iPad 2/GarageBand Review

[jackthehack]

In short, if you are a musician and have $499 + $40-$120 for control interfaces to spend, you can't afford not to buy one of these. I had minimal expectations and thought I would wind up eBaying this thing after a week or two, but am mightily impressed. While at this stage it's not going to replace other hardware/software as a portable 8-track recording studio, as an in-house recording system for a "one-man-band" or prototyping tracks/making demos there's an awful lot of value here that is sure to expand in the future.

Caveat Emptor - I don't own a MacOS computer or have ever used the GarageBand application available for that platform, and only have about 4 hours into testing this system out. I DO have 40 years experience being a musician and 20 years+ using analog/digital recording devices and modeling hardware/software. That being said, and being in the business of manufacturing similar devices, it's pretty apparent to me that Apple launched this at least 2-3 months before Steve Jobs would have liked to, mainly to beat down Android tablet competition available later this year, which may lead to some of the few shortcomings I will relate.

Even if you never use anything else but the Guitar Amp module to output sound in to your existing DAW interface/recording setup, for $499 and $4.99 for for the application, it's not really a bad deal...

The Guitar Amp module includes unbelievably implementations of the following vintage/newer amps:

- Fender 50's Tweed Combo
- Fender Blackface Combo
- Vox AC-15/30
- Marshall JTM-45
- Mesa DiamondPlate Rectifier
- Marshall 2061x 20 watt Lead/Bass
- Orange 50w lead head
- Fender 60's Brownface Combo
- "Stadium Stack - not sure what this is supposed to be, think it's HiWatt or Laney 50/100 watt head

These are all pretty much "dead-on", make the modeling in Amplitude/other competitors sound like dogshit, and sound better/truer to the original than other hardware/software costing up to $500. This works flawlessly using the iRig Guitar/bass input adapter; if you use the "Clean Combo" setting for the Fender Blackface/Marshall 20 watt heads you get a pretty good approximation of a Fender Bassman/Marshall 20 watt Lead/Bass head for bass input. All the amp models have identical controls that may not be identical to the originals:
Gain - Bass - Middle - Treble - Reverb Level - Tremolo Depth/Speed - Presence - Master - Output

Stompboxes included (you can use any combination of 4 in the effects chain):

- Compressor
- Digital Echo
- Phaser
- Vintage Overdrive (think TubeScreamer)
- Treble Booster
- Fuzz (Big Muff/Arbiter Fuzzface type)
- Chorus
- Flanger (very similar to EVH model)
- Univibe clone'
- Auto-funk  (hard to describe, includes a marginal auto-wah effect)

The sound quality of these is equivalent of stand alone effects unit costing up to $200. The only external effects you'd ever need in front of the input would be a wah or volume pedal.

Keyboards - If you buy the Apple USB Camera connector kit ($39) and an M-Audio Uno Midi=>USB interface (also $39), you can connect ANY MIDI keyboard to play the included keyboard instruments, which include:

- Grand Piano (think Yamaha)
- Classic Grand Piano (think Steinway/Boesendorfer)
- Electric Piano (picture is a Fender Rhodes, but sound more like a Yamaha DX-7 or other FM synthesis Rhodes patch)
- Wurlitzer Electric (has decay/tremolo/drive/chorus controls)
- Clavinet (think Hohner vintage/Stevie Wonder D-6 model)
- Soul/Classic Rock/Heavy Metal Organs - these are Hammond B-3/M-2 models with Leslie 122/142 cabs (there's even a control to actuate Leslie speaker rotation speed), there are additionally 9 user configurable stops, and percussion/chorus/distortion controls for each of these presets.

The Hammond presets sound as good/better than software emulators or presets on standalone digital synthesizer workstations costing up to thousands of dollars. Expect either updates to GarageBand or plug-ins that add a wide variety of analog/digital FM/acoustic/other keyboards to become available at added cost in the not too distant future.

"Smart" Drums/Bass/Keyboard/Guitar

These are all "played" from the touchscreen and aimed at people that do not have/know how to play these instruments. They have "autoplay" and chord/note settings. I don't have a lot of interest, but if you spent a lot of time jacking with these you could probably lay down some passable tracks.

The Smart Drums is a very marginal excuse for a drum machine setup. It would take too long to try to explain, but as with the soft keyboards included, I would expect TR-808-909/FruityLoops/other types of better programmable drum machines to be included in next-gen GarageBand versions or as plug-ins/add-ons at additional cost in the future.

