Review: Apple GarageBand ’11 – Apple’s Amateur Musician Software
GarageBand ’11, the newest version of Apple’s amateur musician software, builds on an already impressive, easy-to-use app, with much more ways to help your band play better collectively, more amp and pedal types, and better equipment for teaching you how you can play instruments. It was currently a discount as part of your $49 iLife ‘ll suite that comes free with brand-new Macs, but now that you can cherry choose suite members on the Mac App Store, you can snag GarageBand for just $14.99 as a standalone-of course, that is right after you have compensated the Apple tax of the high-priced pc. While it’s no match for pro-level studio software program like Reason, Ableton Reside, or Pro Tools, these apps cost hundreds of dollars rather than just $15, and they don’t provide GarageBand ’11′s well-designed instrument lessons.
Interface
Let’s face it, no one does interface better than Apple, and GarageBand ’11 is no exception. You start from your welcome screen by choosing whether you would like to create a new project (which can be a piano, electric guitar, voice, acoustic instrument, loops, podcast, or film), discover to play, purchase lessons at the on-line store, indulge in Magic GarageBand virtual combo, or produce an iPhone ringtone.
GarageBand ’11′s recording and editing screen exhibits the typical timeline view, with tracks operating within the middle, track adjustments along the left, and sources and effects in a right-side panel. Double-clicking a track brings up a comprehensive edit watch in which you can see the waveforms for recordings and piano roll or score for MIDI tracks. It is at once much more able and far more intuitive than the interface of Audacity 1.2 (Totally free, three.5 stars), but that is a totally free, multiplatform program.
Recording and Mixing
When you start a brand new project, you choose a template based on the source-an instrument, voice, loops, or the built-in piano, or on its output purpose-podcast, movie, songwriting. Subsequent you title the undertaking, and optionally set a tempo, crucial signature, and meter. Any loops you add, both from those include with GarageBand or individually purchased, will match the crucial you choose.
To connect my Yamaha keyboard, I initial needed to set up its driver from its maker. Right after this, the program let me control all its software program instruments from your keyboard. Right after recording, I could correct errors from the Track Editor both in piano role, or, even much more helpfully, in score view. I could also report an additional take: The takes will probably be available from a dropdown menu, but you can’t see them all at as soon as, as you are able to on much more sophisticated recording software program.
I like how you can effortlessly set any duration to repeat, so that you can decide which seems to add towards the movement, but there is absolutely nothing similar to Ableton Live’s session watch, which lets you mix and match tracks around the fly. But, again: $15.
After making a tune with input from my keyboard and joining Apple loops to it for bass and drums, I recorded a vocal track, once more taking advantage of multiple-take ability. I could then have GarageBand automatically repair each the pitch and timing of my singing, which did not always align perfectly using the underlying rhythm. A slider let me choose just how much of both correction to use. I found it easy to restrict pitches both towards the nearest chromatic scale note or limit notes to the song’s crucial. If I additional also a lot pitch correction I began sounding excessively auto-tuned (like Finn on Glee, for example), but about 50 % correction yielded a good effect. It was also neat to determine the waveforms realigned when I chose to quantize the note rhythms, with choices from entire notes down to 64th notes. Correct sidebar options allow me apply some striking special effects, like helium voice, R&B, and onion vocals.
One of GarageBand’s coolest features is Flex Time. This lets you drag waveforms around to align or stretch seems without losing the pitch. This let me extend a note cut short when I ran out of breath, thus generating it work much better in my tune. For this to work, I needed to enable “Follow Tempo & Pitch.” Luckily I could undo the sound stretching, since I got some ugly results with it with a choral track. Even with a vocal track, it was hard to get clean sounding results when dragging the waveforms to match a beat; extending a note worked well, however. Flex Time also lets bands sync their performances to the most rhythmic member, instead of to a strict metronome beat, which gives a performance a more life-like feel.
To get the full complement of samples and loops, I needed to download one.2GB of extra content, which took a half hour on my cable Internet connection. To expand your sonic possibilities even much more, Apple offers JamPacks, which add loops and software program instruments in bundles including voice, drum, orchestra, and world music. Every of the 5 available JamPacks costs $99.
Learning an Instrument
GarageBand has had instrument lessons in the past couple versions, but ’11 adds some useful equipment for keeping track of your progress and a bunch more lessons. There are now 40 lessons for piano and guitar, and for $4.99 a pop, you are able to download video lessons by famous performers like Sting and Norah Jones showing you how you can play one of their hits. I counted 23 of these in all.
Most of the regular lessons have to be downloaded, generally at a sizable half gig or so. After a video lesson, it was my turn to play, and GarageBand kept a real-time percentage of my accuracy while playing-in sort of the Guitar Hero motivation. For this to work, my instrument needed to be directly connected towards the computer-it won’t use the computer’s mic to detect acoustic playing accuracy.
Once I made a few attempts at playing lesson songs, I could easily watch my progress by clicking the history, which showed a line graph of your accuracy of my attempts. While these tools can never completely replace an experienced musician-teacher, they can get autodidacts surprisingly far. The only competition I saw in the Mac App Retailer cost $50 for every instrument, and though that included over 180 lessons, it didn’t have the polish of GarageBand’s lessons.
