Tag Archives: Garageband

Two iPad Goodies

There are a lot of accessories out for the iPad that a musician can use. Two that have caught my attention. The Digitech iPB-10 which slashgear had a review of

This week the the DigiTech iPB-10 has been revealed, a digital pedalboard which will allow your iPad to play host to several music pedals at once. Inside with your iPad running the official app for this device as its plugged into the device itself, you’ll have access to 87 different pedals, 54 amplifiers, and 26 cabinets, all at a flick of your finger. What more could you want? And don’t say a DJ station, because that’s separate, and we’ve done that before as well — read on for guitar iPad action!

iPB10

This thing sounds awesome if you are a guitar player or a EWI effects addict (raises hand meekly). Except…..$499. Though it sounds like it works without the iPad in it, so, you could have presets all ready and not have to put the iPad in there. This thing also has it’s own DSP chips so the quality of sound and perhaps latency might be better. But still…..maybe $299 would be a better price point?

 

The second piece of gear is the Alesis iO Dock. This thing is $199, and has phantom powered mic inputs, quarter inch outputs, pedal input, headphones. And it works with Garageband, so you can record or whatever you want on it. This sounds amazing and is on my Christmas list this year. XLR inputs means you should be able to hook your sax up and start using effects with this baby.

By the way, Garageband is a MUST HAVE iPhone/iPad/iTouch app. It works on all three now. $5.

Uniquesquared.com had an excellent review of it using Garageband.

Top Ten reasons how Steve Jobs accomplishments have changed Music Education.

Some interesting things. I think the biggest accomplishment is making it accessible, easy, and legal. Accessible in that you can now find all sorts of music in iTunes. And sample them. And buy them easily and legally. And he (and Apple) also made music accessible by bundling GarageBand with Macs……for free. GarageBand is a great little recording program, and tutorial program for Guitar and Piano. PLUS…..there is the iPad. Which you can now take just about your whole library of sheet and audio music with you. Anywhere. And now with iCloud, you can have access to just about everything you own (up to I think 30K songs) via the internet.

Remember the Microsoft’s entry into Music? Yeah, me either…..Thanks Steve Jobs!

Top Ten reasons how Steve Jobs accomplishments have changed Music Education.:

Written by Larry Marra of musicteachers911.com
I know that many of you mourn the passing of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers.

I would like to take just a moment to reflect on how his contributions to music education have affected Music Education over the last 30 years.

Here’s what teaching music was like for me in 1976 (before computers).

1. I would write and arrange music by hand with an ink pen on staff paper.

2. I taught general music with chalk and record player.

3. I would have to wind the metronome before checking tempos

4. I created letters on a manual typewriter and used white-out instead of the delete key.

5. I carried a pocket calendar from the bank and a miniature golf pencil around for scheduling.

(Via Music Education Magic)

Band In A Box 2008 Released

It is out, the latest version of Band in a Box. I took some guesses at what might be new in this version, and sadly, it looks like only two were put in. And that one was kind of a jest suggestion on my part.
From PG Music.Com

RealTracks. With the previous release of Band-in-a-Box, we added RealDrums. Now we’ve added three additional “Real” instruments, including Real Pedal Steel, Real Acoustic Guitar, and Tenor Sax soloing (RealSax). These tracks replace the MIDI track for that instrument, and can be controlled just like the MIDI instrument (volume changes, muting etc.). Best of all, they follow the chord progression that you have entered, so that you hear an authentic audio accompaniment to your song. These are not “samples,” but are full recordings, lasting from 1 to 8 bars at a time, playing along in perfect sync with the other Band-in-a-Box tracks. RealTracks can be built in to the style, and would replace either the bass, guitar, piano, or strings part, or they can be generated to the Soloist (or Melody) track using the Soloist feature.

Band in a Box starts the process of leaving its roots, and becoming more like a really bad GarageBand. In GarageBand, you can graphically create songs, preview the loops you are going to use, and then put them together, graphically. Band in A Box (BinaB) is becoming the MS-DOS version of GarageBand. You type in the text you want, then it will generate the loops for you, rather than doing it graphically.

I’m sure it all sounds good, real people playing beats midi usually. Continue reading Band In A Box 2008 Released

Apple Logic Studio

Today, Apple announced it’s Logic Studio. Not only did they pack a ton of features into an already feature rich product, they dropped the price to $499. Amazing. There are new features such as mainstage, five Apple Jam Packs, more software instruments, and thousands of other sounds. Plus, you get Soundtrack 2, which is an excellent sound editor (at least that is what I hear from my Final Cut nerd friends).

I think I might have found where that $100 Apple Store credit is going now….Wonder what the next version of Digital Performer is going to do to match this….

UPDATE: 09/12/07 by E: A couple of other sites have some first impressions about Logic Studio.

Will post more links as I find them.

M.I.P.A. Winners

mipa Musikmesse International Press Award 2005 posted its winners. Some of the highlights:

  • Best Innovative Product – Apple GarageBand
  • Best E-Drums – Roland TD-12 V-Drums
  • Sound Libraries – Apple Jam Pack (though I’ve heard Garritan Personal Orchestra, and it’s amazing)
  • Mixing Desk (Project Studio) – Yamaha DM-2000 (beat the Mackie Onyx 1640…interesting, though the Yamaha’s list price is $20K compared to about $1800 for the Onyx 1640)
  • Studio Microphone – AKG-C414 B-XLII
  • Recording Software – Cakewalk Sonar 4 (beating out Logic 7 and Ableton Live 4)
  • Recording I/O Devices – MOTU 828 MkII
  • Recording Hardware – Digidesign Protools HD (no surprise)