This basic GarageBand tutorial looks at how to use the app’s built-in effects to create a T-Pain AutoTune effect.

via PirateSk00l:

This quick tutorial will show you how to take your crap voice and put it in tune.

Garageband: This basic GarageBand tutorial looks at how to reduce latency when you are recording.

via expertvillage

BandmateLoops

Descriptions:

• SLD DW Rock Pop Kit – The incredible live sound, mics and general recording of the DW Rock Pop Kit allow maximum flexibility in mixing and beat producing. The definitive sound of the DW Kit opens up the world of professional multisample instruments for all GarageBand users. $24.95 USD
• SLD Rogers Reggae Kit – The authentic style and quality of the Rogers Reggae Kit will have you transported to higher ground instantly. With multiple ultra-rich, analog-recorded samples, the SLD Reggae Kit features numerous timbres and drumming techniques for Reggae and Dub music-making. $19.95 USD
• SLD RnB Hip-Hop Kit – SLD Hip-Hop RnB Kit actually features three distinct instruments in one package. The 808 Kit is a vintage emulation of the classic Roland drum machine. The 808 Kit offers a hybrid between real drum samples and synthesized sounds. The Old School Kit is perfect for Hip-Hop tracks, giving you classic big Hip-Hop sound. Finally, the RnB Kit is ideal for contemporary RnB sound. (such as Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, John Legend) 24.95 USD

Details are available at the BandmateLoops site.

A selection of 100 original Electro Loops, Electro Samples, Minimal Loops, Minimal Samples and Tech House Loops none of these loops appear on any of our products.

via rekkerd

LMMS is a free cross-platform multimedia studio which lets you product music with your computer – sort of like Garageband for people that didn’t buy a Mac.

Features:

• Song-Editor for composing songs
• A Beat+Bassline-Editor for creating beats and basslines
• An easy-to-use Piano-Roll for editing patterns and melodies
• An FX mixer with 64 FX channels and arbitrary number of effects allow unlimited mixing possibilities
• Many powerful instrument and effect-plugins out of the box
• Full user-defined track-based automation and computer-controlled automation sources
• Compatible with many standards such as SoundFont2, VST(i), LADSPA, GUS Patches, and full MIDI support
• Import of MIDI and FLP (Fruityloops® Project) files

You can’t beat the price, so give it a try and let me know what you think of it!

via Lifehacker

This video tutorial explains making your own Apple Loops using Garageband.

Apple

There’s not a lot to get excited about with today’s updates, with the exception of iMovie ‘09, which may finally be good enough to replace iMovie HD.

iMovie ’09 adds features to let you create a movie quickly, or add refinements and special effects to your project. Drag and drop one clip on top of another to reveal new advanced editing options, including replace, insert, audio only, and even picture-in-picture or green screen. With the Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. The update also adds new titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps. 

The iMovie updates go a long way towards addressing concerns had with the app, and should make it a much better entry level tool. In other words – it’s probably going to be the app to beat for low-budget music videos. 

Unfortunately for musicians, the GarageBand ‘09 updates focus mainly on turning the app into tool for selling you stuff:

GarageBand ’09, the updated version of Apple’s popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation.

Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand ’09 application.

GarageBand ’09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

Not a lot there for musicians that like using GarageBand as a scratchpad or a simple DAW, except for the amp modeling updates. 

I’m interested in seeing how Apple implements the GarageBand Lesson Store, though. The initial artist lessons are slickly produced, but focus on singer-songwriter performance. If Apple limits the GarageBand Lesson Store to content like this, it’s not going to be much of a feature. 

On the other hand, if Apple opens this up like they have with the iPhone music store, things could get interesting. It would be great to see independently produced lessons on recording techniques, for example, tutorials on third-party plugins or just solo secrets of the synth gods. 

Let me know what you think of today’s announcements from Apple.

Macworld San Francisco 2009

We already know that Steve Jobs is not planning to make an appearance and that Apple is not planning on participating in future events. This suggests that Apple is likely to save its most important announcements for 2009 for its own events, rather than Macworld. 

Here are the highlights of Apple rumors for MacWorld:

• New iMac and Mac mini - The latest versions of Mac OS X include references to NVIDIA-based iMacs and Mac minis. The NVIDIA chipsets were just introduced into Apple’s notebook line and promise faster graphics hardware for these new models. Rumor suggest that updated iMacs with Quad-Core processors are in the pipeline, and that updated Mac minis will support up to 4GB RAM and dual monitors. More powerful Mac minis would be welcome – but Apple doesn’t sell what you want, they sell what they think you will want in the future. 
• 17″ MacBook Pro – Fixed Battery - Aside from adopting the NVIDIA chipset and aluminum unibody design, the most notable change expected is the elimination of a removable battery. While most people may not have to replace their batteries, the change would be a real inconvenience for power users that do have to change or replace their batteries. 
• iLife ‘09. iWork ‘09 - Apple may make a major effort to turn portions of their iLife and iWork products into Internet services. This would allow some or all of iWork and iMovie to be accessed from your web browser and possibly your iPhone. 
• GarageBand – Apple may begin selling “celebrity music lessons” to GarageBand customers.
• iPhone and iPhone Nano – few expect major iPhone announcements at MacWorld
• Cinema Displays / Mac Pros / Home Media Server / Tablet or PDA – no confirmation on rumors for these items. 

