The market is clear: guitarists (and other instrumentalists) want to plug in a piece of hardware, fire up their Mac, and start playing with GarageBand right away. The announcement of Apple’s new Logic Studio 9 last week coincided with the release of new hardware from Apogee, the audio vendor that has gone Mac-only and Apple-centric. Today during a meeting with Apple, I got my first in-person look at the GiO (pronounced “Geo,” like the compact car, not G.I.O. as would rhyme with G.I. Joe).

A number of impressions that I didn’t get from the press announcement:

The hardware looks great. It’s tough to describe until you see in person, but while it seems to look almost cheap or toy-like in photos, the hardware is quite substantial, solid, and attractive. It’s also nice to see a pedalboard that’s fairly simple, with ample clearance between controls – essential for playing with your feet.

It has awesome colored lights. No, really. Not only do the lights change color, but they’re actually color coded. So you can see, for instance, which stompboxes you’re using based on the color.

It uses MIDI. Let’s get this out of the way. Apogee made such a big deal of saying this was compatible with GarageBand and Logic that I began to wonder if they’d somehow found a way to make something as simple as a pedalboard incompatible with everything else! Not so – the GiO just sends standard MIDI over USB. I’ll have to ask Apogee how this maps, and you may still be Mac-only assuming they wrote their own drivers. But I would imagine at the very least, if you want to swap between Logic and AmpliTube or Logic, you should be okay.

GiO [Apogee Digital]

If you’re in love with Logic and GarageBand, GiO looks quite nice. $399 would be steep for a few buttons for your feet, but in a nice housing with an audio interface, if you get heavy use out of it, you may feel differently. You get integrated control, low-latency audio (instrument in + line out), 5 stompbox buttons + 5 transport controls + next/previous controls, and expression control. Of course, this is not news if you’re happy with similar solutions from IK Multimedia, Line6, Native Instruments, and WAVES – all of which also have impressive software and integrated hardware. And there’s nothing stopping you from using that hardware, or other MIDI pedalboards, even with Logic. And I’ll just keep dreaming of a thin-but-large magical pedalboard that I can toss in a bag with a laptop. My feet need more to do.

There’s no question that GarageBand represents one of the better values in music software, especially since even Apple expect a lot of its users will simply acquire it with their Mac. It still ranks high on software you’d recommend to a beginner on a budget. Apple’s decision this year to add lessons, interactive lessons that introduce you to musical concepts, and to invite famous artists to play familiar songs, is a fantastic idea.

The Artist Lessons themselves, however, have been relatively few in number. I expect more are coming, but so far the only release since GarageBand came out was this week’s three episodes, featuring Sting and Sarah McLachlan.

Yes, that’s right, here’s Apple’s artist lineup: Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy, Norah Jones, Colbie Caillat, Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, OneRepublic, Ben Folds

So, at worst it feels a bit like the 1990s, and at best, like the tour schedule at Long Island’s Jones Beach. The issue here is, musical tastes are varied; part of what drives people to music in the first place is personal expression. There are a total of just 13 songs on the platform, all picked by Apple. Some of the lessons are pretty good, and the production values are slick, but there’s not enough quantity to satisfy people hungry to learn music and the choices overall are bland.

With all due respect to Apple, though, you can’t expect Apple to provide everything. Some artists and publishers have already built their own lessons. It’s time for others to step up, too.

The blog Synthtopia is pretty succinct in its headline:

Apple Garageband FAIL

I agree with Synthopia that the solution should be opening this up as a platform for people to make their own lessons:

“turn GarageBand into a video podcast store that lets you watch free and commercial educational music podcasts.”

The lessons in GarageBand are more than just video files; they include music files and some interactive features. Some sort of authoring tool wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Right now, you can build on the existing open standard of Apple’s podcast support in iTunes – which, in turn, works with a variety of players and mobile devices. In fact, a “podcast” is really just an RSS feed. There’s no reason you can’t add media to those files. Apple explicitly supports the use of PDF, which means you can create podcasts that include video and notation. There’s no way to charge for that, but advertising support is possible. It’s also feasible for some artists that such a feature could be used to promote other revenue streams.

