GarageBand 2 gets a great review from Computer Music magazine. They call it “one of the most intuitive, easy-to-use applications on the market.” “GarageBand sits in a genre all of its own… and, in its own way, is revolutionary.”

They rave about GarageBand 2’s “new and powerful editing features. The Track Editor now contains sliders that allow you to sort out any timing or tuning problems — use them sensitively, and the results are excellent.” Track tempo management seems very simple — if you change the tempo or pitch of the project. your recorded audio parts will sync up accordingly.

They also note that this version allows multitrack recording, which is essential if you are actually recording a real band, in a garage or anywhere else. GarageBand 2 also has very good handling of musical notation for all you real musicians out there. There’s also a lock feature to conserve processing power when playing complex tracks and effects — this is like the freeze feature found on many high-end music production packages. In fact, it has enough high-end features that they say “only blatant snobbery could stop you from being impressed by GarageBand 2.”

This version of GarageBand moves more towards Logic, Apple’s own high-end music software, in terms of features — in fact, GarageBand can do some things that Logic still can’t. There’s a ready-made upgrade path from GarageBand 2 to Logic. Unfortunately, there’s no special upgrade deal for users of the first version of GarageBand, but they seem to think GarageBand 2 is worth the full price anyway.

They give GarageBand 2 a rating of 9 out of 10 and a special “Value for Money” award. “If you’re just starting out, GB2 represents a compelling reason to buy a Mac rather than a PC — it really is that good.”

Buy GarageBand at SameDayMusic.com