AppleLoops

There are a wide variety of 1 to 8 bar loops available for 16 different instruments types. Given the absence of any usable documentation, I'm still trying to figure out how to use these with the 8 track recorder, but expect this to turn into a whole new cottage industry with thousands of samples/loops available as add-ons in the future. You could use this and be the next Fatboy Slim/Moby without ever having to learn how to play the first lick on a real instrument.


Audio Recorder/Sampler

You can use the iRig or an adapter to plug in a mike or other source to record vocals/miked instruments; I've used this connected to my Korg Triton Le76 synthesizer/workstation to record other keyboard/instrument sounds not available within the application; it works OK, but it takes some trial and error to get the levels right as top preclude any modulation/distortion. I haven't had the time to play with the sampler yet, but will update y'all on that later.

8 track recorder

It may just be that this is my first day working with a version of GarageBand, and the fact that there is little in the way of in-app documentation, but it seems to me after just a few hours of usage that this has a way to go. In short, the operation is not as intuitive as it could be, and there are a number of features that do not seem to be implemented yet, like punch-in and mixing down multiple tracks to a single one to expand the range beyond 8 tracks. If you screw up laying down a track, there is no way to delete it and start over that I can figure out; I would expect that you could press/hold the track to get a delete/expand/duplicate/other control, but those aren't there. I expect that any of these shortcomings that aren't a result of my own ignorance or a lack of documentation get fixed in further updates.


Other bugs/deficencies not noted above

- In one instance, while using the Camera/USB connector and M-Audio USB=>MIDI adapter connected to an external MIDI leyboard a note "stuck" and would not stop playing until the GarageBand application was exited and restarted.
- In one instance, I was not able to duplicate a SmartDrums track beyond 8 bars, had to delete the saved song recording and start over.
- There is no way to save presets on the amps/effects settings to pull back up on future GarageBand sessions.

More later...

 

[dmraco]

nice review.  So you have used Both GARAGE BAND and AMPLITUBE?  I am looking for just guitar so all the other stuff on garage band really does not interest me.  FRom your point of view...which is better for just guitar?

 

[jackthehack]

I haven't downloaded Amplitube for iPad yet (pulling down the free version now), but based on the iPod/iPhone version I'd definitely say that tonally GarageBand is superior.

I'll edit the above if the iPad version of Amplitude is a lot better than the iPhone/iPod version...

 

[AutoBat]

I haven't an ipad, but I use Amplitube 3 on my (mac) laptop with either headphones or thru my stereo speakers as my primary means of amplification.
It's so good I've passed up actual tube amps on a couple occasions.

 

[jackthehack]

I tried downloading the free versions of Amplitude (regular & Fender) to my iPad 2; not about to buy all the add-ons as the GuitarAmp part of the iPad 2 GarageBand app is far superior. How different is Amplitube for MacOS as compared to the iPhone/iPod/iPad versions?

 

[mayfly]

Question - is it limited to 8 tracks?  That's all ya got?

 

[jackthehack]

Question - is it limited to 8 tracks?  That's all ya got?

Yes, I'm too buried with work to spend more time on this right now, and as stated there's a dearth of documentation, might be easier/more intuitive if you've used the MacOS version. How often do you really need more than 8 tracks?

While maybe not ideal for a mobile 8 track recording studio, I can see it being real handy to slap down quick demos/get that song idea/riff down/recorded in a hurry, thing like that.

If you've never done any recording you're going to be able to output product a lot quicker than if you were to buy a recording surface for your computer/laptop and any commercially available recording software (you'd probably wind up paying most of the price of the iPad 2 + GarageBand to do this).

Also, as I mentioned, I think you're going to see a large number of improvements/peripherals/add-ons/add-ins from both Apple and 3rd parties during the course of the rest of the year that will make this even more attractive in terms of usability/functionality/cost of ownership as compared to most alternatives.

 

[mayfly]

Well, speaking only for myself, when we record, we get the levels and then to several takes of a particular thing (say lead vocal).  Maybe about 5 or so.  Then later in mix down we mix and match phrases from each take to get a really good vocal track.  We even do this trick with bass so that we have another track to drop in those little mistakes that always happen.  Then I always end up doubling gutars and paning them hard left and hard right.  Same for violin.  It's at the point where I just keep it rolling, even for a level take. It's just disk space after all.

