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Garage Band equivalent?

I was wondering if anyone could tell me some windows equivalents to garage band... because over the summer I played with my brother's computer a lot and I got pretty used to garage band, but now my brother has moved off to college and I do not have an apple, thus no garage band. I am in need of some substitutes I could use on my windows computer that are similar to garage band.

Posted on Oct 26, 2005 12:18 PM

21 replies

Oct 27, 2005 5:50 PM in response to Kurt Weber

pro tools free isn't working... says I need windows 98 second edition or higher, though I've got XP pro

Kurt Weber

Level 6

13,969 points

Oct 27, 2005 7:42 PM in response to Teague Fergusun

It will not run on Windows XP.

Kurt

Oct 27, 2005 9:59 PM in response to Teague Fergusun

You probably don't want to hear this, but it REALLY is true...if you want the ease of use and just plain best in music creation, use a Mac...

I was a windows-only musician who suffered through Cakewalk, Sonic, Magix, and a host of other Windows-based music programs.

Every windows music program had the same issues for me:

1. Latency when recording, especially on the midi end
2. Flakiness - they crash without warning

Using a Mac has been a breath of fresh air. Don't fight it, you really would be better off getting a Mac....

Now, something I have been mulling over is using something like Pear-PC on my Windows laptop to allow me to run Garage Band on my windows laptop. I'd be skeptical about latency, but who knows? Anyone out there try that angle yet?

HangTime

Level 9

53,841 points

Oct 28, 2005 1:04 AM in response to Eric Schnabel

using something like Pear-PC on my Windows laptop to allow me to run Garage Band on my windows laptop. I'd be skeptical about latency,

I'd be skeptical of a lot more than latency. Processor intensive apps are not something I'd waste time on with any emulator (in either direction)

Oct 28, 2005 8:41 AM in response to Wheat Williams

To get the equivalent of GarageBand on Windows, you will need to spend well over $500 in software. And there is no one program for Windows that can provide everything GarageBand does.

For that much money you could get a Mac Mini (along with all of the software), all you would need to do is get a iMic or similar for audio input to the mini

Oct 28, 2005 8:44 AM in response to HangTime

But, if someone has it and wants to try, it'd be interesting to hear how it works out, eh?

Garage Band equivalent?