GarageBand Reviews

This is a fabulous app that is an absolute Must for writers/arrangers who get stuck alone (not good) at airports, parking lots, Etc ..
The sounds are absolutely fabulous! I could pick nits and say that on cannot press the drum-stick into the drumhead depressing just enough to tighten the next strike to a different semi-tone ... but I won’t. It is great for mapping out numerous tracks of a song in your head with symphonic strings or Japanese instruments (of which I had never heard) but which sound very Celtic. It is a candy store with invisible, one -way lids: they keep the candy clean but you can reach right through and grab whatever you need for the next part of your song!
It is absolutely almost all of the “Jetson-type“ musical things about which I dreamt as a child. Everything for a complete rainy afternoon at my fingertips! If you can imagine it, most likely you can write it on this with the use of myriad tools. It’s learning curve is practically idiot proof – as attested to buy my ability to use it with such ease. Get this wonderful app and open up all the windows you can find As You Need and use them: choose a few at the beginning and find out how incredibly wonderful it is as you add on to your knowledge and your abilities.
I am waiting to hear that someone has used this for an entire movie score ... it will not be long in coming – if it hasn’t already happened!
Thank you for presenting GarageBand to all of us to use it! It is almost God-given!

Allow me to start by saying that I’ve been using this app for 3+ years and it is beyond comparison. Out of hundreds of apps on GarageBand Store, it is by far the most user friendly I have ever been able to use. As somebody who was teaching themselves how to write music, the interface is almost always very helpful and easy to understand, even if you aren’t very knowledgeable of music in the classical sense. Although not everything about it is completely obvious, it is absolutely worth it to spend time playing around with and discovering new tricks and settings, that aid or streamline the music writing process. That being said, if there is anything about this app that I don’t like, it is the sustain pedal glitch. It’s the only thing I would consider to be a flaw that truly compromises the effectiveness of GarageBand . When adding/deleting/edited the lengths of sustains on music (particularly piano, as that is what I work with most often), I’ve frequently ran into a myriad of recurring issues; sometimes a sustain will still play even after it’s been deleted, or after shortening a sustain pedal it will still play at its original length. All in all, however much I dislike the issues with the usage of the sustain pedal feature, any grievance I have with that is dwarfed by my admiration of GarageBand and my appreciation of the undoubtably talented people who put energy into making music so easy.

I use GarageBand to pass the time when I’m bored and I gotta say… I don’t think another free app exists that is as good or robust as this one. The keyboard patches can get dry at times but the audio recorder function is top notch. There are tons of drum patches but the “acoustic” drum patches sound absolutely terrible unless you put some work into them. I guess that is pretty normal on professional DAWS on your computer but I use GarageBand to pass the time and really don’t want to spend 15 min trying to get my drums to sound like drums. Another downside I see is that the 4/4 grid is the only grid truly fleshed out in GarageBand . If you switch to 3/4 or 6/8 (the only other options that exist at the moment) GarageBand starts to have issues. If you try to paint notes on the grid it doesn’t quite land where you press and the grid goes directly from quarter notes to 32nd notes. And there is no triplet grid for any time signature. You just have to move notes around to where you think they might fall. Also, I wish there were more options for the time signatures themselves. I think on the computer you can just type in any subdivision you want and it creates a grid for you. But, all-in-all a great free app if not the greatest of free apps for the musically curious types.

I’ve been using GarageBand for almost four years now, during a time which I knew close to nothing about music. After playing around for a solid year, this gave me a good grasp on the central workings of music, from a steady beat to more classical elements. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of pack additions, especially in the last year or so. However, I do have some critiques.
1: I know it’s possible on some other interfaces, but there must be a way to look at the tracks and the instrument at one time. Going back and forth hasn’t been the best experience for me.
2: this is a little petty, but the loops need to be organized better. The fact that I have to look up ‘piano’ instead of just putting it into an instrument is ridiculous. Also, adding onto this, there should be more loops of different time signatures.
3: This is probably the worst of my critiques; where is Macne nana. I’ve heard of rumors that she was created by this app, (hence the Mac) and I’d love it if there was any sort of text to song audio that could be used, especially if it worked the same as the sampler, or maybe even the smart drummers.
Overall, GarageBand is probably the best mobile music creation app I’ve used. The rest cost money for what can be done for free here.