At some point, a retail option could make sense, too. Believe it or not, basic tablature and Standard MIDI Files remain highly popular online. All that’s missing is for artists to start packaging this up and selling on its own.

Maybe Apple will figure out how to build a store for this. But there’s no reason to constantly be dependent on Apple to get it right – or anyone else, for that matter.

And in the meantime, I think lessons are a good enough idea that other people will run with this even when Apple doesn’t. Macworld’s review looked at some of the current alternatives.

Following GarageBand has long been a good way to follow what improvements might be in store for Apple’s flagship Logic. And many Logic users use GarageBand as a sketchpad for bigger sets – Apple, of course, hope that GarageBand is a gateway drug to their delicious higher-end studio. GarageBand ‘09 is no exception.

New Models

Lessons may be the feature about which you’ve been hearing the most in GarageBand ‘09, but the major improvement in the software itself is the new guitar amp and effect modeling. I’ve confirmed with Apple that this is a new engine from the ground up, not what you’ve been hearing in previous versions or even in Logic Studio 8. It’s clear a lot of work went into the modeling; the models sound absolutely terrific, and I’ve heard from at least one very talented guitarist that the results will stand up to high standards. Whether that makes Apple’s models a Guitar Rig or AmpliTube “killer” remains to be seen – my sense is that, at some point, that’s about taste in models and features, as all of these models are getting pretty darned good. But given that the guitar models in Logic in the past have been slightly lacking, this is one to watch.

Amp models: Marshall, Mesa Boogie, Vox, Fender Combo and Tweed
Effects: Sustain, Delay, Phaser, Overdrive, Fuzz, Chorus, Flanger, Vibrato, Filter

If you want to open GarageBand ‘09 projects in Logic, you can. Logic will read the whole project, and the only feature that won’t work is the guitar amp models and effects. Your project will open, but any tracks using those effects will have the effects disabled. (Again, I’ve confirmed this with Apple.) That presumably means that you’ll want to export those tracks to audio, then import, if you really need to go in this direction.

Of course, this is really unfortunate, because as Macworld’s review notes, you can’t actually control these effects with anything other than the mouse. Apple hopes you’ll upgrade to Logic, but for now, you won’t get these models there, either. That means the IK’s, WAVES, and NI’s of the world are very much safe for the time being.

GB09 and Logic

Will Logic get these amp models? Well, of course it will. Apple won’t comment on future releases, but even Apple has said that their upgrade policy is to introduce improvements to Logic and GarageBand/iLife on an ongoing basis, then migrate those improvements. So, the question is, will we get a Logic “8.1″ with new guitar effects, or do we have to wait for “Logic 9″? I’m guessing we’ll get a point-one release for $29.99 or something, but, um, that’s an easy prediction — I’ve got roughly 50/50 odds.

What’s somewhat disappointing is that Apple seems not to have just implemented these as Audio Units, which would have meant you could drop them in Ableton Live or Rax or Kore or whatever you want – which could have convinced more musos to upgrade to iLife ‘09.

GarageBand Hacks? By the way, I think there may be a way to hack control of GarageBand’s effects. They support automation. And GarageBand has in the past responded to Mackie Control, I believe — correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that how M-Audio’s iControl GarageBand controller worked? (That controller appears to be defunct. Anyone still got one?) It’d be fun, just for the heck of it, to find some way to control these effects with hardware.

My guess is, whatever Apple has decided about “beginning” users, the guitarist just discovering software is even more likely to wonder why he/she can’t stomp something to enable or disable effects. Or you could just leave that fuzz on … all the time.

Chris Breen at Macworld does exceptional, tough reviews of consumer sound software. He’s tackled GarageBand ‘09 in depth in a review published this week at Macworld.com. If you’re a beginning user, this review is for you – and if not, Chris will help you understand what that perspective is like for countless typical Mac users:

Unless you have an active interest in producing podcasts or creating a musical score, it’s likely you’ve opened GarageBand once and then never bothered with it again. Of all the programs that make up the iLife suite, none is more overlooked than this application. And, given its original focus, that’s not too surprising. Making music requires a skill not common in the general population of computer users.

