GarageBand
I recently received my copy of Apple’s iLife 04, which includes the insanely cool GarageBand. GarageBand is an easy-to-use MIDI-sequencing/recording/mixing software that is simply great. I have a trusty old Yamaha E-Piano that I connected to the AlBook via a MIDI-to-USB adapter from EDIROL (that cost me an additional 50 Euros), and have spent the last two nights recording crappy home-made music and having lots of fun in the process. Obviously, GarageBand is not really for professionals — the fact that you can’t change the speed or go from 4/4 to 6/8, or similar things that just happen to occur in real music, will make it unsuitable for people taking this serious. Still, iLife alone is reason enough to never regret switching to Mac OS X in the first place. And no, I don’t think you want to listen to my musical output, so I’m not posting any MP3s.