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Comments
Fantastic thread on GB. I see that it can raise a lot of interest.
In my opinion, GB suffers by isolation from the other music apps (Apple policy, ofc). Moreover, the interface of its DAW side is really poor compared with other ones.
That said, the sounds offered are often pretty good (my taste), and, when used by clever hands, GB can go a long way towards obtaining a decent home recording mix. You may want to look at the tutorial on GB (iPad version, ofc) by Garrick Chow at lynda.com (he's the same guy that made a nice tutorial on Auria), and see how a good production in a basic pro setting is concocted with GB only (by the way, the performers are studio pros in all evidence, and, IMO, the bassist is superb).
As an aside: those well-to-do family girls playing the piano so many decades ago where often able to reduce an orchestral score to piano parts on first sight. Many musicians of today, myself included, would be hard put to perform such a feat. And I'm fond of every means able to spread the musical practice
I had not considered that Apple's default inclusion of GB puts a DAW into the hands of so many people, often for the first time. If that gets people interested in creating their own music, that is a wonderful gift. Yes there are limitations, and many here will rely on more sophisticated tools, but GB is very capable on its own (although I so wish it could output its sounds via Audiobus!).
GarageBand is AOK, but the reason I don't use it much comes straight from the horse's mouth:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202191
IMO GB for iOS is definitely superior to the desk version. You have touch interactivity with instruments, looping, and a more sleek interface (for details this last one). I doubt that Logic will move in the direction of Live (and really hope not), for Apple has Mainstage to fiddle with. Sure, there are several newborn DAWs that are loop-centered. I hope this is more or less a fad. I enjoy looping once in a while, but thinking to use this as my main workflow makes me sick
But only AU instruments not AU effects (Cubasis does)
Also no MIDI is sent to IAA's so you can't really sequence with these.
Plus every 5 minutes it pauses to optimize (stealth freeze)
It seems to get major updates every winter NAMM...so I'm keeping it on the shelf until mid January 2017
Had a fascinating conversation with my ten year old girl this afternoon. I recently got an iPad Pro, so there was a 'trickle down' of devices; my teen boy got my old Air, and my daughter got my son's iPad 2. (And her iPad 1 has gone into a drawer). So that has triggered all sorts of app installing, including music apps. As I showed her all the music apps I had on my new Pro, including Auria Pro and Cubase, she raised her hand and told me "Dad, the only music app I'm interested in is Garage Band", then spent the next 10 minutes expertly and passionately showing me how she uses it to create songs, mainly leveraging the smart tools. I had no idea she even had the thing installed. (We had played once or twice in GB together back when the iPad 2 was my device when she was 6 or so).
So as much as I find GB's lack of interoperability limiting and annoying, it's doing fantastic work in making music creation accessible to many who would otherwise be intimidated by the process.
It is much easier to focus on an apps "weaknesses" and say "it's not for me" than to explore its "strengths" and say "look what I've done with it".
Sure, understood Sean. The problem I was highlighting is that even in dedicated use in music classrooms there are a number of problems that are hindering uptake of other apps than GB. (And, while I don't use GB for anything at all personally, I'm not against its use generally or in the classroom. It's just that GB is not the end of music production on iOS - as we all know!
)
The problems mean it ends up being a kind of monopoly by default, like IE on Windoze, and thus it reduces the ability of keen learners to explore. It's like saying there's only one cheese: cheddar. There's nothing wrong with cheddar, but I like Brie and Camembert and Gouda and Roquefort and Doux de montagne and Stilton as well
Love this. We are all on the mountain, few get to the summit, but each of us carry notes in the linings of our jacket that others may read or see as they pass us by (and as we fade into the snow)....
First of all, this article reads like it was pitched somewhere else and killed when the author submitted it. Or it was a final project at a journalism school and Pitchfork was the only place to take it. So blandly evenhanded, it feels like it was written by a committee. But worth it Juliana Barwick's quote about people snickering at Garageband.
That said:
I have this idea that GB is this hermetically sealed environment. But is it really any different than Gadget?
HONEST QUESTION: How would you incorporate GB in a workflow with modstep, Cubasis, AUM? What would that look like?
I still love GarageBand, although I don't use it often. It, and MusicStudio were my first ever DAW's, and as an intro type of software, GB is fantastic. It really helped me to wrap my brain around around some basic DAW concepts, and the song Sections feature is a big help when constructing traditional type of songs (ABACAB, etc)
Nowadays, I use Cubasis as my main DAW, but the GB instruments are what I go back to; I use a MIDI keyboard for almost everything except for GB guitars and strings, I absolutely dig playing those on the glass, and for me there is nothing quite like it.