Review: GarageBand ’09 | Macworld

I’ve gotten to spend some time with this review as the tech editor for the story, and testing GarageBand along with it, I definitely agree. The new lessons are really terrific – they won’t teach you to play, necessarily, but they’re polished, and they can whet musicians’ appetite for additional training options and real music lessons. The guitar effects sound terrific. The UI has been improved in subtle but significant ways that make things easier to find.

The one real disadvantage of the new version is that these terrific-sounding guitar effects don’t support MIDI control. They do support automation, but you can’t control them with anything other than the mouse.

To me, that means you may actually struggle to find a reason to get this upgrade on its own – which would be a problem, except that you’re either getting the new release with a new Mac or are also getting major upgrades to iPhoto and iMovie. So, okay — there’s your reason. And for people with an older version wanting to get into something simple, I’d still easily recommend GarageBand.

If it’s video lessons that interest you, though, Chris has done a complete overview of video instructions options on the Mac. If you do get GarageBand 09, I think you’re likely to hunger for more than Apple currently offers, making this a useful resource. And if GarageBand 09 doesn’t interest you, this gives you some other choices for computer-assisted music learning.

Learn to play an instrument | Macworld

Incidentally, it’s too bad Apple doesn’t offer a way for musicians to build their own lessons in GarageBand; I think that’d be a big hit.

All of that said, I do think Apple is doing a whole lot to make music software more accessible to the first-time user. The fact that GarageBand is just there on a new Mac, and that steps in 09 make sure that if you click the icon you get something friendly and musical, really is significant.

Using the new GarageBand? Do let us know what you think of it.

Here’s a novel concept:

• Provide video tutorials that teach you how to play an instrument and walk you specifically through the technique of a song
• Make them available as downloads
• Charge US$4.99 each
• Get the artists (and producers) involved in the original song
• Let people hear the original track
• Break down the song piece by piece so you can learn it
• Get the artists talking about the inspiration for the song, and what it means

Apple pitched these as a new concept in music education in its Macworld keynote. The company calls the videos “a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar” and said they “also give you something you won’t find anywhere else: the story behind the song.”

The only problem is, every one of these features – every single feature – has been available for months on ivideosongs.com. (Thanks for the comment, Anders!) Updated: one correction. As Tracy notes in comments, the celebrity ivideosongs entries are $9.99, though the rest of the content is $4.99. So, either Apple quietly partnered with that site and didn’t mention it (very possible), or they blatantly ripped off the site. Either way, the feature isn’t really new, which I missed. And either way, this is a great way to learn about music without buying any new software for five bucks a pop or even free. (The only real catch is, as with Apple, if you’re not a pianist or guitarist, you’re likely to feel left out.)

I had heard of the site but unfortunately didn’t spend the time I should have with it. Other bloggers wisely paid more attention:

Learn to Play an Instrument Online, Adam Pash, Lifehacker

Video-Tabs: Learn to play guitar the YouTube way, Brad Linder (sometimes CDM tipster), Download Squad

Listening Post’s Top 10 Hottest Music Sites, Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired

In fact, for a really terrific, thoughtful essay on learning and what these sites can provide, check out the always-wonderful blog Key of Grey. I like this bit:

Playing exactly like SRV is an impressive technical feat, but you won’t be revolutionary, or even evolutionary. You’ll be an SRV clone. If that’s what you want, then great, but it’s not for me.

A person can learn guitar without a teacher; learning anything takes motivation. But with the right teacher, that same motivated person could accelerate their learning.

Most importantly, while ivideosongs.com may lack the whiz-bang features of GarageBand, it also doesn’t require special software. You don’t need a Mac (any OS that plays videos will work), you don’t need iLife ‘09, and you can (ironically) load the videos onto your iPod or iPhone or other device if you want.

