Good Day All: I am besides myself having a noise problem in Garage Band 11. I think it may have started after one of the automatic updates within the last 3 months or so. I have my guitar plugged into a Tascam USB-100 interface and then into my MacBook Pro using the Snow Leopard OS, then back out of the interface to a receiver feeding two shielded studio monitor speakers. If I have everything connected and ready to go, but do not launch Garage Band, I can turn up the receiver volume and hear my guitar crystal clear with no noise. But if I launch Garage Band and monitor the signal, I hear RF noise that varies in intensity, and of course is much more amplified when using a distortion pedal, etc. It is not hum; I have confirmed this. And I have tested using only on battery power, no AC plugged in. I have also been able to duplicate the same noise on my MacAir that has the same version of Garage Band 11. I have tried (3) known good instrument cables, multiple guitars, multiple USB cables, all resulting in the same amount of noise. The area I play in has not changed (no new RF gear, or radios, TV's, antennas, wireless phones, etc.). I have also kept all mobile phones away from the area to rule out that interference. I have also tried just capturing from the built in mic and monitoring via headphones, though this is clunky and presents other ambient noise. I have come to the conclusion that it is either my Tascam interface (but doubtful, as signal is clean when Garage Band is not launched), the USB jack on the Mac (also doubtful, as I have tried the MacAir with the same result), or a recent upgrade to Garage Band (I only know this because now when I save a file it says it will no longer be compatible with older Garage Band versions, or something like that). I admit I blindly accept upgrades and that is my fault. Now I know there was always a small amount of noise in Garage Band, but not like it's been in the last few months. I am borrowing a friend's Apogee One to test that interface; I could also try a firewire interface, but again, I don't think that is the problem. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I do use Time Machine & could roll back, but I never did, and I am not sure how far back to go (I would want to go back 3 months I suppose, but is there any update history that I could view on my Mac somewhere?). Thanks for reading!

Try out the Apogee One with its built in Mic and see if you get the same noise. This will definitely rule out if it is a Mic or audio interface issue. If the problem still persists, then it is mostly likely the Garageband update which has caused the problem. Thank goodness you do have a backup though to roll back. There is a round about way to try see the software update history if you are brave. Navigate to the following location: /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist Open this file up in TextEdit. Then use Cmd+F to use the search/find tool and find anything relate to garagband. You should be able to see a date somewhere and hopefully this will help give you an idea when the update occurred. Hope this helps. Good Luck. Keep us posted.

Thanks for that. I should have the One today to try. Yesterday I reverted back to version 6.0.4 (was updated March 15 to 6.0.5). BANG. Problem solved. Noise floor is about 40% less. Why in God's name would they release an update with an increase in noise. Or am I the only one who noticed it due to my system configuration (I really haven't seen a lot of complaints on the Web regarding this). Anyway, no more updates for me until it's proven that it doesn't add noise!