Hello my name is Caleb.
I’ve been using garage band for many years now and I’ve always loved it from the start however there is a problem that I’ve run into recently that I hope you can fix. It’s a strange problem actually but garage band still deserves 5 stars anyway. So when I started using garage band there wasn’t as much content as there is now, less then a third probably. I was easily inspired to make music and could make neat catchy tunes every other day but now it’s harder to do that because there’s SO MUCH content it’s overwhelming because besides the five main things (guitar, vocals, drums, strings, and piano) there so many sounds like synths, bass, leads and such that I never know where to begin and I lose all interest in my creation, but I think that if you put a “sample” button on each sound so that we can hear just a single note at middle C or -1C for bass that would instantly get rid of the problem. Most of the time I know what sound I want but I can’t find it and I have to select a sound, play my song, and see if it’s the right one which takes to long with there being hundreds of choices. There might be this sound sample feature already and I just don’t know how to use it but if not please consider adding it. It would help so much and I’m sure I’m not the only one who would thank you.

By: ——————

So I think GarageBand is pretty good but when it comes to making your own stuff there is a bad bad problem. I have no problem with creating stuff already made but today me and my mom wanted to create our own song on it and I used a lot of the loops. And then finally when I was about to hit record button, GarageBand TOOK ME OUT OF IT AND I LOST ALL OF MY PROGRESS. (It crashed) It took me almost an hour just to get some of it done. And now all of the progress is gone and I really think that you need to fix that because if that’s gonna happen to every single time you make a new song by yourself that’s not created all ready, then you’re gonna have a lot of people saying the same thing. Maybe you can fix that bug in another update! Please do it because I am very mad at the game and I don’t want that to happen ever again.

Overall i give it a three-star because GarageBand allows you to still create songs that great so I gave you five stars for that but then I’m like im about I create my own song and then that happened so that’s why I took away 2 stars. But I still hope that you guys can make this app way better than it is right now but I don’t mean that in a bad way because I already said that I like it I just don’t like it too much because it crashed. so please fix that because I don’t want GarageBand to be on my bad app list for the rest of my life.

I was told this app is a great free Apple app that’s easy to use to start recording my podcast. Free, easy to use, Apple app, yes, but not that great for podcast recording. When I set out to try out the various features offered like adjustable line-in mic, monitor, and noise gate along with pitch controls and such I was very excited. The letdown came when I was ready for my first take. I wanted to make sure I could "spit my truth" for my full 15 minutes of fame. Now, I’m not a musician so I don’t think in terms of tempo, bars, sections, and time signatures. Unfortunately, this app only allows 26 sections at 8 bars each, and adjusting tempo and time signature was no help at all. After ~4 minutes of recording I realized I had used almost 12 sections which gives me a maximum recording time of 10 minutes. Now I’m sure that’s phenomenal for musicians nailing down a riff, bridge, solo, chorus, or massive vocal track, and I’m not foolish enough to think that GarageBand isn’t specifically designed for musicians. Yet, I still think there’s a slight loss of functionality, and opportunity to expand this app’s reach by not allowing unlimited recording and the addition of a timer or stopwatch for those who are not adept at music’s timing system. Voice actors, storytellers, life coaches, podcasters, etc. could all benefit from the simplicity and functionality of the this app app with a few simple tweaks.

Anyone know how to solve this recording stopping no matter how I record anything thru physical mic on iPhone 6s it use to record just fine. I’m about to purchase an iMac Pro and midi keyboard. Over the years I’ve tried all the daws garage band I can actually have finished work. I absolutely love it! MacBook experience wasn’t the best but it was an MacBook from 09 iPad Pro super impressed! So I can’t wait till I get the iMac Pro! I’m holding an pretty chart rank currently 17th global and 14th national chart rank. Trying to maintain this momentum until the iMac. this app you tha best well tie with logic minus the new samples and loop packs! Alltho I use external more I still love physically playing the instruments that’s super dope! I now know how to play piano/keyboard and never played before. Does anyone know how to fix this recording stopping? Space seems to be the issue as always. Haha so I’m sure it’s the space problem. I deleted GarageBand and re downloaded it and permanently lost roughly 20-25 new projects. Keep the live instruments coming definitely pretty dope! Especially playing drums and keyboard definitely give this app an overall 6+ stars if I could cut samples that would be nice. Much love this app been with ya guys and only you for almost 5 years now.
-Khanflik-d

