Chapter 1

Introducing GarageBand for Macs and iDevices

IN THIS CHAPTER

Finding out what GarageBand is

Checking out what you can do with GarageBand

Discovering what you can’t do with GarageBand

Exploring the differences between the Mac version and iOS and iPadOS versions

Checking requirements

Taking a sneak peek at the recording sequence

When GarageBand was introduced at Macworld Expo in January 2004, Apple CEO Steve Jobs informed the audience that one out of two adults play a musical instrument but that almost none of them have recorded themselves playing.

Why not?

Because before GarageBand came along, recording live music decently was just too complicated. It required expensive and hard-to-use software and even more expensive and equally hard-to-use hardware, as well as a basic understanding of audio engineering.

GarageBand changed everything. If you want to record yourself singing or playing an instrument — any instrument — GarageBand lets you do it without spending a lot of time or money. Better still: GarageBand will give you professional-sounding results even if you don’t know the first thing about audio recording or engineering.

In this chapter, you begin your acquaintance with GarageBand. First, you learn a bit about what it is and what you can do with it, along with what it is not and what it can’t do. You explore the differences between the Mac version and the iPad and iPhone version and review the system requirements for both platforms. Finally, you finish with a quick look at the process of transforming the song in your head into a recording suitable for sharing.

What Is GarageBand?

GarageBand for the Mac is a complete recording studio that includes hundreds of realistic-sounding instruments, effects, and presets configured by experienced recording engineers.

GarageBand for the iPad and iPhone is also a complete recording studio, but the iOS and iPadOS versions are designed for the touchscreen and include realistic-sounding touch instruments you “play” onscreen.

In a nutshell, GarageBand — on either platform — combines everything you need to record, mix, master, and share music with others.

GarageBand’s default settings and templates are a big part of the reason why GarageBand is so great, especially for beginners. The instruments and audio effects sound great right out of the box, and they rarely require much (if any) tweaking. It’s kind of like having a crew of professional recording engineers inside your Mac or iDevice.

There has never been a program quite like GarageBand; it's the perfect introduction to multitrack audio recording on Apple devices. I mean that. GarageBand is easy, friendly, forgiving, and fun on all platforms and you can’t beat the price.

Multitrack recording means recording instruments or vocals with each instrumental or vocal performance recorded on its own track. The sound contained on each track can be adjusted independently of other tracks. Ultimately, the tracks are combined (that is, mixed) in a pleasing manner to create the final product.

I’ve used ’em all; if you’re new to audio recording, nothing else even comes close to GarageBand. You’re gonna love it.

What Can You Do with GarageBand?

GarageBand does things that used to require hours in an expensive recording studio. The following is a fairly comprehensive list of what you can do with GarageBand:

• Record vocals.
• Record acoustic instruments.
• Record software instruments via MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface; more on that in Chapter 2).
• Record electric guitars and basses with GarageBand’s virtual amplifier models, so that you can get just the sound you want.
• “Punch in” to a section of an otherwise excellent track to re-record over your mistakes.
• Adjust the sonic (sound) characteristics — volume, equalization, echo, reverb, and so on — for each track individually (all these elements are part of mixing a song, which I cover in Chapter 10) and for the song as a whole (in other words, mastering, which I delve into in Chapter 11).
• Make music using prerecorded loops.
• Combine (mix) multiple tracks of music or loops or both into a two-track (stereo) song file.
• Record a track while listening to (monitoring) one or more other tracks.

This list doesn’t cover everything you can do with GarageBand, but it at least gives you the gist of the cool stuff you can do.

What Can’t You Do with GarageBand?

Well, there’s not much GarageBand can’t do. When I wrote the first edition of this book, GarageBand's biggest shortcoming (versus more sophisticated recording-studio-type software or an analog recording studio) was that it allowed you to record only one track at a time.

That shortcoming is long gone. Today’s GarageBand supports recording on as many tracks at once as your hardware interface (see Chapter 2) and Mac support. Today, its fewer remaining shortcomings are less troubling.

Although you can change the time signature anywhere in a song without missing a beat (pun intended), it’s not easy. So, if you tend to write songs with multiple time changes, GarageBand may not be the best tool for you.

Moving right along, some other things you can’t do with GarageBand include typesetting a book, removing red-eye from a digital photograph, and sending your mom an email message. But you knew that already (I hope).

Finally, it’s possible to create a song that has too many instruments, effects, or tracks for your Mac or iDevice to handle. The older your device (and the less RAM it has), the more likely you'll encounter this issue sooner rather than later. Although this problem can happen when you use higher-end audio software, it happens sooner and with fewer tracks, effects, or instruments in GarageBand.

The next section covers GarageBand’s system requirements, so I’ll hold the gory details until then. Suffice it to say that newer Macs and iDevices run GarageBand more efficiently than older ones.

Checking Your System Requirements

GarageBand does a lot of intense processing behind the scenes, so it requires more horsepower than some other applications. So, before you go any further with GarageBand, make sure your Mac or iDevice is up to snuff.

The official requirements for Macs

The system requirements for Macs are

• A Mac running macOS 12.3 or later
• At least 8GB of RAM
• At least 2GB free space on your startup disk for the default install or at least 21GB free space on your startup disk for the full install with all instruments included

Now, please allow me to add my two-cents worth regarding what I think is required: GarageBand may run on a 7- or 8-year-old (or older) Mac that meets the preceding requirements, but it probably won’t run very well. And 8GB of RAM may not be enough for some advanced productions.

One last thing: Older Macs with Intel processors and only 8GB RAM are more likely to choke when running GarageBand; newer Macs with Apple silicon (M processors) run GarageBand far more efficiently, even with only 8GB of RAM.

Regardless of which type of processor is in your Mac, I recommend that you quit all other apps when you use GarageBand and quit GarageBand (GarageBand  ⇒    Quit GarageBand) immediately when you’re finished using it each and every time.

The official requirements for iDevices

Following are the system requirements for iDevices:

• An iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 16.0 or later

Here’s my one-cent worth: GarageBand may run on older iDevices that support iOS 16, but it probably won’t run as well as on a newer device. If you have more than one iDevice, use the newest one for your GarageBand recordings.

What Else Do You Need to Run GarageBand?

Even if you don’t acquire a single hardware or software item recommended in Chapter 2, you can have a lot of fun using nothing but GarageBand.

If your Mac has a built-in microphone, as most Macs (and all iDevices) do, you can use that microphone to record vocals and musical instruments. The quality will not be as good as connecting just about any external microphone — even a cheap one. But in a pinch, you can use a built-in microphone to capture instruments and vocals.

On the Mac, you can use GarageBand’s onscreen keyboard or musical typing keyboard to play the built-in software instruments, as shown in Figure 1-1. However, it’s hard to play music with any precision by clicking a mouse or pressing a key, and you can’t really play chords with either.

GarageBand for iDevices offers an array of Smart instruments, as shown in Figure 1-2, which are designed for the touchscreen and are easier to use than either of the Mac version’s onscreen keyboards.

Pause for a brief interlude about tape — the old kind (cassette, ½-inch, 1-inch, and 2-inch) and the new kind (hard or solid-state drive) in the sidebar, “Recording with tape versus hard drive or SSD.”