GarageBand ’11, the newest version of Apple’s amateur musician software, builds on an already impressive, easy-to-use app, with much more ways to help your band play better collectively, more amp and pedal types, and better equipment for teaching you how you can play instruments. It was currently a discount as part of your $49 iLife ‘ll suite that comes free with brand-new Macs, but now that you can cherry choose suite members on the Mac App Store, you can snag GarageBand for just $14.99 as a standalone-of course, that is right after you have compensated the Apple tax of the high-priced pc. While it’s no match for pro-level studio software program like Reason, Ableton Reside, or Pro Tools, these apps cost hundreds of dollars rather than just $15, and they don’t provide GarageBand ’11′s well-designed instrument lessons.
Interface
Let’s face it, no one does interface better than Apple, and GarageBand ’11 is no exception. You start from your welcome screen by choosing whether you would like to create a new project (which can be a piano, electric guitar, voice, acoustic instrument, loops, podcast, or film), discover to play, purchase lessons at the on-line store, indulge in Magic GarageBand virtual combo, or produce an iPhone ringtone.
GarageBand ’11′s recording and editing screen exhibits the typical timeline view, with tracks operating within the middle, track adjustments along the left, and sources and effects in a right-side panel. Double-clicking a track brings up a comprehensive edit watch in which you can see the waveforms for recordings and piano roll or score for MIDI tracks. It is at once much more able and far more intuitive than the interface of Audacity 1.2 (Totally free, three.5 stars), but that is a totally free, multiplatform program.
Recording and Mixing
When you start a brand new project, you choose a template based on the source-an instrument, voice, loops, or the built-in piano, or on its output purpose-podcast, movie, songwriting. Subsequent you title the undertaking, and optionally set a tempo, crucial signature, and meter. Any loops you add, both from those include with GarageBand or individually purchased, will match the crucial you choose.
To connect my Yamaha keyboard, I initial needed to set up its driver from its maker. Right after this, the program let me control all its software program instruments from your keyboard. Right after recording, I could correct errors from the Track Editor both in piano role, or, even much more helpfully, in score view. I could also report an additional take: The takes will probably be available from a dropdown menu, but you can’t see them all at as soon as, as you are able to on much more sophisticated recording software program.
I like how you can effortlessly set any duration to repeat, so that you can decide which seems to add towards the movement, but there is absolutely nothing similar to Ableton Live’s session watch, which lets you mix and match tracks around the fly. But, again: $15.
After making a tune with input from my keyboard and joining Apple loops to it for bass and drums, I recorded a vocal track, once more taking advantage of multiple-take ability. I could then have GarageBand automatically repair each the pitch and timing of my singing, which did not always align perfectly using the underlying rhythm. A slider let me choose just how much of both correction to use. I found it easy to restrict pitches both towards the nearest chromatic scale note or limit notes to the song’s crucial. If I additional also a lot pitch correction I began sounding excessively auto-tuned (like Finn on Glee, for example), but about 50 % correction yielded a good effect. It was also neat to determine the waveforms realigned when I chose to quantize the note rhythms, with choices from entire notes down to 64th notes. Correct sidebar options allow me apply some striking special effects, like helium voice, R&B, and onion vocals.
One of GarageBand’s coolest features is Flex Time. This lets you drag waveforms around to align or stretch seems without losing the pitch. This let me extend a note cut short when I ran out of breath, thus generating it work much better in my tune. For this to work, I needed to enable “Follow Tempo & Pitch.” Luckily I could undo the sound stretching, since I got some ugly results with it with a choral track. Even with a vocal track, it was hard to get clean sounding results when dragging the waveforms to match a beat; extending a note worked well, however. Flex Time also lets bands sync their performances to the most rhythmic member, instead of to a strict metronome beat, which gives a performance a more life-like feel.
To get the full complement of samples and loops, I needed to download one.2GB of extra content, which took a half hour on my cable Internet connection. To expand your sonic possibilities even much more, Apple offers JamPacks, which add loops and software program instruments in bundles including voice, drum, orchestra, and world music. Every of the 5 available JamPacks costs $99.
Learning an Instrument
GarageBand has had instrument lessons in the past couple versions, but ’11 adds some useful equipment for keeping track of your progress and a bunch more lessons. There are now 40 lessons for piano and guitar, and for $4.99 a pop, you are able to download video lessons by famous performers like Sting and Norah Jones showing you how you can play one of their hits. I counted 23 of these in all.
Most of the regular lessons have to be downloaded, generally at a sizable half gig or so. After a video lesson, it was my turn to play, and GarageBand kept a real-time percentage of my accuracy while playing-in sort of the Guitar Hero motivation. For this to work, my instrument needed to be directly connected towards the computer-it won’t use the computer’s mic to detect acoustic playing accuracy.
Once I made a few attempts at playing lesson songs, I could easily watch my progress by clicking the history, which showed a line graph of your accuracy of my attempts. While these tools can never completely replace an experienced musician-teacher, they can get autodidacts surprisingly far. The only competition I saw in the Mac App Retailer cost $50 for every instrument, and though that included over 180 lessons, it didn’t have the polish of GarageBand’s lessons.
