Incredibly in-depth review of GarageBand by Chris Breen.
With GarageBand for iPad, Apple is sending a different message: Yes, GarageBand is a tool for making music, but anyone—from musicians to tin-eared newbies—can use it. No talent required. It underscores this message by eschewing the podcast, ringtone, and movie-soundtrack elements and focusing entirely on making it easy to compose music. It includes a variety of “smart” instruments that allow you to play pleasing notes, chords, and beats on virtual keyboards, guitars, basses, and drums without requiring that you have a lick of musical training.
That doesn’t make GarageBand for iPad a toy or somehow unworthy of trained musicians. In addition to its smart instruments, this eight-track recorder includes a wide variety of virtual instruments (synthesized and sampled) that you can play and record; lets you record real instruments jacked into a compatible audio interface as well as sounds recorded with the iPad’s microphone or a compatible external mic; includes modeled guitar amps and stompboxes for guitar players; offers a couple of different ways to create drum tracks; and even includes a sampler instrument that allows you to use an onscreen keyboard to play back sounds recorded with a microphone.
After spending many hours with GarageBand for iPad, my first-generation iPad, and a few music gadgets, I’m a believer.
I simply cannot wait to give this a go.
Posted on Thursday March 10th, 2011
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