Composing : Anyone a Garageband guru? by Rob Nevico

First of all - megaman has a great 'feel' and would work well for a video game if that is what your intentions are. As far as your specific question on samples, there is a 'technology' now supported by most musical software tools called "VSTs" - that is merely a technical name for a the ability of a musical program to use and support sample libararies (data) through a sampler (programs). Sometimes you buy the sampler separate (like Kontakt which seems to be the most popular currently) and then samples supported by the sampler - other times the software comes with builtin samples. The bottom line is if your software supports the VST industry standard, you have access to samplers and samples the same as any other software tool. Now I am simplifying a bit but this is generally the case. And if you read just this forum, you can see the sampler and sample categories are chock full of potential candidates. Now the following is a bit 'off topic' but could be useful reading if you would like to read on.... Here is my 'take' - which may be different from others. Keeping in mind, I spent a whole first 'career' in IT. Got my computer science masters and part PhD back in the 1972 to 1976 time frame. Technology was different then, but the rest was the same - you had needs and tools and people and it was about producing the necessary product with the 'appropriate' tool and a cost effective price. You know and have heard many times about the saying (or similar saying) about not using a jack hammer to do the job of a regular hammer - or something like that. I spent 4 1/2 years in the Air Force in IT including a teaching stint at Annapolis in computer science. And then in 1981 spent 20 years evaluating desktop technology for Exxon. I directly worked with hundreds of vendors and products including the 'majors' who I met personally, Michael Dell, Steve Balmer, etc. So I knew a bit about platforms and software coming into the music biz. Second of all - the final product is simply one or move WAV files that are mixed together with other WAV files by the sound editor. When all is said and done the viewer has and should not have any idea on what produced those sounds. All they should know and 'care about' is the way it sounds and that comprises two 'major factors' - the samples or sounds you use to create the WAV file and the composing structure and layout you used to create the file with the samples. It would be like wondering whether the film you are watching was created with Final Cut or Premiere (or something else). Tools are tools are tools. What matters is whether the tool has the facilities to accomplish your task and since you are in the middle of a long process of creation, can your tool handle the 'inputs' (often an unscored scene) and can your tool produce an 'output' that is suitable for your customer (not the viewer, the sound editor and the 'stakeholders' such as the director, producer, music supervisor, etc.) I will admit that that for brevity here, I am oversimplifying a bit. So what about Garage Band - it certain does the job here - megaman sounds great and if you hadn't mentioned it was produced with Garageband, we would not know. It falls is one of the two 'major' categories of the 'overlapping function tools' generally used to create and score music for film - the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) or as we also call it a 'sequencer' is the most used category. Is it better or worse? We can debate that forever - everyone tends to be allegiant to the tool(s) they use. Software and hardware have and will always be very competitive markets. If the tool does the job and has some functionality which you may be able to use in the future (without too much 'overkill') and you are comfortable with using the tool, then why change (until you have to). You may like Digital Performer, for example, but if you are not on a mac platform, why spend the money to change your platform and purchase a different DAW? You may think about changing to Protools, but its pretty expensive and you may not need the additional functionality. What would motivate you to switch could be your being 'part' of a 'workflow' - if those who precede you and those who follow you are using Protools and there is a need for everyone to collaborate with files 'native' only to Protools, for example. Often you may find that what drives you to new platforms or software are other external changes - like moving to a new platform that no longer supports your software, or the vendor supporting and upgrading your product, goes out of business, sells off the product to a vendor who does not support it - i.e., the product gets 'orphened'. What you are doing here is great and the other thing I failed to mention is a driving force for the choice of a platform and software are the users groups and forums (and sometimes the gatherings). Garage band has been around for some time and has a large base of users and you are looking for fellow users - great idea! So the tools are cool - but it is also 'all about the sound' - the way your put all those notes together and the types of notes you use (i.e., the samples). But then there are also the people - what if your sounds are live musicians. Often times you don't need a tool - just some general textual instructions given to a 'band' or an 'ensemble' - typically rock, pop, jazz, gospel, etc. (who play by listening to something first). But sometimes these musicians need a bit more direction and instructions from you the composer as to your musical intentions - at that point you are back to choosing a tool. Sometimes the DAW could work - sometimes it may be something simple like text in a Microsoft Word (or equivalent document). Other times, you need something more specific like music notation software - which is IMHO a software category as large and diverse as the DAW one (the 'second category' I mentioned towards the beginning) - with high end products and low end products and users who are very allegiant to their tools as well.

GarageBand supports VST3 and AU plugin formats. I suggest going to sites like http://www.kvraudio.com/q.php and trying some things out.

I use a DAW called Reaper which is becoming more standard in the industry. It's a level up from Garageband without the expense of ProTools. The more advanced you get, the more complex things you can do with it. You can try it for free from https://www.reaper.fm/. In terms of VSTs, I second Nate's suggestion to get started using KVR.