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are the migration of Logic Pro 9’s Flex Time and Groove Matching to a beginner-friendly GarageBand form, and greatly enhanced tools for recording electric guitars. Flex Time in GarageBand ’11 is as easy as timing adjustment can get. You click on the upper half of a displayed waveform, the program analyzes the audio for beat locations, and then you click and drag transients to where you want them. See Figure 1 for before-and-after views of some pretty drastic (so they’re easy to see) edits; the waveform is highlighted in contrasting colors to show where audio has been stretched or compressed. As easy as it is to explain, Flex Time allows for very fine placement of specific audio events, and sounds very good if you don’t go overboard with how far you’re pushing your transients around. Groove Matching, on the other hand, is so brutally simple it’s almost funny. You select one Track in your song as the Groove Track (it’s marked with a star at far left), then checkbox the Tracks you’d like to follow the Groove. GarageBand does the rest, and instantly locks those tracks to the analyzed groove of the Groove Track. Things can get a little nuts if you try to match, say, two loops played with radically different shuffle feels, but Groove Matching is brilliant for cleaning up slightly sloppy performances, e.g. to make a bass guitar lock up tight with a kick drum. GarageBand ’11 now offers a specific Electric Guitar Track type, with a popup window (see Figure 2) that lets you select and tweak an amp model (from a choice of 12) and a chain of up to five stompbox effects (from a choice of 15). The guitar sounds in GarageBand ’09 were already good, and the new version gives you more of them in an easier-to-use format. Now more than ever, GarageBand has the breadth and depth to not only be an easy-to-use entry-level DAW for Mac users, but also to be the only DAW many folks will ever need. Moving up, moving on I used the copy of Logic Pro provided by Apple on my loaner MacBook Air to test a file import from GarageBand ’11, moving Figure 2’s small test Song from GarageBand into Logic Pro. I was rewarded with an instantly usable Logic Session (Figure 3), with all audio, MIDI, automation, and effects intact and ready to carry forward with Logic’s greater power. This is important because changes in how Apple sells Logic are making the upgrade path easier and cheaper than ever before. Logic Studio was—and still is, as of this writing—a $499 multi-DVD package of several different applications (Logic Pro, Mainstage, Compressor, and others) with many GB of
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audio loops and other content. But nearly all of Logic Studio’s content has now been broken out into small pieces that can be purchased à la carte via the Mac App Store. With Logic Pro 9 now costing only $199.99, Apple has discontinued Logic Express... and with its feature set where it is now, arguably GarageBand fills in the gap nicely from the other side anyway! You can also import files from GarageBand for iOS (reviewed November 2011) to either GarageBand ’11 or Logic Pro. GB for iOS has been updated to version 1.1, which now runs on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad, and adds a number of handy new features, my favorite of which is the ability to customize the chords in Smart Instruments rather than sticking to the ones Apple gives you. Bottom line The Mac/PC debate isn’t going away any time soon. The MacBook Air running Lion— a completely closed hardware system running a more iOS-like OS—is unlikely to win converts among PC users who love to build and tweak their own systems for maximum performance at minimum cost. But the fact remains that the work experience with GarageBand ’11 on the MacBook Air is simple, elegant, welcoming... and really easy on your aching back. The MacBook Air represents a new way of thinking about portable computing, and GarageBand ’11 demands a reassessment of what constitutes an “entry-level DAW”. Users

Figure 2: The Electric Guitar track layout offers easy choice of amps and effects.

Figure 3: The song in Figure 2 has been imported flawlessly into Logic Pro.

who are willing to think this process through may well find themselves amply rewarded by Apple’s newest music tool set. Prices: MacBook Air, $999 and up (model reviewed, $1299); GarageBand ’11, free as part of iLife on all new Macs or $14.99 from the Mac App Store; GarageBand for iOS, $4.99; Logic Pro 9, $199.99 More from: Apple, www.apple.com

GarageBand ’11 Power!, The Comprehensive Recording and Podcasting Guide
By Todd M. Howard. 410 pages, trade paperback, illustrated B/W. Published by Course Technology PTR, a part of Cengage Learning, 2011. ISBN 978-1-43545-962-5. $29.99; www.courseptr.com

While GarageBand remains one of the easiest DAWs for a newcomer to start to use, its current incarnation would be barely recognizable to a user of version 1.0. So much has been added over the years, from improved editing and mix tools to tutorials, effects, accompaniment, automation, and more, that GarageBand now qualifies as a full-on DAW, and as such, serious users can benefit from a proper instructional manual. This hefty book is laid out so as to walk the reader through all of GarageBand’s screens and options in a straightforward way; a glance at the table of contents lets the user quickly find the topic he wants to research, be it recording, mixing, creating a podcast, building a song with Magic GarageBand, or taking the onboard Music Lessons. This is supplemented by a comprehensive index that makes finding most topics a breeze. Mr. Howard’s tone is conversational and clear; he takes a few extra sentences and tosses in an extra screenshot or two to explain the same concept that another author might handle in a more streamlined way, because he understands that the novice GarageBand user might need a bit more hand-holding to get an idea across. The only place where the book’s presentation suffers is in the black-and-white graphics; a program that uses color as much and as effectively as GarageBand doesn’t come across well in greyscale screenshots. If you’re of the belief that GarageBand can do way more than you know, this book will unlock its mysteries and go a long way toward making you comfortable with it as your primary DAW.—MM

http://www.apple.com http://www.courseptr.com

Recording - March 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - March 2012