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GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

WoW !

Written by GM from Milano

24-Jun-2009

Hi ! I'm the #1 fan of apple. I love each product. And this product is one of my favorites ! My advice: Buy it ! It's incredibile. All the effects are great and incredibily realistic ! And apart for the Symphony Orchestra i suggest to buy also Voices... It's great!

Thanks

19 of 47 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Not Enough Instruments...

Written by CB

14-Dec-2008

I like the sounds, but there are not enough seperate instruments along with the sections of istruments in the Orchestra Version like there is in Guitar, Organ or other sections.

I like to have individual instruments in strings, brass, etc. and there is not that at all. Who ever put this together has never played in an Orchestra or Concert Band, for there are parts (soloists) as well as sections who are featured to create a mood of feeling in a song.

I am a songwriter and score arranger. It seems to me someone needs to send us all out (FREE) a CD to fill in the gap on this.

It would be HONORABLE if you would give us (FREE) a Download of individual instsruements, don't you think? After all, we pay way more for programming for Mac compared to PC.

215 of 231 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

I was pleased

Written by JZ from Madison

1-Sep-2008

I was very pleased with the quality of the sounds and the ease of use--I simply installed as directed & everything appeared in Garage Band with no additional fancy footwork. Some of the sounds are really nice--the harp, the harpsichord, and the celesta are among my favorites. The string sounds are rich and easily used for a high sound-quality result. I am not quite as fond of the horns and woodwinds, but they are fine, and I have been able to use them to good effect.

I am giving four instead of five stars in deference to some of the other feedback given here--no solo strings, the misleading box--but overall I have been very pleased by this purchase.

71 of 89 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

DON'T BELIEVE THE SAX ON THE BOX!!!

Written by JH from Stroudsburg

18-Jun-2008

Bought this primarily for the woodwinds (I'm a sax player) and admittedly didn't check well enough. I guess the pinheads who made the orchestra jampack didn't realize that some symphonic works do indeed include saxophones, but then WHY CLEARLY SHOW A TENOR SAX ON THE BOX!!! (it's right there, clearly behind the harp!). I feel ripped off. The horns are mediocre, although they get a better sound in their appropriate tonal range (so I suppose I can't whine about a tinny sounding trumpet on notes even Marsalis couldn't hit).

But seriously Apple, I thought you were better than this, what I consider to be borderline bait and switch advertising. Where are the saxes?

245 of 303 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Blown away

Written by AD from Lakewood

1-May-2008

I'm not a professional musician, or even a musician. I'm a dabbler. The big question for me was how far beyond the standard strings included with GarageBand this Jam Pack would go. I will just say that when I switched some of my music from the stock instruments to these new instruments, I was blown away. The sound is that much richer and more realistic. I don't have any basis for comparison, only that I wasn't really happy with GB until getting this Jam Pack. Now I'm in love with it.

122 of 201 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Pretty good for the money

Written by CT from Nashville

21-Apr-2008

As a professional musician I was immediately impressed with Garageband when I got my mac. The sounds were an even more pleasant surprise. I used this Jam Pack with GB's default sounds scoring a film ("Scream Farm", probably won't be in a theater near you) and was very pleased with much of the outcome. Don't get me wrong you can get better sounds, but you'll spend several hundred more dollars to get only slightly better quality. There ARE a couple of areas that are lacking (brass and a lack of solo strings) that others have pointed out, but the woodwinds and the few percussion sounds are really top notch. Highlights for me have been the keyboards, strings (and their various articulations; pizz, arco, staccato, tremolo), and pitched percussion. I consider it a worthy investment for any composer.

149 of 222 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

OMG TUBA!!!!!!!

Written by GF from staten island

21-Feb-2008

nice selection of brass but i think it could hve had more string solos

152 of 270 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Disappointing

Written by ZZ from london

18-Feb-2008

No solo strings, and the string ensembles are very cheap sounding - not the warm and lush sound I was looking for.

The Steinway piano that is included sounds ok, but unfortunately it is missing some vital velocity layers.

123 of 213 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Great

Written by TB from New York

25-Jan-2008

I've purchased a few of the jam packets, and this one immediately changed the overall feel and scope of Garageband. I believe it is easily one of the most elemental of the JamPacks.

