Posts tagged with "garageband"

Apple To Announce “GarageBand For E-Books”?

Apple is holding an education-themed media event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Thursday, with rumours suggesting it will heavily revolve around textbooks and the iBooks platform. Ars Technica is this morning reporting that part of the event will also be the announcement of a “GarageBand for e-books”.

The gist of this idea is that whilst anyone can create an ePub for iBooks distribution, the process is not simple - particularly if you want to go beyond the basics and add multimedia or other interactive elements. Ars Technica’s sources say Apple will announce a tool on Thursday that makes the process of creating iBooks easier. Ars points out that Apple doesn’t want to get in the textbook or book industry, just like they don’t want to enter the movie industry as content creators. Instead they have offered tools from GarageBand and iMovie to Logic and Final Cut Pro to allow anyone from consumers to professionals to create content.

The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

Ars also believes that Apple will announce support for the ePub 3 standard in iBooks on Thursday. Apple had used the ePub 2 standard along with some HTML5-based extensions for further multimedia and interactive elements, but the new standard removes the need for the proprietary extensions - ensuring that ePubs are compatible across platforms.

[Via Ars Technica]

Apple Releases GarageBand for iPhone

Apple today announced the release of GarageBand for iPhone, an update for the existing iPad application that will allow iPhone and iPod touch users to play virtual instruments and create digital recordings on the devices’ multitouch displays. The 1.1 update, which is propagating in the App Store right now, is a free update for existing GarageBand customers, and a universal app that runs on iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod touch (3rd & 4th generation).

From the press release:

Apple today announced that GarageBand®, its breakthrough music creation app, is now available for iPhone® and iPod touch® users. Introduced earlier this year on iPad®, GarageBand uses Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ interface to make it easy for anyone to create and record their own songs, even if they’ve never played an instrument before.

“GarageBand on iPad has been a big hit and we think customers will love using it on their iPhone or iPod touch”

“GarageBand on iPad has been a big hit and we think customers will love using it on their iPhone or iPod touch,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The innovative Multi-Touch interface combined with Smart Instruments makes it easy to create great sounding music, even if you’ve never studied music or played an instrument before.”

GarageBand features a collection of fun Touch Instruments that sound great and make it easy for beginners or experienced musicians to play and record keyboards, guitars, drums and basses in a wide variety of styles. Smart Instruments now allow you to choose from an extensive new library of custom chords so you can play and strum along with your favorite songs.

You can plug your electric guitar into iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to play and record through classic amps and stompbox effects, or record your voice or any acoustic sound using the built-in microphone. GarageBand allows you to record and mix up to eight tracks and then share your finished song with friends or send it to your Mac® to keep working on it in GarageBand or Logic® Pro.

The 1.1 update, available here, brings other improvements to the existing GarageBand for iOS such as custom chords for Smart Instruments, 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures, additional quantization options for recordings, adjustable velocity settings for Touch Instruments and many other enhancements that you can check out in the official iTunes changelog for the update. The app seems to retain the same interface and interaction methods of the original iPad app, which was released in March. The app was later updated with AirPlay support and copy & paste support, and this new 1.1 version appears to introduce major changes and new functionalities that should make the music production software even more powerful.

GarageBand 1.1 is available now on the App Store at $4.99.

New Macs Give Users iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand For Free On All Macs

When I received my new MacBook Air three days ago, I immediately launched the Mac App Store to re-download all my apps with a few clicks thanks to Apple’s unified solution that makes it easy to get all the software you already own on a new machine. As I headed over the Purchased tab, however, I noticed downloads for three iLife ‘11 apps – iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand – automatically started in the background. With new Mac purchases, in fact, it turns out Apple is giving away the iLife suite as standalone apps available on the Mac App Store. Normally, these apps would set you back $14.99 each – instead, I got them for free on my new MacBook Air with OS X Lion pre-installed.

As reported by Macworld, the new Mac Minis and MacBook Airs released on July 20th come with the latest versions of OS X and iLife bundled for free. Owners of Macs purchased between June 6 and July 20 can request a copy of OS X Lion through Apple’s Up-to-Date program, whilst the Minis and Airs released two weeks ago already have Lion, but don’t have a physical copy or backup of the OS in the box. This is because Apple will start selling a Lion USB Thumb Drive at $69 in August, and Lion automatically creates a Recovery HD partition that, among other things, allows you to re-install the operating system via an online system that, through a series of security, hardware and Apple ID checks, pulls Lion directly from Apple’s servers.