I’m a beginner music maker, and I’ve been playing in a school band for a lot of my life, so I grew up loving wind instruments like flute, trumpets, etc. but as of July 10, 2019, there doesn’t seem to be an option to get them. I searched for extensions to add to this app so that I may use the more traditional instruments, but I couldn’t find anything. All I have is the computerized digital percussion, some strings I don’t know how to use (yet), and a piano which I’m unable to really use because on my phone screen, the accents and attacks on the instrument are very spontaneous and annoying. It’s a good app, don’t get me wrong, but no matter where I look, I can’t find any instruments I know what to do with in a composition (i.e. wind instruments). There also doesn’t seem to really be a good way of making music box music in it no matter how hard I try (I try using the Sweet Bells on the piano setting, but even after messing with the sound settings it still doesn’t feel right). The reason I point these things out is because I want to create more traditional or fantasy-based music. It would be nice to be able to create some ethereal music without struggling to find the instruments. Other than that, GarageBand is wonderful and intuitive. I intend to keep using it, just so long as I have access to wind instruments and hopefully a music box-like instrument. Thank you for your time!

So I have been using GarageBand since the iPhone 5s. And I have a major complaint it is a major book for those who are using voiceover with this app. It’s a book Apple needs to take care of. I am a voiceover user myself and I have been having this issue. Whenever you would like to add compression, change your EQ, add reverb, or echo, or any really cool affect like reversing the track, changing the speed so if you were trying to make those rap style high hats, or adding other great effects. Garage band will not let you, as soon as you close out of your mixer it erases all of the things you’ve done. Matter of fact it doesn’t even add DFX it’s like you never even added them. I have been dealing with this bug, since I started using GarageBand I have never been able to successfully add any of those amazing plug-ins garage band will not even change the sound of your recording, as soon as you go and increase or decrease the amount of compression reverb or like I said any of the other affects, and you close out of the mixer and prepped play to hear your track it doesn’t add them, then you go back to your mixer and look at it and see they’re all back down to 0% Apple please please fix this issue, recordings with sound so much better when you can actually affect the sound. This bug has been going on long enough. On behalf of me and other voiceover users a like please fix this issue

I love GarageBand so much. I am not a professional music designer and I would be lying if I said I was, so GarageBand works great for my intents and purposes, but I think there are a few missing features that could very well revolutionize this app music designing: 1. Exporting iPad/I OS this app files to Music. PLEASE PRIORITIZE THIS FEATURE This is already a thing on OSX (MacOS), but I would like to be able to export my this app files to Music without many disappointing attempts at back doors and bypasses. 2. Add pitch correction for ALL blue audio samples/recordings. One of the problems is that if I record audio, then I can use Settings -> Follow Tempo & Pitch -> Semitones +|-, but with imported audio (not just from the sound library) I rarely am able to. 3. Sound pack request. This is a simple request for some new sounds. There are many times when I feel as though the “other” category should be renamed. Often times I find myself attempting to substitute an accordion with the Toy Melodica, or a saxophone with a clarinet and oboe/bassoon. I think the pack(s) should include: Almost the entire family of woodwinds The entire brass family A few more world instruments I hope you read this and will take these into consideration, and I REALLY appreciate the royalty free sounds.

The iPhone Version of Garage Band got an update it’s a new Downloadable Keyboard Collection Pack. Is the New Pack going to be on the iPad OS Version cause I like using my iPad Air more than my phone when it comes to this app because of better features on the iPad version. Please I hope whoever works at Apple and updates/works on this app sees this review. It would make me very happy to see The new Keyboard Collection that was released as a downloadable sound Pack for the iPhones operating System be ported to iPad OS. Thanks so much for making one of my all time favorite apps. I would really like to see a 80s hair metal/80s metal/80s glam rock inspired pack. A pack that has guitar presets and loops that sound like Mötley Crüe, Poison, Bon Jovi, Warrant and RATT And many of the other influential 80s hair bands. In this pack there would be bass guitar loops and instruments, Guitar loops and instruments, synth/keyboard loops and instruments guitar loops and instruments and drum loops and instruments. Thanks so much for whoever at Apple took the time to read my review. I hope my Idea for a gaarageband sound pack works out and is do able. Also you could have Motley Crue, poison, Bon Jovi, RATT, Warrant create instrumental loops for garage band too.