73 of 131 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

System requirements

Written by LR from Mississauga

22-Jan-2008

Be absolutly certain that your computer and garageband meets the system requirements.. You need garageband 2 or higher, it says Macosx 10.3.9 or higher but really it means 10.4 because if you have 10.3 you wont have the right garageband. If you dont youll install it and 10 gigs of memory will be gone into unusable files. Be certain before you buy it that you meet these requirements because apple will not refund and rip you off completely, as usual.

40 of 74 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Solo Strings

Written by JG from Dekalb

20-Dec-2007

I found it disappointing that the jam pack did not contain solo violin, viola or cello, but fortunately I found a cello and violin in Logic express's exp24 sampler BUT NO VIOLA... COME On PEOPLE, get with the program!

137 of 189 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

This Pack Doesn't Need Solo Trumpets/Violins

Written by GC from Indio

12-Oct-2007

Why? Because Logic already has them. If you have GarageBand, you might be left in the dark. Logic users should already have solo trumpets, trombones, and violins in it's default software. Other than that, this pack is just fine on an ameture scale if you can use these instruments in the right way.

But I have to agree with the slow attack time with some of the instruments. I'd like to have my french horns a little more pronounced.

112 of 220 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

sounds more like my local high school band than the London Philharmonic

Written by MH from Jacksonville

29-Sep-2007

I bought this expecting to be able to record symphonies and brandenburg concertos but the strings are to slow even at the highest keyboard velocity sensitivity! Try playing a fast scale and you can hardly hear anything with any of the strings. The harpsichord sounds like a clavichord. The piano sounds nothing like my grand steinway. Those recordings you heard on the Jam Pack page are not the software instruments in this pack. Those are recordings of the loops which are audio recordings of real instruments! The only thing that sounded nice and real were the woodwinds but there is still a slight delay when you hit the keys on these instruments. I recommend to anyone that is serious about recording classical music to buy the Garritan Personal Orchestra and the Kontakt Player. This will work with Garageband, Logic and some other products.

170 of 275 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Can be great for synth use

Written by BM from SAINT PAUL

1-Sep-2007

All the Classical Pianos are great on Arena Run and Solo Star. Also the Orchestral loops are good with a variety of synths. This might sound strange but its a good Jam Pack for synth lovers. The only problem is if you want it on a slow processor(600 MH or less).

66 of 131 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Excellent in all ways possible.

Written by JK from Colchester

12-Aug-2007

This JamPack brings the rich sound of so many beautiful instruments right to the fingertips of GarageBand and Logic uses with class, greatness, and noteworthy appeal. I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of these instruments and have spent hours since its install creating all sorts of wonderful compositions. This is THE JamPack to have. No complaints. I highly recommend this with NO reservations.

30 of 64 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Orchestra

Written by JH from NEWBURY PARK

7-Jul-2007

So glad I read the reviews and went to the Apple store to try this software before (not) purchasing it. So that I'm not misunderstood, most of the sounds are very good and useful. Brass ensemble sounds great, but solos-no,no. Love the wood winds;where else can you get an oboe at this price? But the strings! No solo violin! no way to work any of the section independantly. What would "Eleanor Rigby" sound like if limited to this format. In the end, that's what stopped me buying to pack. I want the versatility to write and record from 1 to as many string parts as needed. Perhaps that's too costly for this program, but that causes me to look elsewhere.

67 of 91 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Wow, apple really takes their samples seriously.

Written by MB from Port Washington

25-May-2007

I needed this pack to work up an orchestral arangement with a MIDI keyboard. The samples and instruments were impeccable. The loops were actually rather useless, but I was very impressed with the percussion samples such as timpani and a great snare. The woodwinds were too great with oboe and clarinet which don't exist in Garageband without this pack. My arrangement came out great. This pack is really worth it if you want some accurate orchestral samples.

41 of 63 people found this useful

GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra

Awesome

Written by KS from Wilmington

3-Mar-2007

Wow...10 gigabytes of awesome sounding loops. I make movies and I do all of the after effects. I've tried other programs for composing a score for my movies such as Cakewalk and GarageBand (before buying this product), but these loops take the cake (no pun intended). Strongly recommended for people who like to mess around with GarageBand and filmmakers.

60 of 101 people found this useful