Audience of One

Rory

Now’s a good a time as any to ask…

You seem to have take your “fund” page offline (despite linking to it on your “current info” page). But anyway, I was going to ask, what exactly do you want to do that you can’t do in Garageband 2 and need Logic for?

I ask as Garageband comes free with new Macs, but Logic Pro is prohibitly expensive… Is it worth the money?

Comment added at 12:47, April 6, 2006

Matthew

Garageband 2 is a reasonably limited sequencer. Logic is far more in depth, has any number of compressors, synths, samplers, drum machines etc., can handle far more tracks of live audio than Garageband and will interface much better with any hardware I might get. Simply put, Garageband is a consumer application, and I have pro requirements. (Logic Express is an option though. And I won’t be getting these straight away.)

At uni the software they use is even more advanced than Logic Pro.

Comment added at 18:40, April 6, 2006

Mr E

I don’t know what Garageband 2 is like, but from what I’ve tried Garageband is extremely limited. I mean, you can’t even seem to get a bassoon sound!

Comment added at 20:19, April 6, 2006

Mr E

Oh, I forgot the original reason why I was going to post a comment.

Can you please tell me what all the icons on your doc are (except Finder, Dashboard, Mail, Safari, Camino, TextMate, Address Book, iTunes, iPhoto, Keynote (2?), Pages (2?), iCal, System Preferences and Trash… wait, that just leaves two.)? May I also recommend SubEthaEdit as a basic text editor. I used to use TextMate, but prefer this now. Also, is Camino better than Firefox? I understand it has a few more features, but is it worth switching?

Comment added at 20:23, April 6, 2006

Matthew

The black circle with flames inside it is Newsfire, my RSS reader. The van is Transmit, an FTP client.

Comment added at 21:02, April 6, 2006

Rory

Mr E: of course it has a bassoon sound. Garageband’s best feature (in my opinion) is its synthesiser, whereby you can create any number of sounds. I even managed to make faux bagpipes the other day. Matthew: Ah, I see. Could you give me some numbers and stuff, rather than just say “it’s better”? (I know it’s better, but I want to know how.)

Comment added at 22:22, April 6, 2006

Matthew

Look at the picture on the Logic page, especially number 5. Read up about Sculpture. Those are just two things. Check the features page.

Logic has far more control over every single aspect of the music, has far better synthesising abilities, better effects – it’s a studio in a software package. Garageband is like its name – a band in a garage messing around. While you can make stuff that sounds good, if you want to release music to the masses you go to a studio.

Comment added at 22:49, April 6, 2006

Matthew

Oh, and Mr E, I’m going to try out all the different text editors – SEE, BBEdit, Text Wrangler, skEdit etc. – as well as NetNewsWire for RSS and various other alternate applications. However, from my reading up to this point it’s a toss-up between TextMate and skEdit, with TextMate looking like the winner. I will see what I think later. (Bear in mind I’ll be doing HTML, CSS, PHP, and possibly Python with it, and I don’t need collaborative editing.)

As to Camino, it loads sooo much faster as it’s built using Cocoa (Apple technology) rather than XUL (Mozilla technology). It doesn’t have extensions for the same reason which is a bit irritating, but that said most of the extensions I’d use are built-in to Camino, albeit in a slightly different way.

Comment added at 10:21, April 7, 2006

Mark

a) since when did you get a mac? b) use smultron for a free text editor. It’s fun.

Comment added at 15:59, April 7, 2006

Mr E

I don’t need collaborative editing either, and although I can’t remember exactly why I switched, I think it was something to do with being able to write code in it. However, now I’m slightly confused, as I just had another look at TextMate and it seems to be able to do all the syntax highlighting I’d need (including LaTeX), so I don’t know really.

Comment added at 16:12, April 7, 2006

Matthew

Something to do with being able to write code in it? That’s what TextMate is designed for! I don’t quite understand. SubEthaEdit is designed more around the collaborative editing point of view so has fewer features in other areas, as far as I remember. Still, if you find it easier to use then why not?

Mark – I got my Mac on Tuesday. It’s a MacBook Pro, the new Intel laptop. Smultron looks reasonable.

Comment added at 18:58, April 7, 2006

Mr E

Matthew, I really can’t remember why. I think I might give TextMate another shot. I still like SubEthaEdit, though, and I prefer the icon.

Comment added at 00:18, April 8, 2006

Matthew

It is a cool icon.

Comment added at 11:38, April 8, 2006

Mr E

Thinking about it, I expect part of the reason was that TextMate is only shareware and not completely free, as well as those annoying Tips of the Day.

Comment added at 22:21, April 8, 2006

Matthew

SEE is shareware also, and you can disable the tips of the day I’m sure (as I don’t appear to get them). Actually, SEE is more expensive and has a shorter trial period.

Comment added at 12:09, April 9, 2006

Rory

Have you tried booting it into Windows yet? Or even into Linux? You need to take advantage of its Intel-ness.

(Yeah, I used to be a big Intel-hater, but their recent chips are really really good…)

Congrats on getting the lappy, by the way…

Comment added at 12:50, April 9, 2006

Mr E

If they’re both shareware I wonder why it is that TextMate shoves pop-ups at me telling me to register every time I try and use it, yet I’ve been using SubEthaEdit for months and it hasn’t said a thing.

Comment added at 13:30, April 9, 2006

Matthew

Try the SubEthaEdit purchase page if you don’t believe me.

Rory, you can get PowerPC versions of Linux anyway. But I’ve not bothered because, to me, OS X has all the features of Linux I want (the terminal, GNU utilities, X11 applications etc. etc.) with a far better GUI than GNOME (though GNOME is excellent). As to Windows, I don’t have a licence. Maybe once Leopard/Vista come out.

Comment added at 16:13, April 9, 2006

Mr E

I suppose it must be because SubEthaEdit never asked me to register that I assumed it was free. Lo and behold there is even a “Purchase SubEthaEdit” item in the menu!

Comment added at 18:05, April 9, 2006

Rory

I know you can get PowerPC versions of linux, but I was wondering if you’d been playing with intel versions of them. Note I say playing, not working – just try it out, not because OSX is lacking in features, but just to see if it can be done. Doing something because you can is the way we push the boundaries of technology.

Comment added at 15:59, April 10, 2006

becca

i don’t understand the poster thing.

Comment added at 22:49, April 13, 2006

Matthew

PC = personal computer, but it’s more generally used to distinguish between Windows-based machines and Apple Macintosh computers (PCs and Macs). There was a disturbance in a church yard in Oxford a few weeks back and a man was killed as a result. I just read “Personal Computer” rather than “Police Constable”…

Comment added at 08:53, April 14, 2006

...

feels very stupid

I didn’t realise it was talking about police constables.

Comment added at 22:36, April 14, 2006

Benjamin

Slight change of topic, but…

Funniest Oxford Mail headline ever…

“Bishop backs nuns in pub fight”

That was 10 months ago, it still makes me smile :)

Comment added at 23:57, April 16, 2006

Matthew

Ah yes, I think I heard about that :)

Comment added at 12:00, April 17, 2006