GB Wish List: AB input, MIDI export, 24Bit recording, AU effects hosting.
@ExAsperis99 - how would I use it in a workflow? Currently more of a workaround than a flow...if I make something in GB, I just export it (individual tracks) and get it into Cubasis. Since I work one track at a time anyway, it's not an inspiration killer or anything too bad like that, for me.
I skip over the first part that really eludes me and that I do not understand (my fault, needless to say).
I use GB often to record parts played on virtual instruments and/or loops that I import in Auria or whatever app able to edit and manipulate them. Then reuse them as I see fit.
Once, just for fun, I recorded Deadmou5's The Veldt from Auria into a track with a Chinese instruments, then added a drum track with the Chinese set. Nothing to preserve for future generations, but I laughed for several minutes at what came out.
You can drive Gadget(s) by midi, and use it in AUM as an instrument. Maybe I'm wrong, but neither can be done with GB.
Once, just for fun, I think we all would like to hear this particular creation :-)
Forgive my ignorance, what is ABACAB?
A=verse
B=chorus
C=bridge.
Pretty decent song by Genesis, actually. Great sounds anyway, even though the song is not structured as A-B-A-C-A-B.....
Lol, I would be glad to oblige, but, as I said, I did not deem it worth preserving.
Maybe I'll did it again, when in the mood
in case the original track isn't available anymore...
you may DIY by downloading some cheezy General Midi stuff and feed it to a non-GM IOS synth
it was a favorite of mine with Band-in-a-Box tracks ...
also works vice versa: a Metal track from Guitar Pro may deliver a stunning Bossa in BiaB...
cheers, Tom
Yep Tom, that was what I did exactly. Let's hope that Joel does not happen to read all this. He is famous for many things (and well deserves it IMO), but not very much for his sense of humour
Exactly, and good points about the song...love the whole album, actually.
I'm sorry for your family's loss. That's horrible. It puts things in perspective when discussing the evils of Garageband.
As I volunteer regularly at my daughters' elementary school, and am an active attendee of school board meetings, I would say that a big reason that schools don't use any iOS music apps other than GB is financial. Schools simply don't spend money on iOS apps, music or otherwise. The apps they have loaded on their iPads (which were all either donated or bought in part through fundraising efforts) generally all tend to be free apps.
While this may mean that GB becomes the default (or even only) music app on their iPads, I still prefer that to no music apps, or some crappy Smule Piano nonsense that is essentially just Flappy Birds with music notes. My daughters, in using GB or more recently KORG Gadget, are gaining an understanding and appreciation for music creation, song structure, basic theory, just to name a few.
I'm happier with a classroom that uses GB than one that doesn't.
GB hasn't been my go-to app for awhile, but I've put together rough tracks with it, then opened the project in Logic. That was my initial idea of mobile: Create wherever you want, finish it later. It's one workflow of many possible. I'm not limited to one factory production line. Maybe there are more ways to work with other apps on iOS, but other than what it can do (bring in audio through Audiobus, IAA, Copy/Paste...) I don't see GB as being designed as a complete DAW, or a player in a live iOS orchestra. It's a nice music studio environment for someone who isn't interested in more complexity at the moment or ever. Gadget is more or less versatile in other ways.
I don't waste time agonizing over what apps can't do, but it's nice that with AUM, ModStep, Cubasis, etc. there are other iOS workflows possible.
Yes. But it's also a very odd problem. Over here (US) the funding is available in many places for iPad purchases. Large grants, lots of noise. And in some circumstances, some apps in some arenas. But often none for music apps. It's a dichotomy that should not exist.
Agree. BUT, like all shoehorned, state-driven, underfunded learning (or sack filling sometimes (often) maybe
), it has the potential to create narrow mindedness as well. I am definitely with the Germans here! 
In music education it's very hard for me to see GarageBand as any sort of less than. It's an awesome app overflowing with potential for music capture, arrangement and creation. Tech house, dub step, prog rock and some other 'technical' genres may be difficult but honestly, whatever. I would have slaughtered babies for access to GarageBand as a teenager! All else being equal, Never Mind the Bullocks, Controversy, Unknown Pleasures, Double Nickles on a Dime, Blonde on Blonde, Blue, not to mention Abbey Road.... could have been made with GarageBand. GarageBand is punk as fuck in its egalitarianism—just happens to be published by the most profitable megacorp on earth. There's nothing stopping you from plugging a $10k Neumann->Avalon Pre->etc in to GB. Just a really convenient digital multitrack with some smashingly musical extra features.