The iLife apps users will receive with a new Mac, however, can easily be “ported” to an old Snow Leopard installation through the Mac App Store. Once the apps are downloaded and tied to your account, the usual Mac App Store licensing terms apply: apps can be downloaded on any of your Macs authorized with your Apple ID. And because these apps are not exclusive to Lion, they’ll appear in the Purchased tab on a Snow Leopard’s Mac App Store.

The iLife license you get when you set up one of the latest Macs is no different. Which means that if you haven’t yet gotten around to upgrading to iLife ’11, buying a new Mac mini or MacBook Air essentially gets you iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand for all your Macs running OS X 10.6.6 or later (since you need at least that version of Snow Leopard to run the Mac App Store). And this isn’t sneaky or dishonest—it’s right there in the Mac App Store’s software license.

Obviously, these free downloads won’t include digital versions of iWeb and iDVD, which are not available on the Mac App Store. Apple had previously announced its intention to discontinue iWeb, suggesting existing users to find an alternative solution to host their iWeb-designed websites.

Incoming! iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand Updates for July 11th

If you’re smart, talented, and own copies of iPhoto ‘11, iMovie ‘11, and GarageBand ‘11 from the Mac App Store, it’s time to check for an update! Today we’re seeing general improvements all around for the trio of creative applications, including support for opening iMovie projects from iMovie for iOS.

iPhoto: What’s New In Version 9.1.5
This update supports general compatibility issues, and also addresses overall stability and performance. Minor issues addressed include:

• The date range of each event now updates correctly to reflect changes made to photos using the Adjust Time and Date command
• Addresses an issue that could cause the Photos view to scroll incorrectly when Event Titles are displayed
• Fixes a problem that could prevent Ken Burns animations from being applied correctly on photos in a saved Classic slideshow
• Deleting photos from a web album using the contextual menu now removes them from the album without deleting them from the library
• Addresses an issue that could prevent a crop adjustment from being removed from a photo when using the Revert to Original command

iMovie: What’s New In Version 9.0.4
This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

• Support for opening projects imported from iMovie for iOS.
• Fixes an issue where some audio adjustments were not preserved.
• Addresses a performance issue when using large quantities of video clips with keywords.
• Resolves issue with slow application launch when working with large iPhoto libraries.

GarageBand: What’s New In Version 6.0.4
This update supports general compatibility issues, and addresses overall stability and performance issues including the following:

• Fixes an issue with the GarageBand Lesson Store not completing single or multiple lesson downloads.
• Corrects issues with some tempo-based effects falling out of sync with main song tempo.
• Resolves problems with Magic GarageBand project files not opening up correctly in the GarageBand tracks view.

iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand are $14.99 on the Mac App Store. If you’ve purchased iLife outside the Mac App Store, keep your eyeballs on Software Update for the latest improvements.

GarageBand for iPad Gets AirPlay and Copy & Paste, iMovie Updated with Various Fixes

A few minutes ago Apple released updates to GarageBand for iPad and iMovie for iOS, bringing the apps to versions 1.0.1 and 1.2.1, respectively. The most notable update in GarageBand is the inclusion of AirPlay audio output which now allows to send tracks to external speakers wirelessly. GarageBand also got Bluetooth compatibility and HDMI output with Apple’s Digital AV Adapter. Alongside bug fixes, stability improvements and possibility to import AIFF, WAV, CAF audio files and Apple Loops at 16 bit /44.1 kHz, the new GarageBand for iPad can receive audio files from the system clipboard via copy & paste. A support document details the new functionality:

You can paste an audio file from an app that supports copying audio to the clipboard. GarageBand for iPad supports uncompressed audio files with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit depth (the standard for audio CDs).

Audio files copied from another app can be pasted to Audio Recorder or Guitar amp tracks.

iMovie for iPhone and iPad received an update as well with the following changes:

  • Audio plays from your HDTV when using the Apple Digital AV Adapter.
  • Video plays full screen from Marquee to your HDTV when using the Apple Digital AV Adapter.
  • Resolves some cases of missing media in projects.
  • Provides more accurate clip grouping by date in Video browser.
  • Fixes an issue where a project’s background music would not fade in or out.
  • Additional performance and reliability improvements.