Ok so I’ve been using this app seriously for 3 years. And I’ve enjoyed making beats on it. I truly have. I think it just needs a little bit of adjustment. One thing I request is to add in a saxophone sound. I’ve been trying to make a chill beat with a saxophone in it and I’m not gonna buy a saxophone for this one beat. Another thing is to have tuned drum kits. For example, in the FL studio you can use a hi-hat sound, but it on a piano roll, and make a cool effect where if you make a quick chromatic sequence, it has a cool ascending hi-hat sound. I have one last request. Auto-tune. Now you don’t have to, but it would be a cool little feature to have on this app. Like say I were to record me singing one note, say middle C. I would like for that note to change into other notes. Like if I recorded myself singing the note C, and the word “office”, and both syllables were on beat, each syllable could be different notes, or to make it more complicated, divide the syllables by twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes and so on and so fourth. Ok that got complicated. I just wanted to get the specifics about a possible new auto-tune feature. But so far GarageBand is great I just request those three things. Have a great day!

I can't stop giving GarageBand props because this is honestly the greatest music producing app so far... I'm actually in love with this app the fact that there's so much to it actually makes me hype every time I get on GarageBand . First timers will use the loops to create there songs that can tailor to there style. You can also add your own loops with the keyboard selection and synths. Millions of sounds that you can expand your arsenal with and it doesn't stop there. You can even download your own samples to expand your sound selection. Like I can record a note from my grand piano and turn it into its own song. GarageBand will never die out as long as there is more and more sounds added to it. The only suggestion I'd add to this app if I could. Would be to add more sound FX and chants. The essential to making genres of music is something that makes them memorable and the sounds that you can add will show it. I love GarageBand and I hope it continues to grow because this potential already exceeds that of computer software. I can't wait for the community to grow more and more so that people won't have to spend 200 dollars on something when they can simply download a FREE app!!!

I have been writing songs for over 20 years through a simple 4-track and using a drum machine. When I first heard about this app, I thought it was a music-related computer game. I even got an iPad which already has GB downloaded on it from the factory and never even opened it for a year. Finally, I was bored one day and thought I’d take a look at it. WOW! I couldn’t believe how robust and professional it was! Here I’m tinkering with a 4-track and drum machine from the 80s all this time while I had a pro-quality music studio to write and produce sleek sounding demos just waiting for me to discover it! I’ve recorded some 400+ songs in GB that sound so good, some people actually think I recorded with an actual band! The drum sounds are impeccable along with fantastic bass, piano and string instruments. They even added brass horns! I just wish they included a saxophone with the horn selection. My favorite feature is the edit feature for each virtual instrument, especially when it comes to the drums. I’m able to move snare hits, kick hits, hi hat patterns, etc. to make them sound much more natural, like a real drummer would play. this app is easy to use. You’ll be recording masterpieces in no time!

I was hesitant in rating GarageBand just yet, but I chose to give it only 3 stars due to the fact that I did notice this same problem on my old old iPad. So I recently purchased the iPad Pro 12.9, and from the start I was eager to play around with GarageBand , thinking that I’d get a more pleasant experience with the new upgrade, my new iPad. But I was very disappointed. The problem I’m having, is how the sounds on the drum sets are not being consistent, in that the volume sways from low to high when hitting the snare drum for example, even though I’m playing an upbeat 60’s Rock style rhythm. Also, being a huge 60’s Rock, Indie and Punk Rock fan, I enjoy doing a lot of noisy-Rocky tough sounds, so continuously hitting the cymbals is a true disappointment. The end result in a recording is the on and off muting of the cymbals caused by the bass drum, making the drum recording sound almost like Dubstep, instead of say, the drumming on “You Really Got Me’’ by the Kinks. I’m still confused. Could it be an actual problem with my iPad, how can that be if it’s new? I guess I’ll have to get with their online tech support. If it is my iPad, I will come back and leave a new review and rating once I get to the bottom of this issue. I will say though, the clean guitar sounds amazing, I’ll give y’all that.

this app is good in some ways, not good in others, and completely ridiculous in others. It's good about keeping everything in sync, easy to create tracks, easy to mix down, and simple to use. But some things in this app makes you scratch your head as to what they were thinking. One of the biggest ridiculous things I've found is dealing with segmented tracks. In song creation it's often necessary to create segmented tracks....add a part here....then another part further down the timeline within the same track. It's also beneficial to then be able to merge some of the segments into one so that you're only dealing with one item rather than several. 6his can be done easily with drum tracks (colored yellow) and touch instruments (colored green). However, recorded tracks such as vocals or plugged instruments or anything recorded (colored blue) CANNOT merge segments together. Why? I have no idea and neither does Apple support. There's no logical reason why you can't do this for recorded tracks. All tracks are waveforms. A waveform is a waveform. It doesn't matter how this app categorizes it. It's still just a waveform. Drum loops are waveforms and segments can be merged. Touch instruments are waveforms and segments can be merged. Recorded tracks are waveforms but CANNOT be merged. Completely ridiculous.

this app used to be awesome, it was my first music program and I loved it. Even when it first started out and it didn’t have as many features as it does now. However, over the updates and all, it’s performance has definitely dropped. It’s very laggy, it’s extremely buggy, I’ve had multiple files disappear (luckily iCloud saved me from that), and almost every single time the sustain doesn’t work properly. I record with sustain on and it plays with it off no matter how many times I keep putting the sustain on and it’s very annoying. When I tap on a key lightly it’ll play extremely loud but when I play it actually with force, it’s quiet and it happens multiple times. It’s made making music extremely frustrating and I stopped using GarageBand. The MacBook version is much better but isn’t as portable and a lot of the keyboard sounds are nowhere to be found and it feels different and I don’t use it as often. Not only does GarageBand itself feel laggy, but when using AIRPODS, APPLES OWN PRODUCT, it doesn’t even play correctly and there’s a huge delay when playing notes. Auxy and other music apps don’t have this problem when I use AIRPODS, so why is this app BY APPLE having this sound delay when other non apple products are? It used to be 5 stars but I’m giving it 2 stars.

Please add more hard hitting instruments such as hardstyle or hardcore kicks like in a sound pack or something with hardstyle synths like sub zero project or d-sturb. Also, it would be good if you guys added punchy basses for psytrance. Basically garage band needs more music packs and it would be great to see an option with eq tampering and more effects for a single track. Sort of like FL studio but more simple. What would also be great is better sound quality, one main reason why I don't think I should use GarageBand full time is because of the sounds. All of the keyboards and instruments seem that they need more treble and clear tone. Also we need more instruments in a project instead of 30 only. If this version of this app had more tracks and higher BPM (for French core and hardcore) this would be a permanent option for me and I wouldn't have to pay extreme prices for an over complicated DAW. In conclusion, please add hardstyle, French core, and hardcore kicks (and synths). Make the sound quality better. And more effect tampering and eq tampering. Please read this.

I like to change names around. I use GarageBand to make ringtones. I had a song named x and I changed it to y. I named another song x afterwards, but when I dragged it into this app it plays song y. Bruh. So I changed the name of the song in iTunes before using it in this app. Big deal. I change the names of my ringtones around too. I had a ringtone named a in the past. I either deleted it or changed its name into something else. I made another ringtone which I want to call a. “The name is already taken.” T-T-T-WHUH?! No it’s not! Where? I looked around. Don’t see any files named a. I looked online for help. Google thinks I’m trying to start a band but my band’s name is taken. I’m not trying to start a band I’m just trying to makes ringtones and name them after tarot cards! Why is it that making ringtones is so tedious with apple anyways?! Just make it so we can make songs from ‘Music’ into ringtones! Then I wouldn’t be here complaining about this app which I wouldn’t normally use in the first place! If naming wasn’t a problem I’d give GarageBand anything but a 1, but for some reason naming IS a problem! Now what do I name my files after? Organs in the human body??? I got a 3 in ap bio which wasn’t good enough to transfer credits for college! Why is naming files of all things what I have a problem with???

