The music software GarageBand has been around for 15 years and Apple has therefore given a look behind the scenes how the software came into existence and what it involves to make a new loop, for example.
the first time, Apple gave a peek into the studio where music apps are made. In this way, we get a better picture of what is involved to make a new sound or a new virtual instrument. With GarageBand, everyone can make music themselves on the Mac, iPhone or iPad. It is easy to use and can be used for all kinds of applications. Well-known artists also use it, including Rihanna, Fall Out Boy and T-Pain.
The new instrument can take months
Creating a new instrument can take weeks to months, both with digital sounds and when real sounds from an instrument need to be recorded. With a real instrument, a musician must keep repeating the same note endlessly, always with a different finger position, pressure and sound volume. In addition, hold the breath with the musician for seven seconds each time, to prevent background noise from being heard.
The music lab is led by Dr. Gerhard Lengeling, who joined Apple seventeen years ago through the acquisition of his company Magic. A handful of employees spend the entire day working on details about how a note or instrument should sound. This involves large decisions, such as the model electric guitar that must be included in the app, but also meticulous details, which you as a user probably don’t know about. For the making of the East Asian instruments, for example, the team called in experts to choose the right color of wood for the instruments. The fonts also had to be correct.
GarageBand was created in 2004 from an experiment when Apple wanted to see if computers could be used in a new way. “We were inspired by the idea that new software would connect everything that was created,” said Apple’s marketing boss Phil Schiller. “Maybe the next time John Lennon would discover his talent with a computer that he had received as a child during Christmas.”
GarageBand: everything you want to know
With Apple’s GarageBand you can make music, play instruments and take music lessons. You can also make recordings and publish your music. In this overview, you can read what is possible with GarageBand.
Garage tire vs Logic Pro
Apple’s music studio also makes Logic Pro X, the professional software for music makers. However, it is not the case that functions are adjusted from Logic and then end up in GarageBand, or vice versa. Both apps are largely independent of each other. However, the convenience of GarageBand ensures that artists have already recorded pieces themselves, which subsequently prove to be useful for the final recording. “Some people are so good at making demos in GarageBand that they bring something and that I think: we can use 80 percent in the final album. It has happened that an artist has recorded the vocals in GarageBand with just the internal microphone of a laptop and it sounded cool. ”
Apple doesn’t want to say much about future functions, but Phil Schiller does have a stick in his hand: something with machine learning would be useful.
Do you want to get started yourself? Apple has a teaching package to make music yourself using GarageBand, called ‘Everyone Can Create Music’. You can use it at school, but you can also use it yourself at home.