No such thing as a newbie question.

"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who remains silent is a fool for the rest of his life"
(Chinese proverb, I believe)

However I know very little about logic express so can't answer your question.

You could search the web for a feature list of Garageband, and a feature list of Logic Express, then compare the 2.

Also if you tell us a little more about what you want to do, and what you would hope to get out of new software, we can help you more.

I started to work with Garage Band a bit just recently. I have Logic Express 7.2 and contemplating upgrading to 8 since it made so much improvements over 7.2. I would have bought Logic Pro 8 immediately if it was cross platform.

The differences in a nutshell: Though Logic Express carries less features than Logic Pro it is way more professional than GB. Mixing is much more advanced and also your edit facilities, routing, FX and automation are more advanced in LE8.

I started with GB because it is so low tech it doesn't distract with features that I don't need when building the structure of the song. It is not uncommon for Mac musicians to start with GB and then switch to LE/LP8 and work out the details. I guess you will still work with GB if you know it well, but finishing it in LE will be a blast. :lol: