Mac: GarageBand, Apple's free virtual music studio, recently updated its Mac version to include free lessons from your favourite singers, songwriters and rocking-outers. With these Artist Lessons, as Apple calls them, you'll be able to learn a new instrument from some of the best around — including piano legend Ben Folds, actual legend John Legend and other popular bands (like Death Cab for Cutie).
You've dreamed of composing ear-blasting symphonies, but gave up because you didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and software. Well, GarageBand's Live Loops makes it easy to craft, record and share professional-sounding jams without spending a ton of money. Here's how to get started.
Apple released a version of its GarageBand music creation software for the iPad back in March, and now it has converted that into a universal version that runs on iPhone and iPod Touch as well. As with the original iPad version, you don't get the same range of features as in the original Mac product, but you can export tracks created on your device into the desktop version for further refinement.
The new release of GarageBand '09 includes "Learn to Play"—piano and guitar lessons from artists like Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, and Sting, Gizmodo reports from their live-blog of the Macworld keynote.
MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey reveals his secret to recording the MeFi podcast between two Macs with simple software sans expensive hardware. Matt says: I read a lot of podcast how-tos when I set out to do my own, and almost all of them are mired in technical details about microphone quality and USB vs. mixer board audio wankery. Most every tutorial about doing a podcast interview focuses way too much on studio-like sound quality achieved through your equipment instead of through software and a bit of clever thinking. Matt's trick is to record a Skype call on both ends separately, then combine the two audio tracks in Garageband to bypass any Skype sound quality problems. Genius! Hit the link to get the details. How to record a kickass podcast between two macs—and cheap!
