cut Pro 3 program, and I use Cubase SX 3 for any true musical compositions, But I recommend Garage Band over Soundtrack for anyone who desires to "make their own music" and can connect a cheap MIDI keyboard to their system. With the added sound effects in the optional expansion set of sound blocks, they may be quite satisfied.

P.S.: I don't own Garage Band (yet!)

Mark.........................................................................................................................