Apple is getting into mobile music production with a US$4.99 version of GarageBand that runs on iPad. It looks very impressive for a $5 app – which could be bad news for other music developers trying to set higher pricing for more serious apps. On the other hand, it also validates the notion of the iPad as a music creation platform, and it leaves plenty of room for other such tools. Capabilities:

• Touch-capable drums, drum machines, keyboards, and synths
• Interactive chord layouts for guitar, keyboard, bass, and drum patterns
• Audio recorder (with some silly effects, like “chipmunk” and “monster”)
• Guitar amps and effects – some nine amp models, ten effects

It appears this requires the new dual-core CPU on the iPad 2.

Apple tells CDM that the software is compatible with both the original iPad and the new iPad 2.

The heart of the app, though, is a multi-track arrange window borrowed directly from desktop GarageBand. Some fancier features appear to be missing (notation may be missed, in particular, and I don’t see extras like a tempo track), but otherwise, it’s the MIDI and audio arrangement you know from the Mac. You can even take projects from the iPad into GarageBand for a mobile-to-desktop workflow. (The reverse appears not possible, which would make sense – the mobile version is a subset of the desktop version.)

The instruments are impressive, too. Whereas the first GarageBand emphasized using pre-built loops, this version is actually more suited to a songwriter’s sketchpad: you have automatic chord generation as you previously saw only in music workstation keyboards. The 4×4 drum machine, synths, and keyboards look fairly basic, but they don’t skip over basic editing features. All in all, it’s unquestionably the most we’ve seen for $5 in a mobile app. On one hand, that could make Apple’s developers nervous – but, paradoxically, I think that at $5, someone has enough pocket change left over to go buy your $5, $10, or $20 app.

It’s also an app that thinks through mobile workflows. You can send to iTunes, email songs, and on a Mac, open in GarageBand.

In fact, my only big question is how software with live instruments on a tablet is going to contend with running out of system resources. We’ll know soon; the app isn’t available as I write this, but is promised soon.

I’m also a bit unclear on hardware compatibility, but I’m told MIDI and audio hardware will work, which makes some sense. I’ll try to reach out to my contacts at Apple on some of these questions.

There’s also no question in my mind that this significantly widens the gap between iOS and everything else – notably Android. That’s a discussion best left for another post, but it’s hard for me to see any competitor making the investment in music – still a fairly limited market – that Apple has. At the same time, looking at music creation in general, the more visible software like this is – and the more successful it is, which remains to be seen – the more attention mobile music creation may get from the public and vendors alike. (Technically speaking, by the way, there’s no reason you couldn’t exploit horsepower on next-generation tablets like the Motorola Xoom. I’m sure we’ll make use of the extra cycles with libpd Pure Data patches for both platforms. But there are lots of other variables, technical and in terms of the marketplace, that make iOS friendlier than Android to commercial music development by an order of magnitude.)

I’m curious to hear from iPad owners, though: does GarageBand appear, on first glance, to offer tools you don’t have in other mobile workstations? Would it make you consider iPad music if you hadn’t before?

(And, in the meantime, we can dream of our tablet, touch-savvy tracker. I know some of you want it.)

Screen images courtesy of Apple.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/garageband.html

As part of their iLife ’11 suite – US$49 or free with a new Mac – Apple announced their updated release of GarageBand.

Consistent with the relationship of the two products, much of what’s here has been inherited from Apple’s flagship Logic, albeit in a simplified form that’s friendlier to newcomers. That means several of Logic’s features from last summer have now made their way into the entry-level tool.

I will not resist the temptation to add some color commentary; after all, you already know where to find apple.com.

• Flex Time As in Logic, you can now adjust parts of a waveform rhythmically. It’s a nice feature, not only for cleaning up parts but for creative work. (This stuff hasn’t yet become the rhythmic equivalent of AutoTune, partly I think because there’s not any “quantize all” feature.)
• Groove matching extracts a groove from one track and applies it to the others. Here, there is a definite possibility of overdoing it, but as with anything else, you have to use the function judiciously and artfully.
• Guitar amps and stompbox adds more models, with twelve amps (seven of them new) and fifteen effects (five of them new), as with Logic.

GarageBand ’11 also extends Apple’s commitment to making people better players:

• Tests and visual feedback. A bit like the light-up keyboards of years past, you get interactive feedback on how you’re performing. It’s funny, though, I wonder if features like this make sense in an age of Rock Band. Those games do a good job of “quizzing” you mechanically, and beyond that, you really need a human teacher.
• New lessons. Many onlookers, myself included, complained when Apple dropped the ball with providing more of their nicely-produced lessons. They seem a good way to get people into playing. Sure enough, Apple adds some 22 lessons, including genres like various classical contributions (at last) and blues. It’s still a drop in the bucket, but since the idea is to give people a taste of music learning, it makes sense.

It looks like Apple has given its UI a nice coat of paint, too; the whole app looks a bit sleeker, more in line with the Pro apps.

But I’m not only interested in what I think. Getting a handle on how GarageBand does among users, particularly newcomers, has often been a challenge. I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you are (or know) musical novices interested in the program. (Or, for that matter, given that many serious users make use of this app, I’m curious to hear from you, too — Flex Time seems a nice addition, especially if that’s all you wanted out of the latest Logic.)

Check out the new release:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

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.

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.

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.

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