iOS Music Production New, Free Loops, and Hardware

Garageband For iPad

Rebuilt to take advantage of the iPad’s large multi-touch screen, GarageBand for iPad turns the Apple device into a host for a collection of musical instruments and a full-featured recording studio, making it easy to create music on the go.

Using multi-touch gestures, you can play a collection of Touch Instruments and Smart Instruments, or create an original song using the app’s powerful eight-track recording studio.

GarageBand for iPad features a number of Touch Instruments, Smart Instruments, a recording studio, and easy sharing functions. With the Touch Instruments — drums, drum machines, keyboards, and synthesizers — you can play expressive musical instruments designed for multi-touch technology, which sound and play just like their real counterparts but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument.

Three acoustic drum kits are included, with snare, kick, toms, hi-hat, and cymbals that produce different tones depending on where and how hard you tap them. You can also perform on electronic drum kits by tapping “drum pads” inspired by a classic drum machine interface. The keyboard section includes a grand piano, an organ, and a synthesizer, each with a unique sound, distinctive look, and customizable performance characteristics; hard taps are louder and soft taps are quieter. The synthesizers section offers over 70 modern and vintage synthesizer sounds, including synth strings, leads, basses, and more. You can use the Arpeggiator to create rich melodies and soundscapes with a single finger.

When it comes to Smart Instruments, GarageBand for iPad has you covered. The app includes Smart guitars, keyboards, basses, and drums. With these instruments on hand, you can strum chords on acoustic and electric guitars, trigger fingerpicking and strumming patterns, or tap out your own riffs and melodies. Also play a range of keyboard instruments by tapping on pre-selected chords designed sound great together, no matter what you play. With the Smart bass, you can perform bass lines and grooves simply by tapping on strings, or switch to Notes view to play individual notes on a virtual bass neck. Drag and drop snares, kicks, and hi-hats to create your own beats, and move them around to try out different patterns.

In the app’s eight-track recording studio, arrange and mix your songs with different tracks, guitar amps, stompbox effects, and recordings. Create a song by trimming and arranging musical regions exactly where you want them to play; and swipe to reveal the mixer to fine-tune each track for the perfect mix.

To use the built-in guitar amps, just plug a guitar into your iPad to access nine classic and modern amps. In addition to amps, you can choose from ten stompbox effects to create your favorite sounds, and add or reorder stompboxes on your own pedalboard. Lastly, the onboard audio recorder lets you record your voice or any acoustic sound using the built-in microphone on the iPad. After capturing your audio, you can then apply any one of eight sound effects.

With GarageBand for iPad, you can email your song directly from your iPad, or export and add your song to your iTunes library. You can even send a project to your Mac and open it in GarageBand to keep refining your song.