Which garageband to get

Want to ke ep learning? Grab your free copy of my GarageBand Quick Start Guide and find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes…. Need a helping hand? Got a question about GarageBand?

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here are some reasons why you should give it a shot. Each Remix Session includes a video tutorial from an Apple expert that helps you experiment with and deconstruct songs by Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa. The Producer Packs include sounds, loops and drum kits to use in your own projects.

And the end result is something you could build upon, that might end up being something even bigger one day. For newcomers to songwriting and veterans looking for inspiration, Live Loops are a boon. A grid-based player lets you trigger audio loops in a non-linear fashion rather than setting them on a timeline.

GarageBand's mobile cousin has a lot of really cool features, but we'll just be focusing on one here: recording software instruments. When you open up the app, you'll be prompted to create a new song, and then you'll be given a range of instrument choices. You can even plug a guitar or bass right into your phone or iPad. We won't go over all of the cool features here watch out for a forthcoming article on GarageBand for iOS , but it's worth pointing out that the touch interface, especially on the iPad, can be great for making music.

The guitar and bass also offer smart chords, which makes it easier to play on your mobile device. Here's a quick intro to smart chords:. GarageBand for iOS has some cool resources learning to play the guitar , too.

Recording an instrument is similar to the desktop version of GarageBand: just press record and start playing. When you've recorded your instrument, save it by tapping the arrow in the top-left corner and selecting My Songs.

Upload your song to iCloud by tapping Select , selecting your song, and tapping the cloud icon. From there, just tap Upload Song to iCloud. If you want to record a real instrument instead of a software-based one, you can do that, too. Guitar and bass can be recorded directly by plugging them into your computer, and any other instrument can be recorded through a microphone. Select either option under the Audio heading, depending on whether you're using a mic or not. If you have a guitar or bass, using the option tailored to those instruments will give you more options, so it's recommended.

Once you've chosen either option, you'll need to select the input channel that you're using. There are a lot of options for effects, tuning, and otherwise making sure your instrument sounds exactly how you want it to. If you'd like to get an idea of how this process works and a few of the things you can do with your real instrument, I recommend this video from MacForMusicians:. As with anything else in GarageBand, it's a great idea to just start messing around and pushing buttons.

You'll definitely find new things you can do with your instrument and different sound options that'll help you refine your song.

Double-click that section or simply hit the E key to open the editor. It'll open in the Piano Roll view by default, but clicking Score will show you the musical notation of the beat you just played.

If you have perfect timing, all of the bars will look the same. If you have less-than-perfect timing, like me, it might look more like this:. GarageBand's score editor makes it easy to tweak what you just played. Just click notes and drag them to a new location to reposition them. You can also drag them up and down to change the pitch. In this measure, there's a rest where I wasn't trying to include one -- that bass drum note is a bit too early. I'll just click and drag that note so there's no longer a rest.

You can also click a note and drag it up and down to change the pitch; on a drum track, this changes the drum or cymbal hit. Play around with the notes until you get them where you want them. It's not always easy; often it's easier to re-record. But with a little patience, you can make the tweaks you want. Let's have that loop through the entire track. By clicking and dragging a box around the rest of the notes in the track, I can select them all and hit Delete to get rid of them.

Then I'll scale the box in the workspace down so it includes only the notes I want by clicking and dragging on the lower half of the left and right sides. Finally, I'll click and drag from the upper half to get that beat to repeat throughout the track. Easily share your tracks via email or social networks. And let the whole world fall in love with it. Wherever you are, iCloud makes it easy to work on a GarageBand song. Or when inspiration strikes, you can start sketching a new song idea on your iOS device, then import it to your Mac to take it even further.

Learn more. Learn more about Logic Remote. GarageBand for Mac Incredible music. In the key of easy. Make music Create with or without an instrument. Jam with drummers of every style. Learn to play Welcome to the school of rock.

And blues. And classical. You run the studio. Share with a click Release your song. Start a song. From anywhere. GarageBand for iOS Play, record, arrange, and mix — wherever you go.