It adds up.  Even for a simple little song I've got up to over 32 tracks in GarageBand.  'Course not all of those are used, but they are useful in the recording process.

 

[jackthehack]

Well, speaking only for myself, when we record, we get the levels and then to several takes of a particular thing (say lead vocal).  Maybe about 5 or so.  Then later in mix down we mix and match phrases from each take to get a really good vocal track.  We even do this trick with bass so that we have another track to drop in those little mistakes that always happen.  Then I always end up doubling gutars and paning them hard left and hard right.  Same for violin.  It's at the point where I just keep it rolling, even for a level take. It's just disk space after all.

It adds up.  Even for a simple little song I've got up to over 32 tracks in GarageBand.  'Course not all of those are used, but they are useful in the recording process.

We're pretty spoiled these days; Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was recorded on a dual 4 track recorder setup. Many of your favorite classic albums were recorded on 8 tracks or less. Dark Side of the Moon was recorded on the latest 16 track technology at Abbey Road...

 

[jackthehack]

Haven't had a lot of time to play with this further, but one thing I just figured out is that with the initial version shipping with the iPad 2, there is NO way to import a track of any format from any other source than saved iPad 2 tracks, which is a bummer. I bought the Korg iMS-20 analog synthesizer app, which does have a much more workable drum machine and will export .wav files, but no way to suck them into the iPad 2 GarageBand app.

On the other hand, you apparently CAN import saved tracks saved to iTunes into the full GarageBand app for MacOS. I'm waiting on a MacBook Pro I'm getting shortly for work to check this out, guess you can use the iPad 2 as a more portable adjunct system to your MacBook/iMac.

Again, I expect most of these shortcomings to be addressed in future iterations/revisions of the app.

 

[Dan025]

sounds great, almost makes me want to support apple, almost. i just wish android would get more support from major manufacturers in the accesories and high quality app areas. there are many more android devices out there than ios devices and there are devices with way more processing power available as well. so it doesnt make sense that we dont have high quality games, modeling software, ect, ect. sure there are many apps that you will never see on the apple market like launchers, theming apps, keyboards, terminal interface, and he list goes on but that stuff is not for everyone, i think there is an extremely large market for the makers of amplitube and other programs that you dont see in the android market.

 

[Cagey]

A great deal of innovation is stopped cold by our patent system. Technology would be moving a lot faster otherwise.

 

[dmraco]

sounds great, almost makes me want to support apple, almost. i just wish android would get more support from major manufacturers in the accesories and high quality app areas. there are many more android devices out there than ios devices and there are devices with way more processing power available as well. so it doesnt make sense that we dont have high quality games, modeling software, ect, ect. sure there are many apps that you will never see on the apple market like launchers, theming apps, keyboards, terminal interface, and he list goes on but that stuff is not for everyone, i think there is an extremely large market for the makers of amplitube and other programs that you dont see in the android market.

I agree.  I just purchased an iPAD 2 because of this.  The new Xoom is a powerful device with a great interface.  However...there is no support.  Apps suck it droids and I see no catching up in the future.  The issue I have read for this is that there are SO many providers of the droid/honeycomb OS that it is hard to optimize apps for everyone.  You would think just the opposite because Android does not have programs by the B^LLS like Apple does.  You are even limited to the cases you can buy!

I do love the IPAD 2 and only miss my widgets a little (I hear they are coming for the IPAD!!).  I have also found a new hobbie...classic video games.  PAC-MAN, Asteroids, Galaga...all available and perfect copies from the app store.! :hello2:

 

[jackthehack]

"The issue I have read for this is that there are SO many providers of the droid/honeycomb OS that it is hard to optimize apps for everyone.  You would think just the opposite because Android does not have programs by the B^LLS like Apple does"

I work for one of the largest OEM's that has an Android tablet in the market and more on the way. Your take is not the real issue; it's really one of economy of scale and marketing.

At this juncture, tablets are device that nobody really needs until they have one/use one, regardless of OS platform, and realize their utility. Apple was first to market and will continue to control probably around 80%+ of the market through at least the rest of this year. Besides the fact that their products are very elegant from an industrial design aspect and solid in terms of OS/application development, Apple is REALLY Good at selling "Cool". This is why you have apps that are frankly worth a LOT more, like GarageBand/iFilm selling for $4.99; get the "cool"/creative types to buy the device and you further enhance the "Cool" factor and you make the device even more desirable to the general populace, kinda like how you sell sport cars to men my age. Apple undoubtedly spent more than a year and many millions of dollars developing the GarageBand/iFilm apps to basically give away to this purpose..