On Learning

GarageBand does have some additional unique stuff, though, that is worth mentioning. Most notably, you get solo-able tracks that you can play along with or use to zero in on one soloist. You also get downloadable tablature, which is a huge extra. Still, I have to say – Apple really thinks you have to buy their software for a hundred bucks or so, plus possibly a computer to run it, just to watch what is really a video tutorial? Especially when there are other videos out there and, hopefully, should be many more? It’s a fantastic deal for GarageBand users, of course, just less so for everyone else.

In the end, it may not matter. ivideosongs could get more attention out of this, and the likes of Giles Martin, John Oates, and Graham Nash should easily attract people to the site. Addicts of this way of learning may grab both. But regardless, it’s worth checking out. And as I said, I hope more people rip off his idea. I hope more artists get involved, artists use this as a new revenue stream, people experiment with new ways of talking about and learning about music, and people work on their musicianship. So, Apple, if you did rip this off … thanks! And given the attention you generate, ivideosongs may even thank you, too.

ivideosongs.com

Free tutorials to go practice (scales, fingerpicking, etc., sadly for some of us, all acoustic/electric guitar):

Free tutorials search @ ivideosongs

Free ivideosongs videos at howstuffworks

Apple has posted the details of GarageBand ‘09. Most of the new improvements are in the form of the new Lessons feature, both built-in “Basic Lessons” and a la carte, $5 “Artist Lessons.” The basic specs:

• Basic lessons: Included with the program, these teach you the fundamentals of piano and guitar, with side-by-side notation, frets, and graphical representations of where to put your fingers if you’re an absolute beginner. The lessons include video and play-along music with adjustable tempo.
• Artist lessons (US$4.99): Available separately, the Artist Lessons include one song each, taught to you by the celebrity artist that created it. Sting teaches you “Roxanne,” and so on. There’s a step-by-step video with side-by-side visual representation, finger positioning, and chord notation, as in the Basics section. There’s also an interview with the artists talking about what the song meant to the artist (a nice addition), plus exclusive individual tracks so you can, for instance, listen in on just the guitar solo. (These sound as though they come from the original recordings.)
• Additional amp, stompbox models, plus 3D view. There’s a gimmicky new visualization of amps and stompboxes, and it’s a good value if you use the rest of iLife, though Apple doesn’t quite stack up (pardon the pun) to modeled offerings in dedicated guitar amp software.
• Improved GarageBand Jam. This visualization of 3D instruments playing along pretty much puzzled people in the last version of GarageBand – pretty, but what was it for? Now, this view navigates arrangements, shuffles instruments (not sure why that’s useful), and applies styles. It’s basically a dumbed-down way of taking loops and applying musical styles, but it is slightly improved in ‘09 and may be at least fun for casual users who are intimidated by the full program.

It’s a huge win for Apple in really focusing on what people need to get into music. Seeing a friendly artist face and getting no assumptions about what they know could motivate people in a way no music software has in the past.

Of course, I always find thing to complain about. I find it a little odd that the artist lineup is all white. I mean, not that we just elected our first African-American President and African-Americans had some impact on American rock, folk, pop, and jazz, or anything like that. (For that matter, there’s no Latin-American representation. Or Classical Music. Or quite a lot of other things.) I assume this complaint will be addressed as Apple beefs up its library, but I’ll say it again – this is an opportunity; Apple alone can’t teach everyone to make music, and that’s fine!

My main complaint is that you do need to buy the $79 (or even $99) upgrade even if you recently bought a new Mac, just to buy the $5 videos. But even that’s not a complaint: it’s a hint to everyone else who could be shooting interesting videos like this. You hear me, I hope?

And despite my gripes, I really do think this is very nicely done, and I hope it does attract new people to music. For existing GarageBand users, whether you upgrade or not really depends on whether you want the videos and if the rest of the suite is useful to you.

GarageBand ‘09 Product Page

More analysis (and why some competitors do have an opportunity, if they will take it): GarageBand ‘09 Celebrity Lessons, US$4.99; But How to Really Learn to Play Music?

Funniest response to this announcement: kaden_harris on Twitter replies:

“Gawd, think of the hipster name droppin at rehearsals…" Here’s a riff Sting showed me the other day…”

I can see the TV ad already.

