GarageBand

Submitted by on and last modified on 17 January, 2014

Club AppleVis Member

Category: 

Description of App: 

GarageBand ’11 turns the Mac into a complete recording studio and offers fun new features that help you create even better sounding songs. Use Flex Time to quickly fix timing mistakes and Groove Matching to make multiple instruments play together seamlessly. Or plug in an electric guitar and play through realistic, inspiring new guitar amps and stompbox effects. GarageBand ’11 also has 22 new Learn to Play lessons in the most popular musical genres, and a exciting new feature called “How Did I Play?” that lets you practice along with any lesson while receiving real-time feedback – showing you where you made mistakes and tracking your improvement over time.

Flex Time

  • Quickly change the timing of your audio recordings
  • Fix occasional timing mistakes or make creative changes to how a part was performed
  • Innovative UI – just click and drag the waveform to change the timing

Groove Matching

  • Align the timing and rhythm of all your tracks with a single click
  • Select a Groove Track, GarageBand analyzes its rhythm and instantly matches all other tracks

More guitar amps and stompbox effects

  • Seven new guitar amps for a total of 12
  • Modeled after the most revered gear in the world – from clean sounds to heavy distortion
  • Five new stompbox effects, for a total of 15
  • Mix Amps with stompboxes and find thousands of ways to rock

New Basic Lessons for piano and guitar

  • 22 new Basic Lessons for piano and guitar (40 in total)
  • Full screen, interactive video lessons with an Apple instructor to guide you
  • Synchronized notation with animated onscreen instrument 
  • Built-in glossary to reference tuning for your guitar, reading music, and more
  • Artist Lessons show you how to play a hit song taught by the artist who made it famous*
  • The GarageBand Lesson Store lets you browse, purchase and download Artist Lessons*

“How Did I Play?”

  • Play along with any GarageBand Lesson and get feedback on how accurately you’ve played
  • Progress bar provides overview of your performance, and you can track progress over time
  • Two-page notation to play along with sheet music or review your mistakes
  • Chord Trainer to teach you how to play the most common chords, with real-time feedback

* GarageBand Artist Lessons are sold separately and are available directly through the GarageBand Lesson Store in select countries.

GarageBand Learn to Play requires an Intel-based Mac with a dual-core processor or better.

24-bit recording in GarageBand requires a Mac OS X-compatible audio interface with support for 24-bit audio. Some features and third-party services require Internet access and/or MobileMe; additional fees and terms apply.

Version: 

6.0.4

Free or Paid: 

Paid

Version Of macOS App Was Tested On: 

10.6.X and 10.7.X

Accessibility Comments: 

Once you learn the basics, and learn the interface, it works wonderfully! At first glance, it's not gonna look accessible, trust me, but I promise you, before I started using ProTools I used it, and it worked quite well for what it was.

Usability: 

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver, but the interface could be easier to navigate and use.

App Store Link: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408980954

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1 AppleVis user(s) have recommended this app.

17 Comments

#1 Disappointments with Garageband

Submitted by on

I started out this week being very excited and hopeful - Tuesday morning was my first one on one lesson at the Apple store with Garageband. Unfortunately, the person teaching me turned out to know nothing of VoiceOver. However, I had memorized a lot of the commands and at least we got going. What we discovered is that VO commands such as command T to split regions would work one time, and not the next. There were another of other problems to do with moving things around in regions, and selecting tracks which would not work with VO keystrokes or the trackpad commander, but of course, worked fine without VO. If others have had more positive experience, ahd have gotten around this kind of stuff, I would like to hear about it. And for those who have had an experience similar to mine, I think it would be great to at least try a campaign to get them to fix it. Also, I guess I'm just discovering this, but it seems that Apple store employees have an absolutely woeful lack of training regarding the accessibility aspects of Apple Products. It's nice that Apple is making things accessible, but the technology aspect of accessibility is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. Apple employees are expected to be experts in the OS, and in all of Apple's native apps. So, why does this expectation apparently not exist for the accessibility component of the products. I guess if this situation can't be improved, my next computer will, in fact, be a Windows machine with the latest versions of Sonar and CakeTalking, with it's comprehensive set of "from the keyboard" tutorials.

#2 Some GarageBand help

Submitted by on

You're absolutely right. Garage band has lots of inconsistencies. Regarding splitting, copying, cutting and deleting regions there is a way around it, and it works most of the time. You need to interact with the timeline and then instrument tracks area. Find the region you wish to alter and click on it with the mouse. This is done by pressing VO command and F5. This moves the mouse cursor to that region. After that you can press VO shift and space bar to click on it. And after all that, you can finally split, copy, cut or delete the region. I know it's a lot of commands but right now garage band is the only software I can afford. Also, I wouldn't say that garage band is fully accessible as it says on this page. There are plenty of areas and features that cannot be easily accessed with VO. For instance, magic garage band, the learn to play feature, as well as the automators. However I have figured out how to work with and edit loops, add and customize effects, quantizing, importing audio, and connect a real instrument through an audio interface. If you have any questions about those, just comment back. 

