Recording - January 2010 - 27

MainStage my expression pedal was instantly recognized and mapped to main volume. A separate app called GiOConfig lets you choose a response curve for your pedal; the two choices, Yamaha and Roland, reflect the curves of the popular FC7 and EV-5 pedals. Other pedals will work but you’ll have to figure out which of the two curves works best for yours—my pedal was a Zoom FP02, which matched the Yamaha curve perfectly. In all of my tests, I think the only time I ran into a glitch was when I launched MainStage with a second USB controller already attached to my Mac in addition to the GiO; the program just needed to be told which controller was doing what. Thoughts and conclusions GiO did exactly as it was told on the first try with all three of the supported apps, and could quickly be taught to do useful things in other programs as well. Build and audio quality were exceptional and the manual was a breeze to follow—typical Apogee! Noting my concerns about using GiO as a standalone recording interface, I could see it as a supplementary control device for any DAW user who was already set up with I/O on any app, just to add reliable and easy-to-use foot control and a great-sounding guitar input. On stage or in a recording studio with another DAW as the main tracking system, a laptop with a GiO, running MainStage, shows a lot of promise as a guitarist’s ultimately flexible signal processing chain, with a universe of stomboxes, effects, amp and cabinet emulations, audio looping, and more, all easily accessible with a tap of a foot. GiO is a specific tool for a specific approach to a specific problem, and it does what it sets out to do very well. If it sounds like it will fit your wish list, by all means give it a shot. Price: $395 More from: Apogee Electronics, www.apogeedigital.com. New Features in Apple GarageBand ’09 As part of the new iLife ’09 package (comes free with all new shipping Macs, or ordered separately for $79), GarageBand ’09 continues in the tradition of getting everyone making music with its combination of user-friendly interface, powerful software instruments and effects, simple looping and editing, and rich content libraries. The newest version, aside from offering support for the Apogee GiO guitar interface, has some other niceties worth mentioning. Of special interest to guitarists: a new lineup of high-quality guitar effects chains, complete with ten stompboxes and five modeled amps. You can start with one of over 30 preset chains, then customize it by swapping amps and adding or removing stompboxes, up to five in a row—perfect for GiO control. The new GarageBand includes Lessons, built-in modules with video instruction on playing guitar and piano. The Basic Lessons are free with the program: the first chapter of each (guitar and piano) comes ready to use on install, and later chapters are downloadable from Apple. Each lesson has user-selectable notation styles, loopable sections, a play-along version of its song with mixable/mutable tracks from the teacher, backing band, and your part—you can even slow down playback while you’re learning. A cool upgrade to this feature is the Artist Lessons (downloadable for $4.99 each), which have famous songs taught by their creators (e.g. Sting teaching the guitar part for “Roxanne” or Norah Jones teaching “Thinking About You” on Wurlitzer electric piano), with all the interactive features of Basic Lessons—including, in many cases, the original band’s backing tracks. Finally, Magic GarageBand Jam takes the Magic GarageBand interactive playing experience to a new level, with assignable “backing band” tracks in a variety of music styles that can be shuffled and mixed, arranged and recorded. A great entry-level music recording program just got even better especially if you’re a guitarist, or are learning to be one.—MM RECORDING JANUARY 2010

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Recording - January 2010

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