What’s the biggest obstacle in music making? For most people, it’s basic musicianship. I’m not at the Macworld keynote, but the well-done TUAW liveblog tells me that Apple has in fact offered a product hoping to solve that. GarageBand ‘09 will come with built-in musical training, with add-on “celebrity” training packs for US$4.99 each. It’s great news, but it also makes me hopeful that the music education end of music technology will develop and flourish more than it has – along with music education in general.

As far as Apple’s new offerin, if I’m understanding this correctly, you’ll first need GarageBand ‘09 via iLife ‘09: that’s US$79 to upgrade, US$99 new, or free on a new Mac. You’ll then get nine lessons on the basics. (It’s actually not clear that there’s much else improved in this release of GarageBand; given Apple’s focus on incremental, specific feature improvements, this may be it.)

To get additional tutorials, you pay $4.99 a lesson. The pay-off is lovely, though: on-screen frets and keys show you what to do if you’re an absolute beginner, and the likes of John Fogerty, Colbie Callat, Sting, and Sarah McLachlan are the teachers.

There’s no question about it: this is a great way to get casual musicians hooked on music and music learning, and even if you’re not a Sarah McLachlan fan, that’s good news for all of us. But it’s also just the beginning.

Mac users are already assuming this will sell a lot of Macs, but that was the assumption with GarageBand. Not to burst the bubble here, but I think you’d probably be a little silly to invest in an entire Mac for a few minutes of video training; I’m not even sure if it’s worth $100 if you don’t have much other use for iLife. But it is a significant offering, and I think the smartest idea here is offering $5 lessons. It’s so smart, in fact, that it’s too bad that GarageBand is apparently a prerequisite. So you ought to be smelling an opportunity if you’re in the training business: inexpensive, on-demand training could be addictive, even if traditionally this sort of lesson has been sold in a bundled or subscription form.

Apple is doing informal, video-based learning in a new way. It should be great for casual users. But for real music lovers wanting to go deeper, there are already other products, and this should be an impetus for them to both step up the quality of their delivery and capture GarageBand graduates in a new way.

Three tools immediately spring to mind.

One is SmartMusic, which is an enormous, in-depth set of Mac/Windows software tools for really learning to play. Band, orchestra, jazz, method, classical, solo, the whole enchilada is in there. The concept of the tool is that you get a set of repertoire and exercises and work through them, with intelligent accompaniment following along with you as you work. I actually hope CDM can spend some time looking at how SmartMusic is being used; while it’s not exactly a household brand for music software, in education this tool has been huge. Apple’s offering isn’t really comparable, so the lesson to SmartMusic maker MakeMusic ought to be that they have a real chance to start thinking about consumer channels as well as schools.

Another good example: Alexander Publishing. In addition to music tech offerings (that bit being more common), they have titles like founder Peter Alexander’s own Professional Orchestration Home Study Program. These are available as digital downloads, and if Fall Out Boy isn’t quite heady enough for you, they analyze Ravel, Mozart, and Stravinsky string writing. Taking advantage of the online medium, you get downloadable lessons, QuickTime videos demonstrating string bowings, a booklet showing string positions, study scores, live recordings, and online library access. These sorts of things were really hard to follow in the old days unless you got to hang around an orchestra, which not all composers can – certainly not all the time, and not at their own pace. (In fact, the ones that could had an unmistakable advantage).

The other, more conventional offering is Jamey Aebersold Jazz. The soul of the Aebersold approach is a set of recordings of really brilliant musicians playing rhythm section so even something as simple as practicing scales makes you feel like a be-bop jazz star. Aebersold sells tons of other stuff, but it’s the Play-A-Longs that rightfully made them famous. The human element makes it all meaningful. I actually got to go to a couple of Aebersold summer workshops as a young student, and it was life-changing, even though I ultimately didn’t decide to pursue jazz technique. The events and the recordings both are enormous confidence boosters for young musicians, because they put people in the kind of inspiring creative environment that’s the reason we all get into music in the first place. You begin to see technique as do-able, as something you can get by practicing, and you find new respect for what’s expressive in your own music. The bad news about Aebersold is that it’s still largely sold as books and recordings. Those media work well for some things, but there really ought to be an iTunes for Aebersold, or Abersold on iTunes. (How many of you would go impulse buy a Play-A-Long right now? And I’d rather play along with Coltrane than Sting, somehow.)