#3 Garageband progress

Submitted by on

Hi Walei, Thanks very much for the hints. I will experiment and practice to see what happens. The ultimate cool thing would be to create some kind of Garageband peer support chat group, maybe using Skype, or Zello on an iDevice. My objective is to determine just how accessible GB actually is, and if there's enough of it that's doable, to design a course for teaching blind kids to do some basic music production at a music camp next summer. Were this to be feasible, I would create a tactile screenshot book for Garageband, similar to the one I did for the iPhone. I'm one of these guys who isn't very good at figuring stuff out on his own, but once I'm shown, I get it quick and don't usually forget. It would be interesting to know how many Garageband fans are hanging out here. Thanks again for your suggestions. I'll keep fiddling! Regards, TD

#4 To answer your question

Submitted by on

The answer is not many GB fans as the comments show and it's easy to see why. To say this app is fully accessible is blatantly untrue. A very little bit works with VO and even that is incredibly flakey. Having to save each time you split or join tracks and on and on. I herd such good things about mac accessibility in regard to apps like GarageBand but when I moved from PC I realised how much is Fanboy hype or misinformation through ignorance. I truly hope apple get off there buts and work to make GarageBand stable with VO because as a musician I'm desperate for a reliable recording and editing solution but I'm not holding my breath. The can't even fix option up and down arrow in apple mail lists for goodness sake.

#5 GarageBand accessibility

Submitted by on

Well, Apple does need to improve on GarageBand for Mac. It took me months to learn how to use it myself, since there aren't many podcasts or tutorials on using it with VoiceOver, and some parts are not very accessible.

#6 I guess i"m someone who can

Submitted by on

I guess i"m someone who can pick up on stuff quickly. I managed to learn it in a few days, but you are right. I've written to apple several times about how the note editor needs to be accessible both thrugh my dev account and through the email format and no joy. this for me is a big big show stopper as I do a lot of work in midi and have over 200 sound fonts I use. I can't afford studio time sometimes and have to so some of the work myself so this woudl be nice if the note editor were very much accessible so I don't have to play passages over and over again.

#7 The flesh is willing but the

Submitted by on

Learning is a bit painful but isn't the issue. Sure routing cursers and 5 key shortcuts is cumbersum but would be fine if they worked consistently. It has been a year so I am going to play again but will have to dig through hours of podcasts for the commands I've forgotten. Grin. Your not the only one to want a note editor and on iOS too for that matter.

#8 Actually I want the note

Submitted by on

Actually I want the note editor to be on the mac side of things not iOS. that way I can import my creations from iOS to mac and edit out my mistakes and rather then redoo the section. I have talked to apple about this with no response what so ever.

#9 GB Shortcuts

Submitted by on

Hey I still use GB on a regular basis. I haven't gotten around to trying any other sound editing apps. Feel free to ask about any specific shortcuts. There's also a list of shortcuts in GB itself if you go to the help menu on top of the screen.

#10 Good idea. I know ro for

Submitted by on

Good idea. I know ro for record and space for play stop lol! also I think it's command e for editor. and c for cycle regions which I don't use a lot of. Remember some times you have to save your project before let's say splitting regions lol! Take care.

#11 Garage Band Newbie with Question(s)?

Submitted by on

Hey everyone. I have briefly explored GB and was hoping to at least hear some sounds. All I've been able to hear thus far--aside from VoiceOver of course--is a single waltz drumbeat. I guess I'm a bit confused here, in part because the listing for Garage Band here on Apple Vis says it's a paid app, and yet I already have an entry for Garage Band that came pre-installed when my parents and I bought my Mac from our local Apple store. When I checked the "About Garage Band" dialogue in the Preferences menu, it somehow backed right on out of there. So yeah, I think there needs to be a definitive guide here. I just received a message on one of the Mac email lists containing some instructions, but again I could only get that one drumbeat.

#12 My experience with Garageband

Submitted by on

Hi Santiago.
From my experience with Garageband, it's worked really well most of the time when I work on new songs with VoiceOver. But I've also ran into some accessibility problems with it too, and can understand the frustration some people on here are experiencing. However, I'm thankful for what Apple has done so far to make their products accessible for the blind and visually impaired, especially since unlike the PC, nobody has to spend more money on a screen reader and install it. Lol.

#13 voiceOver in Garage Band

Submitted by on

Hi all!
I have recently started using Garage Band to record and pre-mix a music production. this app is a gem! I would never have thought that VoiceOver users can create music so easily. Of course, there is a bit of work involved to find one's way around the interface; but with time, it works really well.

I am facing two tasks at the moment which I would like to do using VoiceOver; maybe one of the more advanced users will be able to help me.

• I would like to adjust the time period to fade out a song. There are many tutorials on the web how to do this, but they all use the mouse and drag dots around. Is there a way to fade in and out using VoiceOver?

• I have recorded a song where half a bar is missing in transition from the chorus to the following verse; i.e. the verse is not supposed to begin on the full bar but on the last syllable of the chorus lyrics. So the beat counts: 1-2-3-4-1-2-Verse.
Is there a way to cut out those two beats from the last bar of the chorus? When moving regions around, the drummer just plays a fill and then starts the normal beat on the full bar anyway.

I would be happy if somebody could point me in the right direction.

All the Best and Greetings from Ireland,

Markus

#14 Hello! Garageband newby, was

Submitted by on

Hello! Garageband newby, was wondering how to quantise?

Thanks in advance.

O

#15 Garageband is best music app

Submitted by on

Garageband is best music app recommened for ios users. It is the best music composing app for ios users you can record audio of guitars.

#16 Entry should be updated

Submitted by on

GarageBand is free and has been for a while. The app entry should be updated to reflect this. Is there anyway that users can update the info?

#17 Editing music

Submitted by on

Hello,
Nice write you! What you say the last GarageBand version about?
Do you too have difficulty to modify track's contain? At least, I find a lot "button" alabeled, so VoiceOver says only "Button". Where are the notes I'm played? How can I recognize that? And how can I correct or modify thatt? I'm talking about version for Mac.
Thanks a lot.
P.s.: Please, keep to write at Apple Accessibility Team for the news accessible release.