I love GarageBand as it’s one of the only things I use on my Phone but as a beginner music creator, I have some complaints about various things. First off, notes snapping to the grid when you want to record certain rhythms and beats. For example, if you want to make triplets or a shuffle beat, it changes it to a straight beat, and as a beginner, I don’t know the exact placing of a triplet and while I can create a shuffle beat by editing the track, it’s super discouraging to do so because there’s no real reason to have it as a forced option. Second thing, sounds like the Violin, French Horn, and Brass Section are terribly delayed to the full attack of the sound. So if you put a note on beat 1, the full attack of the sound is an eighth of a beat later, so in order to counter that, you have to move the track over, and move notes accordingly (if it’s in the very beginning of the song). I’m also upset that GarageBand doesn’t have sounds like a Saxophone for jazz solos and whatever else or Marching Percussion instruments (Snare, Bass Drums, and Quads/Quints) to either create a matching piece or for a stylistic piece that uses Marching Percussion instruments as well as maybe some synths. Maybe GarageBand isn’t amazing so you upgrade to Logic Pro on a Mac and maybe all of these problems have been solved there, but for 5$, GarageBand is great. I would expect this app to fix that first issue though.

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read my request, as it is much appreciated. I have been using iOS this app for about one and a half years now, and I must say that I have grown quite fond of the software, as it is exemplary in terms of simplicity and practicality. I have been making little beats and loops for some time, and while the features implemented are expansive, I wish to expand my creations by perhaps publishing music in the near future. I have a passion for music and would love to look to new opportunities. There are a few features which I wish could be added to the software. NOTE: if there are ways to achieve the following without updates, please let me know. So first, the 808 sound is quite lackluster, primarily considering modern rap/hip hop. Some examples of the 808 sound I have been trying to create can be heard in Meek Mill’s “Going Bad,” produces by Wheezy, and Trevor Daniel’s “Wild,” as well as “Mess,” produced by the members of Internet Money. I only have access to the iOS version of this app, as I don’t have any Mac products. So if there is any way that I can recreate this sound, or if there are plans to implement this sound into one of the alchemy synth bases please let me know. I think this software is perfect, it’s just this particular sound that I’m after. Please let me know of any further changes or plans. Thank you for your time!

I have an iPhone 6 and just got my battery replaced. Before my battery got replaced, I was able to use this app with my phone barely being updated to 12.4.2. I’m about two updates behind everyone else in my family that has an iPhone and they’re able to use this app. It’s really upsetting because after I got the battery replacement I was unable to open this app. I then decided to delete GarageBand and re-download it but it was not available in my App Store. I did some research and found that this app is only available to iOS devises that are at or past a 13.0 update. Though I love GarageBand , I really wish that it was available to iOS devices that aren’t up to date. I have been using this app for about three years and have been making music for three years. Also mentioning, I have three years worth of music on that app and now I’m scared I’m going to have lost it. I have so many good ideas and this was my only available resource that I could use. I’m really missing out on using my creativity through music and really really want it to come back. Is there a possible way to get it to where anyone under the 13.0 update can download it?? Please!!

new review:
I think GarageBand is awesome. Finally, you can import midi!!! Yay! That definitely expands your range of possibilities. Great sounds, lots to play around with. Great on iPad, but a little cramped on iPhone in some instances. I actually prefer cutting audio on the smaller screen of the iPhone however, over the iPad, just because on the iPhone everything’s a your fingertips. You can do it laying down, chillin out. I now record vocals in GarageBand Spire the import them into this app. I’ve been looking into Audio Unit version 3 (AUv3) plugins for processing my vocals and hope to find one really soon. GarageBand has grown so much and it inspires me to see how much is possible on Mobile. Otherwise these tools are not something i’d be able to afford. Thank-you so much Apple and best wishes to all artists!!!!

old review: GarageBand and Auxy are a power couple. I use Auxy to produce my musical tracks then record my vocals here in this app. Great stuff!! ❤️ I would like a recording, mixing and mastering version of GarageBand without the instruments though. That would be awesome and no i’m not being sarcastic I just find myself to only be importing instrumentals from other sources. :)