Apple’s offering, yet again, reaches a big audience in a way that’s important. And make no mistake: Apple just stole the spotlight in music education in a big way. But that could be good for everyone, provided deeper tools step up to the plate. There’s no reason an Aebersold Play-A-Long – or equivalents for other musical styles – couldn’t be just as successful. We’re living in an age in which music education in general faces major challenges. Technology alone certainly won’t solve that – but it can be a part of that solution, and since we’ve got it, we can use it in smarter ways.

And if anything, it’s worth any reminder that practicing and learning music has to be coupled with music making. It’s what allows players, no matter how casual, to really feel musically expressive. I hope we can look forward to more.

This story will be updated with GarageBand info as it is published.

The era of artists regularly releasing stems for remixing seems imminent. In the meantime, we see occasional examples of artists who get it. Radiohead have a new feature on their tune Nude, promoted with Apple. Purchase stems of a song (that’s by stem, so you pay US$0.99 * 5 stems + 1 full song if you want everything), and you get audio via iTunes Plus. Purchase the full set, and you can also download a GarageBand / Logic Pro-compatible project with all loop, tempo, and key information embedded, as pictured at top. (Unless I’m mistaken, that’s also the ideal way to get uncompressed audio for use in other tools.)

If you happen to prefer another tool for remixing (say, one that rhymes with Mabledon Dive and is often seen running on computers from Apple), these are just DRM-free audio files, so the choice is yours. Upload the finished results to the Web, and the band will review submissions and open them to votes. There are already a number of remixes up at the moment.

NUDE RE/MIX on iTunes

Radiohead Remix Site

Hmmm, nude remixing? Brings new meaning to “bedroom producer.” Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Radiohead does specify that you can’t use these for commercial purposes; it’s too bad they didn’t choose to apply a Creative Commons non-commercial license, which would formalize essentially what they’re saying. But this is otherwise done quite nicely, nonetheless, and I hope we see more of this.

Like remixable music? Nine Inch Nails has a whole remix site, and indie label Magnatune lets you remix all their artists’ work via a Creative Commons license (though they typically don’t offer stems). Online music outlet Dance Tracks Digital goes beyond stems with full Ableton Live-ready projects, suitable for DJs. That’s just for starters; if you have other favorite remix resources, let us know.

But what about serious music making? There are still reasons to keep the latest GarageBand around. A streamlined interface makes applying effects much easier than before. Multi-take recording could make this version ideal as a sketchpad for recording ideas, even if you do the rest of your work in another tool. And finally, you can print notation.

Here’s a visual tour of the new software (click the thumbnails to open an interactive gallery):

So, what about serious “pro” users? (I never liked the term “pro” in that I think it vastly oversimplifies the market, but you get the idea.) A Wikipedia article has been compiling examples of celebrity users, at least, which tend to fit in basic categories:

• Loop users: This is probably the worst possible way to be recognized using GarageBand — having someone hear a loop they know comes with the program. Examples: the movie Constantine, and the fifth season of 24.
• GarageBand for demos: Here’s a better way to use GarageBand — as a quick and dirty demo / sketch maker. Artists in this category: Courtney Love, Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit, Panic! At The Disco.
• GarageBand for fan remixes: Erasure and Nine Inch Nails have both let fans remix tunes with GarageBand. Interestingly, there have been more “fan remix” projects in Acid and Pro Tools, among others. Ableton Live would still be my choice for fan remixing, personally, but mostly we’ll have to see how this trend pans out.

I expect there are many more — I see Mac hardware almost every time I’m hanging around big-name musicians — though I also know many use other tools, like Live and Reason. GarageBand has perhaps gotten extra hype because it comes from Apple and it’s free. But it does have its uses: there are some nice instruments and effects there, and it works well as a linear sketchpad along other tools (including Logic, via Logic export).

