WooHoo! MTron is magick! But I need iMac/Tascam advice......

[jplavidfan]

I have always wanted a Mellotron.

Tired of PC's after 20 years, I went and bought an iMac. Fabulous!

But then I found the GForce MTron software.

Got it, bought an Edirol 61 key, loaded all of it, and I am flipped at how cool this all is!

50+ voices, including some real WONDERFUL lo fi stuff.

And there is just nothing like a Mellotron sound! 99 Euros delivered.

They even have an attack and sustain setting, which makes for even more interesting sounds. Farting around using GarageBand filters with the MTron standalone is what I am going to try next, but not sure, as this is the first ever software thing I ever did.

WHAT IS GOOD iMac recording software? I don't want something I have to spend 400 hours learning. I will likely push the output to my Tascam HD recorder anyway. Should I just USB the sound out to the Tascam 2488 MkII?

jpl

[sensorium]

Believe it or not, the included garage band is no slouch. Otherside people like Live, Logic, or Digital Performer. All top notch.

[jplavidfan]

how do I get GarageBand to pull in the MTron instrument so that it functions with all those sounds?

jpl

[oceanbourne]

how do I get GarageBand to pull in the MTron instrument so that it functions with all those sounds?

jpl

I don't have the MTron but do have other GMedia softsynths and what you need to do is be sure that the AU version of the synth (MTron in your case) is installed on your Mac then go into GarageBand and look under the virtual instrument track options (create a new virtual instrument track if you don't have one up yet) and look for the "Generator" pull-down menu. Then, look on that menu and find the MTron. After selecting it, go press the "manual" switch to the right of that menu and you can open the entire MTron console just like on the stand-alone.

I like GarageBand. I have Logic, also, but I am more a composer than into recording and hence don't care much about effects and such . . . GarageBand is great for putting all my ideas together and using the softsynths I love to do it. Also, you can recod external live audio which I often do. Most of my tracks on GarageBand will be Absynth, Massive, Kontakt, ImpOSCAR, and external sound from the Triton and Nord Lead 2X.

[synthetic88]

Should I just USB the sound out to the Tascam 2488 MkII?

The USB on the 2488 doesn't work that way. You can transfer WAVE files back and forth, but it doesn't turn into an audio interface. You'd need something like their FireOne or US-122L.

[desdinova]

It looks like the Tascam has SPDIF IO, isn't the headphone out on the imac switchable between SPDIF and analogue? You might be able to just run out that way.