Guitars and Macs
It’s now common and easy to hook the newest, “Digital” generation of guitars to your Mac and use them with Garageband. Cheap USB-equipped models are now commonly found at Target. (You can listen to a sample, here).
Higher-quality USB-equipped guitars and basses cost around $1,095 plus $200 for the USB upgrade. I predict that the upgrade price will drop as time goes by.
If you have an extra $4,000-$8,000 lying around, Gibson has finally started shipping its new (Ethernet-based) digital guitar at the beginning of December 2006, after around four years of promising, but not delivering. They have a high-end, classy website explaining why it was worth the wait.
I suspect that the Gibson ultra-guitars will be natively Mac-compatible at some point (at the moment, the software that ships with them is for Windows-only), given the fact that so many professional musicians use Mac laptops onstage.
The problem with recording guitars on Garageband is that it’s a purely analog sort of experience - You CAN add spacey effects if you have the right adapters to connect your Mac to your older, non-digital guitar. It’s nice, but barely one step beyond pure analog.
To go one step further than that, why not play a guitar and have Garageband transform your playing into the sound of a xylophone, tuned bongo drums or thousands of other instruments under your direct control? All that you need is a special translator-box (and $395).