Both the GarageBand for iPad and iMovie updates are available now in the App Store.

Apple Updates Logic Pro, Logic Express and Adds GarageBand for iPad Import

Apple updated Logic Express and Logic Pro to version 9.1.4 a few minutes ago, improving overall stability of the apps and fixing issues reported in the previous versions. More importantly, the updates bring compatibility with GarageBand for iPad, allowing users to import GarageBand projects into Logic Express and Logic Pro.

Changelogs below:

Logic Pro 9.1.4

This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

  • Support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad.

Logic Express 9.1.4

This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

  • Support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad.

The new versions can be downloaded on Apple’s website, or the Software Update panel. Full list of detailed changes available here (Logic Pro) and here (Logic Express).

The Pix And Stix Project Will Let You Rock Out On GarageBand “For Real”

GarageBand is an app that everyone who owns an iPad should at least try out, regardless of your musical talent, it’s just a superb example of an app that is brilliantly designed and built for a touch screen. Yet for those that do end up using it for more than just the occasional mess around, you may find that although the iPad’s touchscreen is better than a mouse for playing the drums or guitar, it is still a little bit lacking for what you want.

Well luckily for those of you who do find that, some clever folks have decided to start manufacturing rubberized drumsticks and guitar picks for GarageBand on the iPad. They’ve been designed to work on the iPad’s touchscreen by implementing electro-conductive rubber tips, which will also mean it should be perfectly fine to use without smashing the iPad’s nice glass screen!

The designers of the Pix and Stix are running a Kickstarter-esque funding round, where they are selling a pair of drumsticks and a pick for $14.95 in order to reach a funding goal of around $8000. Just like Kickstarter, if they don’t get the required funding, you can also rest assured you won’t end up paying for them.  At this stage they think they will be selling the drumsticks and picks in the three colors of black, blue or gold metallic paint, although they note that these colors are subject to change.

If you recall the Wallee, which we discussed as one way to elevate your iPad last year, the Pix & Stix project is coming from those same people. So if you’re interested in helping these guys fund their newest project and get your own Pix and Stix, head over to the Pix and Stix website.

[Via Gizmodo]

This Album Was Recorded Entirely In GarageBand for iPad

As noted by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, we knew this was going to happen. Ever since the release of GarageBand for iPad, I have wondered: “when will someone come out with an album recorded entirely using this app?” Well, someone did, and the album is now available for download on iTunes.

This is not the first time musicians have shown interest in Apple’s iPad as a content creation platform for music. The Gorillaz, for example, released last year a new album completely realized using music apps available in the App Store. Similarly, hundreds of videos surfaced on Youtube and other social media websites showing people making music on the iPad or doing live performances with the tablet and other iOS devices. This new experiment from pop punk band The Ultramods relies on Apple’s GarageBand software for the recording of digital instruments, and voice through the iPad’s mic.

Pop punk band The Ultramods on Monday released its latest album that was done using GarageBand for iPad’s eight-track recording studio. All of the instruments used to record the album come bundled in GarageBand, according to the band.

The Ultramods’ “Underwear Party” is available now at $9.99 in the iTunes Store. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Damon Albarn will consider GarageBand’s features for a new, digital-only Gorillaz record.

GarageBand for iPad Now Available

Following the release of iMovie for iPad, Apple also pulled the trigger on the second app unveiled at the March 2 event, GarageBand for iPad. The app is available now in the App Store at $4.99.

GarageBand for iPad features an intuitive interface depicting real music instruments you can play with your fingers and multitouch; with Smart Instruments, users who are not musicians but still want to play music can use the tools provided by the app to easily switch between chords and notes without actually having to precisely know music. For medium to advanced users, GarageBand offers a semi-professional music making and mixing environment with multi-track audio recording, exporting features, touch instruments with a realistic interface for drums, guitars, synthesizers, pianos and many more. GarageBand for iPad really is a full-functional port of the Mac version with the addition of multitouch that allows you, for example, to play instruments at different sensitivity levels thanks to the built-in support for pressure recognition through the accelerometer.

GarageBand looks like a must-have for iPad owners and an app that we’ll thoroughly test next week once we get our hands on the iPad 2. You can find it here at $4.99. Full changelog below. Read more