House Music Production with GarageBand

I tried out GarageBand on the Mac last night. The interface was very intuitive, and it became obvious what the steps needed for making a track were, after messing around with it a bit. There are a lot of samples already provided, ranging from Deep House beats, to 70's Pop beats, to Latin Organs, etc., which provides a good place to start. You can choose a beat and modify it with the drum sounds of your choice, to get, (say) the West Coast House sounds. You can then add the bass, vocals, etc. as layers on top of the beat, to slowly build up your track.

Some of the samples they provide can't be modified though. These have a different icon to the ones that can be modified, so you won't any waste time selecting samples that can't be modified.

I ended up making a basic beat by listening to a House track, and then trying to copy it. It only worked to a certain extent, as it was difficult to reproduce the more subtle instruments. Next on my list is to try and reproduce the Joey Youngman beat!

GarageBand is free, but it comes with the Mac, so if you're not using a Mac I'd suggest another free program MadTracker. Although I haven't personally used it (I did download and play with it, but it was not as easy as GarageBand to get started with), a friend of mine has, and he has made some really nice House tracks with it. Check out his tracks here, and maybe leave some feedback!