I love what Apple’s done with this app and this app iOS over the past few years, and I’m glad that now you can import and playback MIDI files on this app iOS. HOWEVER, I’m still waiting for Apple to allow the EXPORT of MIDI files FROM this app Mac & iOS. That would be a feature I could use that would round out GarageBand as a near-“proper” DAW. That aside, I love the Alchemy presets and all the ways you can tweak them to create your own unique patches, plus the great user interface which makes it easy to use for both people new to making/recording music and longtime producers/DAW users. I’d also like to throw in though, that while I don’t generally use them myself, as well-crafted as the (post-2016) built-in and downloadable loops are, they’re pretty much only for EDM and dubstep music, maybe occasionally scratching the surface of pop-trap beats and glitch-hop. I’d personally like to see more loops that lend themselves to old-school hip hop or something.
P.S. — This is all coming from someone who has used multiple DAWs (GB being a constant usually) separately and together, for many different styles/genres of music, electronic and otherwise. 🙂

So I’ve been using garage band for about 4 years now and it’s become sophisticated enough to make studio quality sounds but I have one request and that is to somehow implement a way to compact or stretch audio files that have been imported or even recorded to slow down or speed up tempo of that file separately from the tempo of the song, even an option for raising or lowering pitch separately at the same time as making it faster or slower, just so I can perfectly match a sample and edit pitch without changing the tempo or so I don’t have to use third party apps and import two separate files one being faster or slower. It would help a lot and it would make sampling much more easier. Another idea I have is somehow give us the option to edit the FX because when I make music I want to be able to edit out my mistakes instead of re-recording over and over again. This would all help so much for amateur producers like myself and I hope you read and I hope you agree and I hope you make this already great app better.

It is absolutely amazing and astonishing that Apple provides as default time signature rhythm templates NO 2/2 or 2/4 patterns but only a 4/4 template. SERIOUSLY Apple??? Lemme guess re this UX design flaw: the designers are under 30 and listen only to 21st century white rock/pop stuff. This is where either having a UX person with some maturity can be helpful or at least a person with perhaps some actual music education - someone who not only has listened to but has studied the roots of American music much of which is based in 2/2 and 2/4 time signatures. Another way of saying this is that most of the folk songs and music every kid in America has grown up with not to mention the base of most popular music especially blues is based on a 2/2 or 2/4 time signature. Your little hot coders may have figured that mathematically a 4/4 signature can be adapted. FYI: Nope. And that’s why dearest Apple you have GOT TO RETURN TO USING PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE ARTS BACKGROUND as well as the coding chops... or just at least hire UX people over 12 years old. This is such a huge missing basic that I am using it as an example to students in the UX unit of my design and development program. FIX IN NEXT REV PLEASE!!! You have been told about this multiple times. It needs to be moved WAY up on the fix list.

So I finally figured out what’s been causing the sudden crashes. When lowering the octane on an edited, usually heavily edited, loop, the loop becomes more unstable and will crash GarageBand as the loop’s audio is more intense. What I mean by this is that when lowering the octane, the loop’s audio seems to get louder for some reason. I have no idea what causes this change in audio, but it seems to happen more often on basses, electronic bass loops to be more exact. I conducted my testing on the “Digital Dub Wobble Bass 01” and “Digital Dub Wobble Bass 02”, and I learned that when edited and the octanes are lowered, the loops will make GarageBand crash. I hopefully will test other bass loops to determine if the crashing occurs with other loops. I hope this is more clear than my last review and hopefully it will be able to be countered and eliminated. There also seems to be a glitch with the recording feature, as it seems that when recorded, highly modified loops do not record properly. It might be that something goes wrong in recording, or maybe the loop was glitched to begin with. The outcome of the loop is significantly different to the recording. The loop itself seems to be more glitchy than its recording, proving the latter.

As a blind musician, I want to say, this is by far the best app I’ve tried, and the most accessible. It’s very screen reader friendly, and works very well with apple’s built in screen reader, voiceover. However, there is something that I really think would make the experience better. When I customize the chords, for example, if I want a major 7th chord, when auto play is turned off, it plays the chord just fine, and it sounds exactly like a major 7th chord. When auto play is turned on, however, it only plays a major chord. It does not play the notes to make the major 7th chord. I’ve also noticed this in minor 7th chords. It will just play a regular minor chord in auto play. And it also doesn’t play 9th chords. Pretty much the custom chords have no auto plays that play the notes of the custom chord. Auto play only plays the basic major and minor chords respectively. I would really like to see an update that auto play will make the changes to custom chords. Other than that, very good, and I enjoy using it.