Do you use GarageBand? Or did you dump the multi-gig GarageBand install to save hard drive space and leave you to focus on other tools?

Apple’s GarageBand 08, unveiled today, focuses on addressing two major areas: for beginners, making entry into the program easier, and for experienced users, fixing some holes in previous versions. Despite its user-friendly interface and the fact that it comes free with new Apple computers, many average Mac users just didn’t dig into previous versions of this music creation tool. A new “Magic GarageBand” mode is clearly aimed at getting better saturation of this tool. The remaining features, while not necessarily earth-shaking, appear to seek to make GarageBand more well-rounded for music making by inheriting tools from Soundtrack Pro (multi-take editing, visual EQ), and fixing existing complaints (automation).

This is just a preview of what’s new, not a review. I’m curious to hear what you think, though, because it seems these two directions are very different, and sum up the challenge “beginner” programs face — who, exactly, is a beginner, and what do they want? GarageBand 08 represents very different ends of the spectrum, as you’ll see.

Here’s what Apple says is new (actual hands-on with the program still to come):

Magic GarageBand: (That’s really what it’s called.) Select a genre, and GarageBand will walk you through adding an ensemble of virtual instruments. The eye candy is slick, and this should definitely take away any excuse a total newcomer might have for not getting into music making right away. But do you really need a wizard to tell you what should go in a country ensemble? (What’s that thing called? That thing you bang on? With sticks? Oh, yeah, drums! Now what about that other thing … that thing that’s like a board. A board covered with keys.)

Arrangements: Arrange songs by section. That’s it — but the implementation here is easy enough for anyone to use.

Multi-take recordings: GarageBand loops recordings in multi-take mode and saves each MIDI or audio take from which you can choose later. This has been one of my favorite features in Soundtrack Pro, so it’s nice to see it in GarageBand. It’s not new, but again, it’s implemented in a nice, approachable way — even more welcome as beginners and more advanced users alike often use GarageBand as a sketchpad.

Visual EQ: As is all the rage these days, this lets you drag equalization curves to adjust sound rather than tweaking knobs individually, all with live visual feedback as far as what’s happening in the sound. It’s a design that makes sense, so I’m all for it. Apple hopefully says, “You don’t need to be an expert to tweak the sound of your mix in GarageBand. Using the built-in Visual EQ, you can adjust a track’s equalization simply by dragging the EQ bands until you get the sound you want.” Beginners say: “What’s equalization? What’s an EQ? What’s a band? Why does this still not sound right?” But this is a welcome change, especially with live equalization previews, and you can bet this is also a glimpse of what the next Logic’s effects will look like.

Automate tempo curves and instruments: ‘Bout time. Little details like this will make sure that those who want or need to work in GarageBand exclusively can get the job done. Best of all, this means you can change tempos. (Accel., at last!)

Vocals Jam Pack: A new jam pack with vocals — great. Unfortunately, no robotic automated instruments. Too bad; I’d love to hear Fred from the Mac voices sing along with my GarageBand tunes. How about a Daft Punk-style talkbox? No?

A little bit of cognitive dissonance: Someone is apparently leaning on the copy writers at Apple to make GarageBand friendlier to beginners — while not alienating pros. That was always the intent, but speaking as an author here, it ain’t easy. Get carried away, and you wind up writing copy that does sounds a little … well … let’s demonstrate.

What’s unfriendly to beginners … stays unfriendly:

Automation of tempo effects and instruments. Set multiple edit points in a track to automate EQ and effect changes like a pro.

Then concepts that should be easy start to sound hard:

Most songs are arranged in distinct sections: introduction, verse and chorus. GarageBand brings this kind of structure to your song. With the different sections clearly defined, you can rearrange your song at any time.

I only chuckle about this because I’ve had to go back and forth with editors of various kinds trying to get this stuff right. Glad I don’t have to work in marketing.

This looks, nonetheless, like a promising upgrade. While we wait for some hands-on time, Apple has already posted tutorials for this and the rest of the iLife 08 suite:

iLife Tutorials: GarageBand