[yoda_four]

I'm a DV enthusiast and am looking for something a little more powerful than GarageBand to make music for my movies. I'm not sure whether to look into Soundtrack, which is more towards film's music, or Logic Express 7, which I think is more for recordings and such. I'm currently using Final Cut Express to edit my films. Any help?

[Moogs]

SoundTrack was the precursor to GarageBand and was/is bundled with Final Cut Pro as a means of giving video producers a way to quickly put together simple soundtracks that could easily be synchronized with various que points in their video, etc.

Logic Express is a DAW or Digital Audio Workstation. You can use it to create music from scratch (using instruments, not just Apple Loops), you can edit the waveforms of that music (filters, tonality, etc), you can mix tracks and you can bounce tracks to disk with it. It's a much more complete (and frankly complex) app than either GB or Soundtrack.

If you're looking to broaden your skills and create more dynamic music, Logic Express is definitely the better choice over SoundTrack. If you're just looking for a way to generate time-synced music, SoundTrack is probably OK but honestly is only moderately more capable than GarageBand in terms of what you can create.

[julesstoop]

The lack of MIDI-support and soft-synths actually makes it (SoundTrack) less capable in terms of really composing a unique piece of music.

[Moogs]

I had the same thought... the argument can definitely be made. If video integration is more important than ST wins. If flexibility in how you create music is more important, than GB wins.

[LAmezq3984]

I recently purchased the M-AUDIO Oxygen 8 midi controller, to use with garageband, and I am realizing that garageband is very underpowered when it comes to features. I have made songs that I thought were really unique and original, but I hear the same loops in other peoples projects. If I puchased Logic Express (Logic Pro is way out of my budget) what types of things can I do with my keyboard that I couldn't with Garageband? I'm thinking in terms of more instruments? like when you buy a stand alone keyboard, and it has a sound bank full of effects and sounds to play around with. I want tons of sounds that I can record with. If Logic Express is not that program, then is there something out there, that would work for me?