When I first got my iPad, I wondered to myself why Apple hadn’t ported their GarageBand app to the tablet. It seemed to me to be a winning combination, and in most ways it still is. First off, I’ll cover some of the good news. The fact that Apple is charging $4.99 for this app is remarkable. You get an 8 track recording app, a number of virtual instruments, a sampler, the ability to record voice or even guitar (with a number of decent sounding virtual amps…and effects!). I got this app as soon as I could get it…just for these reasons.
It is as easy to use as any of the other Apple-created iPad apps, there are some instructions, but to be honest, there is little need for them… Unlike the iMovie app, this easily runs on the iPad 1 (i.e. not just for the iPad 2…). It sounds good, and you can save your songs in iTunes…
There are some less than amazing points worth considering though…There is nothing I would call bad, or a show stopper, just a subtle shortcomings in the iPad app. The first alludes to what I just said…iPad app… This app is not the same thing as the Mac GarageBand app… It is certainly reminiscent of it, and in some performance areas it may actually be superior to the Mac version. But there are plenty of things left out on the iPad app…likely to ensure that it would run smoothly on this platform.
The recording portion of the app works as well as any DAW I have tried on the iPad, in that it uses the iPads natural advantages in letting your hands literally do the work. The virtual guitar and keyboard apps sound great and are quite usable…at least if you have no reason to stray from a key signature.
The bass and drum virtual instruments are a bit problematic in how they work. For the bass, the automatically created parts are either far too busy to be of use, or far too static. Manually controlling this instrument becomes a bit problematic in that to make to universally simple to use, you have little control of how it operates (i.e. how fast or slow it responds to you, and I had some sense of feeling a bit too cramped to accomplish much of what it may indeed be able do…
The drums are a similarly over compromised result in that the virtual instrument is capable of creating some arbitrary loops for you to record, but you need to spend a lot of time learning how to ‘play’ the virtual drums to be able to make a worthwhile track on your own…
My final quibbles with this mostly (OK 85%) great app, is that you can’t import anything, and it is not sophisticated enough to do much more than to make some background tracks for your YouTube videos, or a class project.
As a conclusion, I have found that this app is great a creating backing tracks for me to use for practice… This is a practical use of this five dollar app, especially if you keep aware of some of the limitations you won’t want to have to try to hurdle (complexity might be the easiest and most descriptive answer to what it doesn’t do well…).
With all of this stated, I think that this is a great app…especially if you take the time to understand how to best use it.
First look: Garage Band for iPad
http://www.macworld.com/article/158451/2011/03/garageband.html
First look: Apple’s new Garageband for iPad
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/10/first_look_apples_new_garageband_for_ipad_updated_imovie_for_ios.html
