Apple Garageband Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review




Great for the price (Steinway piano main reason for purchase), September 12, 2008
By Karl (Bozeman, MT USA)
The day before I ordered this Jam Pack, I had received an M-Audio 88es USB velocity sensitive keyboard from amazon (reviewed separately) Keystation 88es 88 Key USB MIDI Controller and sustain pedal M-Audio SP-2 US65010 Sustain Pedal Piano Style Sustain Pedal for Keyboards

The standard Garage Band 'Grand Piano' sounded just "OK", and there was no harpsichord. Those were my prime reasons for ordering this Jam Pack... and to have fun with the other sounds, of course.

The Steinway Piano in this pack is substantially better than the standard Garage Band piano. Neither is perfect - but this Steinway is great for the price. The difference is more than the soft hammer sound of a Steinway vs a hardened hammer sound of the standard piano. The velocity response and the behavior of sustained notes is much more realistic. The default settings have a fair amount of reverb - to simulate a concert hall. Adjusting that and other sliders can give a sound more appropriate to other settings.

It still does not sound like a real grand piano of course - there are no induced harmonics when the sustain pedal is depressed, for example. But, not bad at all.

The harpsichord is pretty disappointing in comparison. The lower register is amplified way louder than the upper - roughly everything below middle C as I recall. I haven't tried adjusting bass reduction effects etc to make it sound more 'correct'. Also, considerable reverb in the default 'Orchestra Harpsichord' to reflect a large hall. Lower that to get a chamber sound.

The variety of attack modes that are adjustable by keyboard control are pretty nice for instruments such as the strings and brass.

The huge quantity of loops (over 3 GB) will be of less use to me, but can be handy for making some quick transitions or tracks for videos - since Garage Band is basically THE sound editor for iMovie and Final Cut Express now. I had expected that the loops would be performances on real instruments, but many (most?) sound like sampled digital instruments to my ear.

If you want a better piano, a harpsichord and/or symphonic instruments, this pack is a great deal.

PS Not in the product description, so I just noticed: The Jam Pack comes with a selection of 'demo songs' reached from the File > Open Demos menu. (If shared, these reside on disk at Users > Shared > Symphony Orchestra Demo Songs.) Five symphonic themes as an orchestra of MIDI instruments and 8 loop (wave) compositions. Fun to mess with and good for learning purposes.



4 stars, February 8, 2008
By Matthew Sullivan (new york)
installed with no problem- only wish it had solo strings for violin, and a slide trombone- other than that lots of stuff and fun!



Impressive array, October 6, 2007
By Nolan Lind
With Garage Band's standard-issue synth patches and loops, it was hard to make new music without using the same sounds more than once. With these Jam Packs, I can get lost just finding loops to use - which is a really good thing! Definitely worth the money!



A Great Addition, June 7, 2007
By Ron Budde (Deshler, OH USA)
After taking the time to get serious with garage band, I quickly found the need to get more instument voices for my uses. I play the music into garage band (record) with a M-Audio 66ES keystation (which I highly recommend) and found that there just weren't enough instruments to meet my needs for all of the tracks that I like to record. This product more than meets those needs, as it has a ton of instruments to use. I especially like how much more realistic they sound than the pre-loaded instruments in the original garage band. If you are more into using the loops, they are spectacular! They would work well as soundtracks for movies or slideshows, or as accompaniments to anything you want. This product is well worth the money and I don't feel as if I need to get any of the other Jam Packs. But that's just me........



Terrific instruments for Logic or Garageband with some reservations, May 10, 2007
By Ken Avent (New Market, TN USA)
I've installed this on my Mac to use with Logic Pro and the instruments are terrific - great orchestral sounds along with a really good Steinway and some lovely organ sounds as well. While I don't use the loops they are very interesting as well and well done.

The instrumental sounds on these are really sensitive to velocity. For example, the brass sounds are wonderful at low velocities but the higher velocities are not good - too brash and the attacks are ragged. I'm a trombone player and if I played like that I'd not be happy.

Also, the strings seem to have a cresc built into the sample - not sure what that's about but it's disconcerting.

Having said all of that I'm still happy - the price is right.