GarageBand Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra lets you add the emotional stirrings of orchestral music to your own productions. Build orchestral themes using over 2000 prerecorded loops in different styles and tempos, including symphonic, chamber, and solo performances. You can also use loops individually to enhance songs in any style or genre. Enhance your song using a wide selection of pitched and unpitched percussion instruments including timpani, bells, gongs, celesta, xylophone, marimba, and more
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful effects!
Comment: Very nice. The big drawback is that I must continuing purchasing different "packs" to get all the effests I would like... it gets expensive.
Customer Rating: Summary: Great for the price (Steinway piano main reason for purchase)
Comment: The day before I ordered this Jam Pack, I had received an M-Audio 88es USB velocity sensitive keyboard from amazon (reviewed separately) Keystation 88es 88 Key USB MIDI Controller and sustain pedal M-Audio SP-2 US65010 Sustain Pedal Piano Style Sustain Pedal for Keyboards
The standard Garage Band 'Grand Piano' sounded just "OK", and there was no harpsichord. Those were my prime reasons for ordering this Jam Pack... and to have fun with the other sounds, of course.
The Steinway Piano in this pack is substantially better than the standard Garage Band piano. Neither is perfect - but this Steinway is great for the price. The difference is more than the soft hammer sound of a Steinway vs a hardened hammer sound of the standard piano. The velocity response and the behavior of sustained notes is much more realistic. The default settings have a fair amount of reverb - to simulate a concert hall. Adjusting that and other sliders can give a sound more appropriate to other settings.
It still does not sound like a real grand piano of course - there are no induced harmonics when the sustain pedal is depressed, for example. But, not bad at all.
The harpsichord is pretty disappointing in comparison. The lower register is amplified way louder than the upper - roughly everything below middle C as I recall. I haven't tried adjusting bass reduction effects etc to make it sound more 'correct'. Also, considerable reverb in the default 'Orchestra Harpsichord' to reflect a large hall. Lower that to get a chamber sound.
The variety of attack modes that are adjustable by keyboard control are pretty nice for instruments such as the strings and brass.
The huge quantity of loops (over 3 GB) will be of less use to me, but can be handy for making some quick transitions or tracks for videos - since Garage Band is basically THE sound editor for iMovie and Final Cut Express now. I had expected that the loops would be performances on real instruments, but many (most?) sound like sampled digital instruments to my ear.
If you want a better piano, a harpsichord and/or symphonic instruments, this pack is a great deal.
PS Not in the product description, so I just noticed: The Jam Pack comes with a selection of 'demo songs' reached from the File > Open Demos menu. (If shared, these reside on disk at Users > Shared > Symphony Orchestra Demo Songs.) Five symphonic themes as an orchestra of MIDI instruments and 8 loop (wave) compositions. Fun to mess with and good for learning purposes.
Customer Rating: Summary: 4 stars
Comment: installed with no problem- only wish it had solo strings for violin, and a slide trombone- other than that lots of stuff and fun!
Customer Rating: Summary: Impressive array
Comment: With Garage Band's standard-issue synth patches and loops, it was hard to make new music without using the same sounds more than once. With these Jam Packs, I can get lost just finding loops to use - which is a really good thing! Definitely worth the money!
Customer Rating: Summary: A Great Addition
Comment: After taking the time to get serious with garage band, I quickly found the need to get more instument voices for my uses. I play the music into garage band (record) with a M-Audio 66ES keystation (which I highly recommend) and found that there just weren't enough instruments to meet my needs for all of the tracks that I like to record. This product more than meets those needs, as it has a ton of instruments to use. I especially like how much more realistic they sound than the pre-loaded instruments in the original garage band. If you are more into using the loops, they are spectacular! They would work well as soundtracks for movies or slideshows, or as accompaniments to anything you want. This product is well worth the money and I don't feel as if I need to get any of the other Jam Packs. But that's just me........
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