Rock For GarageBand
Review

Rock For GarageBand
Company: Advanced Media Group
Price: £30 (about $55)

http://www.samples4.com/catalog/

I’ve done reviews for other GarageBand loop packages before and it’s probably the most fun type of review for me to do. Some of course are better than others and the biggest problem I have with those are that I spend too much time going through the loops and arranging them and posting them and…and, PHEW! Maybe I should just talk about the “Rock For GarageBand”

One of my complaints in the past with loop collections is that many of them strive for quantity over quality. It’s been a question of “HEY! Look how many loops we have in THIS collection!”, which means nothing if you don’t actually use them. This has not been the problem with Advanced Media Group’s Rock For GarageBand collection. This collection..um..ROCKS! If you’re a fan of 70’s era hard rock (think Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and the like), or the current hard rock revival (Bands like Jet, etc) there is a lot to like here. While there are not as many here as compared to some other collections, each loop here is a keeper. There are roughly 1100 loops all told and most are geared toward hard rock or metal. Considering the name of the collection, this probably doesn’t come as a big surprise.

There are some real nice touches as well. Of course first and foremost is something that many of these collections have started doing by putting an identifying tag in the idents to make them easy to find. Advanced Media Group puts the tagline “AMG” at the beginning of each loop making them a snap to use after GarageBand indexes them. Installation is a breeze. Insert the CD and fire up GarageBand, Find the “Classic Rock – Apple Loops” icon on the CD and drag and drop to the bottom half of GB to index them. Let GB do its thing and before too long, your new loops are ready to go.

Another nice feature is that AMG incorporated some easy to distinguish initials into many of these loops to help build projects that require a “certain sound”. Want some Led Zeppelin booming drums and Jimmy Page inspired guitar solos? Look for loops with either “hz” or “mz” in the description. How about AC/DC or Pink Floyd? Metallica, Van Halen, or White Snake. Let’s go deep into the 70s with some Deep Purple inspired loops. They are all here and then some. Screaming guitars, deep moody organs, kicking drums, heavy bass, and rock inspired synths are what this collection is all about. Click this link to hear my Zeppelin homage called “Heavy Mental”. Broadband recommended since this is over 4.1 megs in size.

If you want saxophones or church organs, look elsewhere. Same thing for Rap or Blues, this collection is not for you. If you’re a rocker that pines for that 70s sound or its current revival, there is no better collection of Rock loops that I’ve found than right here.

My only complaint is that there is no US distributor for AMG, but according to their website, a Florida location is being worked on as I write this. In the meantime, they do accept US currency for their collections (and they have many others besides this).

I give AMG’s Rock for GarageBand a solid MyMac.com rating of 5 out of 5!