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Dave Horrigan

One of life's greatest pleasures is getting together with friends and playing music. Whatever your skill or talent, a few hours jamming with friends will  touch  your soul with the joy that is human harmony.

If you are not a musician, you are probably not aware that playing music with others is  remarkably easy. No matter if you like blues, folk, country or  pop, a few simple two- or three-chord groupings are all you need to know to create the instrumental part of a favourite tune. Even better, these chords can be reused to play hundreds of similar songs.

The other secret of successfully playing in a group is to sing loudly with great passion because then, when you make mistakes with your three chords, no one will notice.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to play with a group of folk musicians previously known to me only from the folk music web forum Mudcat Cafe (www.mudcat.org). This website is a free repository for lyrics  and trivia about every traditional folk song ever written (or at least 9,000 of them).

You can download a full copy of the lyrics database and, of course, there is a Mac version.

If you know of a song they do not have, they would appreciate learning about it. Anyhow, back to the playing.

Surrounded by a fiddle player, three guitarists, a banjoist and an accordioniser (novice accordion player), my harmonica and I were in heaven. After a few hours it became obvious that, due to our similar interests and complementary talents, some of the songs needed to be recorded for posterity. Of course, I just happened to have my PowerBook, a couple of microphones and two multiple-input recording consoles.

I had the prosumer recording consoles because GarageBand, Apple's new breakthrough music creation application, will only record one instrument at a time and I had been looking for a cost-effective way to get a whole band into GarageBand for editing and enhancement.

Both consoles worked as advertised, but the software that they shipped with is essentially worthless. I wrote about this software in an earlier column titled The First Colossal Waste of Time Award. Enough said.

I solved the software recording problem thanks to reader Peter Millward of Causeway Bay, who read my earlier column and recommended Mark of the Unicorn's Digital Performer application. Though not as simple as GarageBand, I was able to figure it out and make it work.

The hardware consoles I was using were the blue Tascam USB 428 (www.tascam.com,  US$399 street price) and the silver M-Audio OmniStudio USB (www.m-audio.com,  $449). These are essentially portable music recording studios.  The primary differences between them is that the USB 428 is laid out like a traditional mixing board with slider switches for each track, which are also assignable to control effects.

As a techie, I prefer this model as it allows me more control over more parameters. This consol also has recording buttons (stop, rewind, fast forward, play and record) on the panel that operate the software directly so you do not have to mouse around or even be near your computer while you play.

On the other hand, the OmniStudio is laid out like a piece of stereo equipment with knobs on the front and most input and output plugs on the rear. It has headphone jacks as well as two quarter-inch microphone/guitar jacks on the front.

Interestingly, the older, more experienced musicians all preferred the OmniStudio.

They said  they liked the sound better, but I suspect that the real reason they liked it is the fact the machine is unobtrusive and simpler to operate (had fewer moving parts).

They all preferred playing to tweaking and would rather play louder than turn up the volume. There's a lot to be said for using  technology you are familiar with.

So there you have it. If you are a music editor or arranger or you want to tweak your music to perfection while playing, as well as after the fact, the Tascam USB 428 is the tool for you.

If you just want to play with your friends, get them all on disk, and maintain the mood of the moment, the M-Audio OmniStudio USB will make you happy - or, at least, not detract from the incredible joy of friends playing music together.

E-mail Dave Horrigan at horrigan@electriciti.com with your Mac queries



Tools to capture the harmony of jamming