All in all – it seems likely to be a fairly quiet MacWorld, with Apple saving its big ammo for its own events. 

I’d like to see updated minis, an Apple TV update that turns the system into an iPhone-like software platform, as Apple did and some sort of expandable media server. 

What do you expect from Apple at Macworld? Anything that will affect how you make music?

They’ve shared the parts for their track America’s Suitehearts on the Internet, though, in GarageBand format and they are encouraging people to have their way with the track. 

So, if you get inspired to do an insane and disturbing remix of their track, it would be cool!

Trent Reznor is one of the most prominent musicians to share the parts for their music like this – but I’d like to see a lot more artists give this a try.

Download link

midiO is an Audio Unit designed to let you control your hardware synths from Garageband.

The plugin lets you drive a MIDI based synthesizer with one or more GarageBand tracks.

Changes since 1.14:

• Universal binary
• Supports generation of midi clock messages
• Improved timing of generated midi messages.
• Reduced processor load
• Improved documentation

This new version takes advantage of improved midi timing support under 10.4. If you have an earlier version of MacOSX you might need to download version 1.14 of midio.

This MIDI DIY project looks at making a MIDI glockenspiel, aka Quasimodo’s Revenge

The idea was to take a child’s toy xylophone and get the computer to play it. Now I know that the computer is capable of making noises electronically but it is much more interesting to watch an instrument being automatically played. I am sure you have all seen crowds around fair ground steam organs, whereas tapes of the same hardly sell at all.

A child’s toy glockenspiel was fitted with solenoids, driven by MIDI through an Arduino board, using midiO and GarageBand to produce some music by Philip Glass.

Here’s a video of the MIDI glockenspiel in action:

Beatmatch.info is a new project aiming to provide fresh and original electro loops and dj tools for producers looking for fresh and cool sounds. Beatmatch.info soundlibraries and loop packs are great tools for modern music producers who want to explore new grounds or simply add a new flavor to their unique music style.

We are working hard on every single release to make sure that our stuff is really fresh and top notch. Beatmatch.info loops and samples are available in high quality WAV and Apple’s AIFF format ready to use in your favorite software (Ableton Live, Sony ACID, Fruity Loops etc.) Check our new releases in downloads section!

The collections include tech house, minimal, funk and electro loops. There’s some great sounding stuff to work with!

Note: The libraries are .rar compressed aif files.

Unlike other bands, though, they want you to pay for the privilege:

Yep – they want you to pay six bucks for the privilege of remixing their song and maybe introducing them to a new audience.

Maybe you think that’s cool. A lot of people seem to – there are already over 800 remixes of Nude.

It stinks of crap to me, though.

Thom Yorke needs to check out Nine Inch Nails‘ approach. They’ve been releasing Garageband stems of their music for years, now.

They’ve been releasing their music with Creative Commons licenses that let you do what you want with the remixes.

They’ve been letting you download and share other fan remixes.

In other words – they get it.

What do you think? Is nickel and diming your biggest fans make sense, or is Radiohead full of it?

Here are the details:

Radiohead, iTunes and GarageBand are giving you the opportunity to remix the band’s new single “Nude”.

To make remixing easy, the separate ’stems’* from the song are available to purchase from iTunes _here_. The ’stems’ available are bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums. You can mix them in any way you like, either by adding your own beats and instrumentation, or just remixing the original parts.

If you purchase all five ’stems’ from iTunes during the first week they’re available, you’ll be sent an access code to a GarageBand file ready to open in GarageBand or Logic. However, you don’t need GarageBand to do a remix, all the stems are in iTunes Plus format and compatible with several music software platforms. The GarageBand file will be emailed out on April 11th.

Finished mixes can be uploaded _here_ where the public will listen and vote for their favourite remix (voting ends May 1st). You can also create a widget allowing votes from your own website, Facebook or MySpace page to be counted as ‘mix votes’ back on radioheadremix.com. Radiohead will listen to the best remixes.

Nude is out now in the UK on CD, 7″ and download.

*’stems’ are the component parts of the song.

If you have any questions / need some help please click here.

BitWaves Software has introduced MusicBeam, an AU/VST (Mac/PC) plugin for online music collaboration.

Using MusicBeam you can exchange audio from your sequencer with collaborators around the world.

“No more bouncing, compressing and emailing your tracks to your bandmates!” according to the company. MusicBeam does it all for you, in near-real-time.”

