It’s important to realize that in the closed source world most people live in, AAC is a powerful and common place codec. The only reasons left for going with MP3 is support of legacy devices. GarageBand no doubt is not free, I would have paid for it as part of the cost of my mac, and I personally am glad an MP3 codec license fee was not factored in to that cost.

I also found that iMovie had a similar problem with formats, it doesn’t offer exporting to any formats that I’d actually want to export to. It seems the whole iLife suite must be crippled (forcing people to buy pro software to do anything useful).

My primary desktop is Linux, so I’m also looking for audio software on Linux, but then I would’t have any need for a Mac.

Like I said, I hate to keep mentioning the MP3 thing, but it is a glaring omission for any program designed to produce podcasts, and only a die hard mac apologist would believe otherwise. I don’t need to get over it, because it doesn’t really upset me. I recognize it as a deficiency, but it doesn’t bother me too much, like it apparently bothers you.

I have used Garage Band briefly, not that that makes any difference in the validity of the points I’m making. Have you used Rezound? If not, are you unqualified to participate in this conversation? No.

I never said that people wouldn’t “like” (or “love”) GarageBand, but I do believe that if you plopped down someone who’s never used any kind of audio editing application and asked them to edit burps and coughs out of a recording, using either Garage Band OR Rezound, I think it would be a challenge for them until they learned more about how to do it. If they could figure it out in one application, they could probably just as easily figure it out in the other.

Then, as Scott pointed out, AFTER they learn how to do it, (which they’d have to do with either system) it is a faster process with Rezound than with Garage Band. On that matter, I’ll take the word of someone who produces four podcasts per week and has tried both approaches.

And as I said before you’ve never used Garageband and the people you are basing your opinion from are “pros” that have already used and are completely familiar with professional software.

And like I said before I bet anyone that has never used an audio editing software before would love garageband. That’s only an assumption but at least I’ve used Garageband and I know it’s not out of the ordinary or unlogical.

Again, I’d like to hear what NATHAN has to say since he uses Garageband.

Sure, you COULD run those other open source apps on the Mac INSTEAD OF G.Band, but then instead of an expensive DVD player you’d have an overly expensive computer, since you could run those apps adequately on another platform for considerably less money.

But the main issue (in my mind, at least) is that the overall Garage Band podcasting workflow absolutely violates Apple’s “it just works” sales tagline.

People totally unfamiliar with audio editing would probably initially have a difficult time editing out coughs no matter what app they’re using, but as Scott mentioned above, once you get over that learning curve (which would be there for either approach), it is dramatically easier using an editor like Rezound.

Also, (not to keep harping on this one, but…) for “newbies”, Apple’s product wouldn’t even bother telling / warning them that when they “produced their podcast” they didn’t actually generate an MP3 file, the standard format that podcasts are expected to be distributed in.

I really don’t care what you use for your casts, I’m not even a podcaster or an audio guy but I just started garageband again and the process of deleting a hand snap was only a mouse click with a highlight drag and command+X for a cut with another drag to merge the audio.

That process does suck though but not time consuming because of clicks but because there is no snapping or ripple deletion like I’m familiar with in FCP.

I’d be interested in seeing someone like Sara, Martha or anyone not experienced in advanced editing to try out garageband and see how they do because I assume those are the people apple is pushing this ultimate podcasting solution to.

First off, someone said that it seemed like a set-up. I can assure you that it couldn’t be further from the truth. Check out this thread in our forum to see where this all started.

http://www.frontrowcrew.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=434&page=1#Item_50

We had been using Linux+Rezound+Audacity for our podcasting, but of course there were a few speedbumps in our workflow. Apple had been pushing Mac and Garage Band as the ultimate podcasting platform. We genuinely believed it would make podcasting easier for us until we actually tried it.

It was truly a big surprise when we actually tried to use Garage Band to record a podcast. Never mind the mp3 exporting. The simple act of cutting out a cough or a burp in Garage Band takes 10 times longer than in any other decent wav editor. Even after learning and mastering the interface of Garage Band it takes at least 8 separate clicks and/or keypresses to remove a cough. Add at least 1 long wait for the cpu to process some audio. In Rezound it takes 2 clicks and a keypress with no waiting on a slower computer. That is the kind of thing that caused the episode you have linked to.

We now use our Mac mini as a living room PC and DVD player. It takes up much less space and is much quieter than our previous equipment.

Anyways, those podcasters are tools.

If you want to use Garage Band to make an MP3, you can’t do it. You have to employ a workaround for that deficiency by exporting to a separate program that can then export to MP3.

That is jumping through hoops when you’re working with a program designed for making podcasts, because any podcast making program (or music making program for that matter) should be able to export files in the file format that is the overwhelming standard for podcasts: MP3.