Garageband Tutorial – how to use Garageband on iPad & iPhone

Audio Recorder

All of the above are virtual instruments where the app generates the sounds. Audio Recorder lets you capture the sound of a real instrument or your voice. It’s best to use headphones to avoid recording the existing tracks at the same time. It’s useful to hear yourself clearly, so tap the plug icon and enable the Monitor option. Also consider enabling the Noise Gate function to cut out background noises for the sections when you’re not playing or singing. GarageBand uses the iOS device’s built in microphone by default, so you just need to position the device so the microphone is near to the source.

Once you have something recorded, try out some of the effects. There aren’t a huge number and some are fairly gimmicky, but Small Room and Large Room work well for vocals and most other instruments. The Compressor control is useful for avoiding a vocal becoming drowned out by other sounds, but it’s often necessary to turn down the volume of the recording after turning up the Compressor. To do so, tap the instrument settings (three sliders icon) and reduce the Track Volume control.

Guitar Amp

This works in a similar way to Audio Recorder, but passes the captured sound through a virtual guitar amp and effects pedals. It’s designed to be used in conjunction with the various iOS guitar interfaces that are available, such as the IK Multimedia iRig range. However, if you’re feeling adventurous there’s no reason why you can’t record any sound via the iOS device’s microphone and run it through this collection of effects. It’s also possible to drag recordings made with the Audio Recorder instrument across to a Guitar Amp track in the sequencer.

There are 32 Guitar Amp presets, grouped into Clean, Crunchy, Distorted and Processed categories. These are drawn from nine virtual amp types that bear an uncanny resemblance to amps from the likes of Fender, Marshall and Vox. Meanwhile, the ten stomp boxes cover all the usual bases, with three distortion effects, a compressor, delay, chorus, flanger, vibrato and auto-wah pedal.

Sampler

Sampling involves taking an audio recording and mapping it across a keyboard so you can perform it like an instrument. It’s the technology behind many of GarageBand’s other instruments, which are based on recordings or samples of real instruments. The Sampler lets you make your own instruments from scratch.

The first task is to record a sound. Tap the Start button and make a noise. Press Stop and you’ll immediately be able to play that noise at different pitches on the virtual keyboard. There’s lots of fun to be had from simply recording your voice. Recording something with a constant pitch will let you perform melodies on the keyboard. GarageBand will even identify the pitch automatically and map it to the correct key on the keyboard, although you can adjust this using the Tune settings.

Tap Trim to truncate the start and end points of the sample as necessary. You can also reverse the sample, or loop it so it continues for as long as you hold the keyboard key down. The Shape controls dictate how quickly each note stops and starts.

Inter-App Audio Apps

Use this instrument to get GarageBand to work in tandem with other music-making apps. Inter-App Audio connectivity is a relatively new feature that was added in iOS 7, and only a handful of apps support it so far. Those that do include the Arturia iMini (shown **where**), a superb emulation of the classic Minimoog analogue synthesizer, and IK Multimedia Amplitube, a guitar amp simulator that goes much further than GarageBand’s Guitar Amp instrument.

When you select this instrument, GarageBand will list any compatible apps. Simply select one to load it and hit record when you’re ready. It’s worth noting that GarageBand records the audio signal and not the notes played, so you can’t go back and readjust synthesizer settings or edit the performance. Think of it more like recording an external acoustic instrument rather than using one of GarageBand’s virtual instruments.

Apple Loops

These don’t appear as an instrument but they’re another way to add sounds to your composition. Apple Loops are pre-recorded samples of short musical phrases. They’re automatically stretched to fit the time and key signature of your track, and they’re designed to loop as necessary. The downside is that stretching samples can have an adverse effect on sound quality. Depending on how much they’ve had to be stretched, they may sound grainy and garbled.

Tap the sequencer button (the icon that resembles bricks) followed by the loop-shaped icon. You can then search the loop library by instrument type, genre or descriptors such as Ensemble, Dry and Intense, or use the text search facility. Tap a loop to audition it, and drag the one you want to the sequencer. It will fill the entire track by default, but it’s easy to trim it to fit: tap once to select it, drag the right edge to resize and drag the centre to move it.

Editing and mixing

GarageBand’s editing and mixing facilities are relatively simple, but there’s enough here to get the job done. In the Sequencer, drag the bar on the left across to the right and you’ll see volume, mute and solo controls for each instrument. Tap the Instrument Settings button (the icon with three vertical sliders) to access additional controls for pan, echo and reverb for the selected instrument.

Tap an audio recording (represented by a waveform display) and you’ll see handles to adjust its start and end point. Tap it again to see additional options such as Copy, Split and Delete. Edits jump to the nearest grid position, but the more you zoom in, the finer the resolution of the grid.

The Keyboard, Drums and most of the Smart instruments also include an Edit option. Tapping it reveals a piano roll-style editor where you can adjust the timing, length, pitch and volume of individual notes. There’s also a Pen mode for drawing notes directly, and it’s even possible to switch to a different instrument or playing style in the Smart Strings instrument.

When your song is complete, tap My Songs to return to the song browser. Tap Select and select a song and you’ll see options to export to various destinations, ready to dazzle your friends with your newfound musical prowess.

There are areas where GarageBand could be better, the most obvious one being its limited mixing facilities. However, there are so many ingenious music-making tools here – and so much fun to be had – this it’s impossible to be downbeat about it. It’s quite possibly our favourite iOS app.