The application is now in public beta. It’s been tested with these hosts:

Tested Hosts

• Logic Audio 5.5 (PC)
• Logic Audio 6.3-8 (Mac)
• Garage Band 3
• Ableton Live 6.0
• Digital Performer 5.0
• Mackie Tracktion 2

This update improves overall stability and addresses issues with the automation of software instrument parameters, FireWire and USB based audio devices and Magic GarageBand.

Magic Garageband is the spawn of hell – so that doesn’t sound too interesting, but bug fixes are always welcome.

Instasampler is a new free sampler for OS X.

Description: 

The plugin takes its samples (instantly) from the audio input whenever you hit a specific MIDI note for the first time. Every consecutive time you hit the same MIDI-note, it plays back the recorded fragment (or shorter, depending on the note’s length).

When you play the sampled fragments, you have the possibility to vary the following:

• velocity – Playback volume
• attack and release – Both attack & release times are configurable
• floor – The level of the input audio which is passed along unaffected when no samples are played
• playback speed – Speed up or – down the sample playback using the pitchbend control with a configurable range
• reverse playback – Playback in reverse

You can hear an example of Instasampler in action below.

NAMM Update: The MPD32 is Akai Professional’s latest pad controller for musicians and DJs. Using a USB cable to connect to a PC or Mac, the MPD32 is designed for hardware control of programs like Reason, Ableton Live and GarageBand.

The MPD32 is the only pad controller on the market to feature the MPC Note Repeat with swing and gate time parameters. Additionally, it is the only pad controller that can also work as a master clock for MIDI sequencers. With the built in Tap Tempo button musicians can control tempo in real time during performances.

The MPD32 also features transport controls for interfacing with DAW/sequencing applications like Sonar, Cubase and Logic.

Key features of the MPD32 include:

• MIDI synced note-repeat with MPC swing
• Sixteen full-sized, genuine MPC pads with velocity and pressure-sensitive response
• Three banks of eight assignable switches, sliders and endless knobs for a total of 72 controllers
• Two assignable Foot Switches
• One assignable Foot Pedal controller
• Large, easy-to-read custom LCD display
• Thirty user-definable presets for various DAW and software applications
• MMC/MIDI Start/Stop transport buttons
• Ableton Live Akai Edition software included
• BFD Lite software included

The MPD32 is coming Q2 – 2008 to musical instrument retailers with an MSRP of $499.

Fall Out Boy isn’t a synth band and Stump’s a guitarist, so this post may bring out the haters. But Stump’s story showcases how Garageband has developed into an app with the flexibility and the quality to crank out commercial-quality music:

Fall Out Boy cooks up multi-platinum hits with GarageBand and a few MacBook Pros. The band’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Patrick Stump, composes and records his demos almost exclusively with GarageBand. In fact, most of the band’s chart-smashing hits were written on his MacBook Pro using a combination of GarageBand software instruments and live recordings. And if that wasn’t enough, Stump also uses GarageBand to compose for other groups, including Cobra Starship and Gym Class Heroes. In every case, his tracks only hit pro studios for finishing touches and polishing. GarageBand is Stump’s main means for making music.

“I jokingly say that GarageBand is my main instrument,” he says, “but honestly GarageBand is pretty all-consuming for me. I can’t remember the last time I watched a really good movie or played a video game. I pretty much play with GarageBand.” It’s an obsession that has spawned a gaggle of mega hits and has made Stump one of the most prolific composers in the business. “The beauty of GarageBand is that it’s only limited by what you want to do with it,” he says. “Ultimately, you can do anything. It’s a sequencer and you can record and edit audio. And it runs on my laptop. I’ve composed and recorded on the plane, on the bullet train in Japan. It’s made me so much more prolific because I don’t have to think about where and when I can record or write music. I can do it anywhere.”

Anybody know of any popular electronica artists using Garageband to sketch out tracks?

SL MultiTracks are available for download for $14.99 per library. SL MultiTracks can also be downloaded as Volumes for $29 each (three libraries per Volume), or as a complete Bundle for $179.

Description 

By employing a vast array of Moog synthesizers, effects and control processors, Puremagnetik has captured the legendary sound of these “circuits” and has meticulously reprogrammed them for Ableton Live, Native Instruments Kontakt 2 and Logic/GarageBand.

Circuit:30 for Ableton Live

• 30 multisampled instruments for Ableton Sampler
• 30 Live Clips with integrated Effect Racks and Macro controls
• 30 standalone Audio Effect Racks

Circuit:30 for Kontakt

• 30 multisampled Kontakt instruments
• Custom KSP easy edit user interface panels
• Beat Machine looped phrases with integrated effects and automatic tempo sync

Circuit:30 for Logic (GarageBand, Soundtrack, Final Cut)

• 30 EXS24 multisampled instruments for Logic
• Extensive modulation routings
• 30 Apple Loops with fully tagged meta data