When comparing GarageBand vs Magix Music Maker, the Slant community recommends GarageBand for most people. In the question“What are the best DAWs? ” GarageBand is ranked 27th while Magix Music Maker is ranked 30th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great sounding instruments
Pro Free if you have a Mac
Pro Extremely easy
GarageBand is one of the most basic and user friendly DAWs, making it very easy to learn.
Pro Good MIDI editing with quantization, piano roll and notation
Pro Amp Sims/ Pedal Effects/ Mics
There are several amp sims for guitar and bass or other direct input instruments. Different style speaker cabinets, microphones and mic placements. It also comes with a good selection of pedal effects.
Pro Allows 3rd party plug-ins
Plug-ins for effects or sample instruments can be installed and work great. Must get the AU plug-in for Mac if available.
Pro Easy automated drummer
Pro Easily extendable with new samples, plugins and VST instruments
MAGIX regularly releases new sample libraries (Soundpools), live sets and VST instruments, as well as new plugin integrations.
Pro MAGIX Magazine & Community
MAGIX Magazine has great articles and the Community is friendly.
Pro Excellent VST instruments
Very high quality sound and varying VST instruments.
Pro Easy to learn & use
It's very easy to learn your way through and master it.
Pro Great interface
The interface is very clear, which makes it fast to create and easy to learn.
Pro Music video full integration
With Premium version, you can add video and synchronize lyrics to your music video productions. Even better if you use along any of MAGIX pro video editors.
Pro There IS a very good free version
MAGIX recently released a free version of it that is excellent and not crappy like others. It has most music creation features of the premium version, but only some basic VSI and sample library (both things easily extendable with MAGIX store's rich packages).
Pro Constantly updated
MAGIX constantly updates all its software and listens to the community.
Pro VST bridge
You can use both 32 bit and 64 bit plugins.
Cons
Con No send/buss tracks
Tracks can't be sent into a buss channel for grouping tracks together.
Con 44.1K sample rate
The maximum sample rate is 44.1K. No 48K or higher.
Con Mixer console panel not available
Mixing must be done on the channel strip or by smart control panel only. There is no mixer with fader, vu meter and effects chain listing.
Con No sidechain effects
Can't manipulate other tracks with a sidechain trigger such as ducking with a compressor.
Con Platform dependant
Only for Mac.
Con It can go heavy on your system
Sometimes it can become quite heavy on your system and randomly crash.
Con Bad performance
Crashes and glitches regularly.