GarageBand for macOS gets new features, TouchBar support

Apple released an update to GarageBand for macOS, the most popular music creation and editing applications for consumers. GarageBand 10.2 is a significant update that comes with a modern design, new features and content, and usability improvements, including:

-- Expanded support for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar:

-- Navigation view lets users quickly move around their project by dragging across a visual overview of the arrangement

-- Performance view turns the Touch Bar into a simple one-octave musical keyboard or drum pads for playing and recording software instruments

-- Addition of 3 new Drummers that play percussion in the styles of Pop, Songwriter, and Latin

-- New Drummer loops, a new type of Apple Loop, which can be added to your song and then customized with performance controls

-- The ability to remotely add new tracks to your project using GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad

--  A new modern design that improves legibility in brighter working conditions and has a flatter overall look, consistent with the latest macOS designs.

The GarageBand 10.2 update is available to existing users for free.

GarageBand for iOS and Logic Pro X for macOS receive massive updates

Apple kicks off the new year with some great software news. The company has announced massive updates to GarageBand on iOS and Logic Pro X on macOS.

GarageBand for iOS 2.2, free to existing users and costing $6.99 new, now features the powerful creative synthesizer Alchemy and a new sound browser that makes searching through instruments and patches easier than ever. Logic Pro X 10.3 becomes an even more powerful tool for pros with a modern interface, new features for professional audio production as well as support for the revolutionary Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro, putting intuitive, context-sensitive controls right at users’ fingertips. 

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Apple introduces new instruments and sounds in GarageBand to celebrate Chinese music

What can be seen as Apple trying to get into the good graces of the Chinese and its authorities is the latest update to GarageBand. The music creation software adds a variety of Chinese instruments to celebrate the “rich history of Chinese music.”  Apple has added instruments like the pipa, erhu, and Chinese percussion offerings that include drums, cymbals, gongs, and wood blocks. According to Apple, it has created 300 Chinese musical loops and these have been made from various instruments and styles ranging from the likes of guzheng, to dizi, to Peking Opera, to name a few. These instruments have different playing articulations as well such as rapid picking and note bend for the pipa and trill, grace note, and glissando for the erhu.

Apple has also added two new Chinese templates for Live Loops and sharing options for popular Chinese social networks like Youku and QQ. All the new instruments are available on iOS and Mac versions of GarageBand. These features are automatically enabled for users in Greater China. Mac outside of China also have these features automatically enabled, while iOS users outside of Greater China can enable this through the advanced settings menu. Chinese localization is also enhanced across the entire app, with all sounds, loops and instruments now translated to Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese. GarageBand 2.1.1 for iOS and GarageBand 10.1.2 for Mac updates are free for all existing users, and GarageBand is available for free with all new iOS and Mac devices. Customers with older, non-qualifying devices can purchase the app for US$4.99 (around CA$6) via the App Store and Mac App Store.

Source: Apple | Via: MacRumors

The Apple Beat: New music creation tools empower creativity

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

When Apple first released the original iMac, it released a series of tools like iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand which empowered users into making original creations without the complexity usually affiliated with professional software. Apple seems to have gone back to this path of empowerment with its new music apps for iOS.

Apple recently released GarageBand 2.1 update  which introduces Live Loops, a fun visual music-making feature makes it possible to create loops and add DJ-style effects through multi-touch gestures.

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