Amen
The thing about teaching (not music, but in general) is that any content that you convey to a class that isn’t in some way related to something that will appear in the assignment or exam can’t easily be measured by marking. Therefore arguably it is a waste of time, in terms of competing with the same short amount of time that arguably should have been used to cover more of what will be measured later.
I used to be accused of deviating far too greatly from the syllabus, and I’d retort that it contributes to a ‘well rounded’ approach. To be fair, all it did was introduce an uncontrolled variable. Students who had me might cover exam topics in a certain depth and in a certain way, compared with other students who had other lecturers for the same topic who might have covered topics deeper, or differently. Any time that you’re not covering those topics is time that you’re not covering topics which can be rewarded by assessment or exam, given that there’s a defined and limited amount of time in which to teach. In any case, they’d pick up a ‘well rounded’ approach as much from my conversation as any actual transmission of topic matter from me, so in the end I stuck to the stuff I could mark. This made the students experience more comparable across lecturers and years and colleges.
I like what's in your canon!.
Gotta say.... Wow!
Glad that your students benefited from your approach.
(And, we're OT here from Garageband use now, but hey ho...
)
However, I can't say that I agree with that very much - or even at all - in the general case.
I can't say that I think that getting students to the point of comparable experience is what education is about - at all. But rather, developing the skills and abilities of each one to the best potential of that learner - whatever those skills and abilities are in the individual case, i.e. not homogeneity but individual excellence. (See what I mean below by individual excellence - esp. w.r.t. my youngest).
From our children's experience, having homeschooled all of our children through to college age and not once set a formal exam (sure, tests here and there for testing basic ability), but rather seeking to see them developing learning broadly across related subjects that took into account their interest based around core topics, it was evident to them (i.e. they were able to measure it, self assess what they had learned if you like) as they engaged with other peers, particularly those from what might be called more mainstream education, that the breadth of education they received seemed to outstrip - in content, in terms of general knowledge and the ability to relate subjects together - pretty much any of those around them. I am not attributing that to me (or my wife who did most of the teaching) in some egotistical sense, but I am saying that it stands in contrast to what you related was perhaps the means to a "well rounded" approach above @u0421793, is all - at least as they found themselves in company of others who had experienced the approach you describe. I offer it therefore as a contrast to what you stated, not seeking to be dismissive.
I would also ask however, rhetorically, regarding what you said about uncontrolled variables: "who was controlling the variables...? "
and why... ?
(Also, please do not think I am making a case to say that homeschooling is the only way to go or the only right way. I do not believe that is a supportable statement - although I do think there is good reason to prefer it in many circumstances and for various reasons - but, for example, I'm extremely thankful in my own circumstance for a very well rounded education in a school situation. However, that was not an education that was tied (solely) to exam success either but was one where independent thinking and additional, non-examinable, material was discussed as it engaged and inspired the students, not to mention a very broad variety of extra-curricular activities - particularly, but not exclusively, in the arts. Debating was also encouraged. Further, in my senior years we had one general studies / discussion format class that was completely unrelated to any exam-based material - and was yet given a weekly formal timetable slot)
Both of our older children completed 4 year degree courses, the older of those two gaining MCL honors. The youngest is nearly at the end of an associate degree. Each one is a musician. One has a degree in music, another in art, and the youngest is studying motor mechanics, which is what he excelled at practically - but he's also a near virtuoso jazz pianist (and Gadget user - producing beats professionally and also gaining income from being a pianist too).
Hence - back on the GB topic
- while I am all for using it, I'm also all for expanding the awareness of and knowledge of other music production apps for both teachers and children as much as possible (and, which I seek to encourage within "mainstream" education 
)
I should add, which I don't think you would disagree with either, that education isn't just what is "taught at school" but is a.) ongoing at all hours of the day b.) a lifelong experience. The reason I add this though is that you speak to the issue of "time available" - but education isn't solely (if solely) the province of a formal teaching establishment, but involves parents and other instructors too - all of which contributes to the "rounded" education.
(I should perhaps add too, I've taught formally at primary/middle school level, university level and (now) post-university level as well as homeschooling)
I won’t disagree with anything you say — there isn’t time.