If you're an applications developer, where are you going to expend your resources? Developing for a single device that presents a consistant hardware platform and has most all of the market share, or another platform that presents challenges as the hardware varies a great deal and has limited market share? That's pretty much a no-brainer..

 

[dmraco]

points taken Jack.

I am loving the amp and recording studio in such a tiny package.  Now If there was only a guitar so small..... :laughing3:

 

[Cagey]

I work for one of the largest OEM's that has an Android tablet in the market and more on the way. Your take is not the real issue; it's really one of economy of scale and marketing.

There's that, although Android products are inherently less expensive due to reduced or non-existent licensing costs for software thanks to the OSS community. But, the elephant in the room is software patents. You can't do anything anymore without getting caught up in a perfect storm of litigation over some of the stupidest things you could imagine. Amazon's "One-Click" patent is usually the poster boy for this phenomena, but it was just the first example of the ridiculousness in that field now. Myriad examples exist past that, mostly for similar things where the patents are overly broad, painfully obvious, or have previous art available and so should never have been issued, assuming that software patents should be issued in the first place, which they should not. The USPTO hands out patents like candy these days, although it still takes a long time simply because everybody+dog is applying for them. It wouldn't surprise me to find that there are numerous patents for the use of used toilet paper.

 

[ptirman]

Thanks Jack for a very comprehensive and well thought out review.
I have an Apogee Duet analogue digital converter and I have been messing around with garage band and Logic. Logic is beyond me so far and looks like it has a steep learning curve. I'm a novice.

Garage band has been fantastic! Easy to use and easy to learn. I agree, the amps and loops are really great. I go straight into the computer. To have computer software so easy to use that even I can pull it off is a miracle

I can actually record into my wife's ipad or my iphone or Macbook using the apogee jam single input D-A converter and condenser mic. Cool stuff Maynard.

I'll post my video and garage band recording in the Warmoth youtube thread to see this stuff being used (albeit by a novice).

 

[jackthehack]

I work for one of the largest OEM's that has an Android tablet in the market and more on the way. Your take is not the real issue; it's really one of economy of scale and marketing.

There's that, although Android products are inherently less expensive due to reduced or non-existent licensing costs for software thanks to the OSS community. But, the elephant in the room is software patents. You can't do anything anymore without getting caught up in a perfect storm of litigation over some of the stupidest things you could imagine. Amazon's "One-Click" patent is usually the poster boy for this phenomena, but it was just the first example of the ridiculousness in that field now. Myriad examples exist past that, mostly for similar things where the patents are overly broad, painfully obvious, or have previous art available and so should never have been issued, assuming that software patents should be issued in the first place, which they should not. The USPTO hands out patents like candy these days, although it still takes a long time simply because everybody+dog is applying for them. It wouldn't surprise me to find that there are numerous patents for the use of used toilet paper.

While I agree with everything you say about software patents, that's not the fundamental issue here. Android products are NOT "inherently" expensive. Apple is closing in on 20 million iPad sales and climbing; and are working off that economy of scale and have parts suppliers locked down for some time to come. All the other OEMs are trying to ramp up demand/sales and we'll see where the volume goes for Honeycomb tablets, but their cost to manufacture is on a par with the iPad models, given the same hardware configurations in terms of memory/radios

 

[Cagey]

Android products are NOT "inherently" expensive.

I didn't say they were. I said "inherently inexpensive". Although, you're right in that the radios/displays/memory/processor/etc. vary in price according to volume, the variation is nothing compared to licensing fees for the various technologies in use. OEMs will sell their mothers for a nickel in production cost savings, since a bajillion of anything is a lot. So, you get multiples of a Microsoft or some patent troll nailing them for anywhere between 25 cents and 25 dollars to use what they feel they deserve is their due, and those prices get marked up several times to the end user until you end up with widgets that are grossly overpriced purely because of government-sanctioned and enforced monopolies on ideas.

 

[Tempest]

Having used the amp sims in Garageband I can attest that they sound spectacular, this iPad setup sounds intriguing, I'd like to try it out