Apple's Garage Band
David Dixon
Tech Coordinator
Gresham Middle School, Knoxville, Tennessee
Apple Distinguished Educator 1999-Present
What is Garage Band?
Beginner to Advanced level software for music creation and audio editing.
It comes free with every new Macintosh as part of Apple's iLife
suite of digital media tools. iLife may also be purchased separately:
Retail, $79, Educator, $71, School, $39, School Site License, $249. Apple also offers optional "Jam Packs" that provide additional loops and software instruments in various musical styles.
With GarageBand, you can:
build compositions with audio loops
record or import audio files or MIDI files
create compositions that incorporate any or all of these sources
edit compositions with tools similar to music sequencing programs or in a notation view
do general audio editing, including podcasts
Free Apple Loops:
iCompositions
MacIdol
Loopasonic
MacAudioGuy
Macloops
The GarageBand
Studio
Directions
in Music
Garage Band Tutorials:
As of late 2007, these resources have not yet been updated for GarageBand 4, but are still quite useful: they just don't include help with the newest features. The "Take Control" books are already being revised, with the company predicting a late 2007 or early 2008 publication date.
Excellent
video tutorial
Audio effects tutorial
Apple's GarageBand Support Page
MacProVideo.com - $40 for a three
hour set of training videos
Inexpensive tutorials
from the "Take Control" eBooks
series
Excellent!-GarageBand FAQ (includes GB 4 updated info)
GarageBand will also directly import most standard MIDI files. Here's an sample file to experiment with.
Please respect copyright laws! Here is an excellent guide to copyright and fair use for educators.
GarageBand 3 (iLife '06) added many features targeting audio recording and podcasting. GarageBand 4 (iLife '08) adds more features for music creation.
New Features in GarageBand
4:
• Magic GarageBand creates projects for you
• Arrangement track lets you edit large sections
• Multi-take recording
• 24-bit audio provides more professional sound
• More detailed control of echo, reverb, equalization, and other effects
• At last--tempo changes!
• Basic notation printing of software (MIDI) tracks (in concert pitch)
• ...and lots more