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Hands-On With Apple's New Music Memos iOS App and GarageBand 2.1 Update

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Since the launch of Apple Music and its included Apple Music Connect social platform, Apple has been focusing efforts on its music creation tools, as evidenced by today's surprise release of a brand new iOS app called Music Memos and a significant update to the iOS version of GarageBand.

Available for free, Music Memos is designed to allow musicians and songwriters to record, analyze, and manipulate high-quality uncompressed audio directly on an iPhone or iPad. Music Memos is accompanied by an update to GarageBand that introduces some fun new tools for musicians and average iPhone owners alike. We went hands-on with Music Memos and the revamped GarageBand to give MacRumors a closer look at what the apps are capable of.


Music Memos adopts its simple interface from the stock Voice Memos app, offering a single quick record button when the app is opened. Recordings can be overlaid with drums and a bass line, plus there are tools for analyzing recordings and editing aspects like tempo and time signature. There's also a built-in tuner for chromatic pitch notation.

Today's GarageBand 2.1 update introduces Live Loops, a fun visual music-making feature designed to allow users to create loops and add DJ-style effects through multi-touch gestures. Live Loops are displayed in an easy-to-use grid, with each instrument or sample in a different cell. Sound can be manipulated tapping and mixing the different instruments and the Apple-designed loop templates that are available in genres like EDM, Hip Hop, and Rock. The Drummer feature from Logic Pro X and GarageBand for Mac has also been added to the new iOS version.

Music Memos is compatible with the iPhone 4s and later and the iPad 2 and later. It can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

GarageBand for iOS is provided for free with the purchase of any new iOS device with 32GB to 128GB storage space, so many iOS users may be able to download the latest 2.1 update at no cost. For those who do not already own GarageBand, it is available from the App Store for $4.99. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Hands-On With Apple's New Music Memos iOS App and GarageBand 2.1 Update
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/01/20/music-memos-garageband-2-1-hands-on/
I noticed, that you have the ability to export to iTunes straight from the app. Does that mean, that other (3rd party) apps also can export media to iTunes? So when I would download a song from soundcloud with a download app like idownloader, could they implement it, that I could export it directly to the music app?
 
OneZweiThree said:
I noticed, that you have the ability to export to iTunes straight from the app. Does that mean, that other (3rd party) apps also can export media to iTunes? So when I would download a song from soundcloud with a download app like idownloader, could they implement it, that I could export it directly to the music app?
Click to expand...

If you're referring you the Music option in the share sheet, it's not actually to your music library but it opens an iTunes Connect post window, presumably for musicians that want to post something to their connect profile

Edit: Actually there is a separate options to mixdown to iTunes or iCloud
 
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I am a musician and I find these things to be pretty ridiculous and almost funny. Most of the functions shown are actually a roadblock to the creative element of music making, which to me is why you would pick up any tool to begin with. Makes me think of canned sounds on keyboard synths of the 80s, just with an iPad.
 
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SqueakyTech said:
I am a musician and I find these things to be pretty ridiculous and almost funny. Most of the functions shown are actually a roadblock to the creative element of music making, which to me is why you would pick up any tool to begin with. Makes me think of canned sounds on keyboard synths of the 80s, just with an iPad.
Click to expand...

"roadblock to creative element of music making"? almost funny that this is coming from a musician ... a tool is a tool is a tool. how you use it is, well, that's where creativity really starts.
 
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rhoydotp said:
"roadblock to creative element of music making"? almost funny that this is coming from a musician ... a tool is a tool is a tool. how you use it is, well, that's where creativity really starts.
Click to expand...
I have no doubt that you could find a way to creatively use these things, but your focus would then be on reworking the design of these elements, distracting you from working on music. A.k.a. I could make music with these tools but it wouldn't be my music, I would conform to it or spend my time reverse engineering it to do something it was never intended for, to work for me. These "tools" we made to leapfrog the creative aspects involved with making those sounds or movements. Much like 80s synths that gave you prestock sounds- you could make music with them, but you were no closer to understanding synths or creatively making your own music with them as a tool. This is meant to inspire beginners, not assist people who are already working musicians.
 
SqueakyTech said:
do something it was never intended for
Click to expand...

that is one use of creativity ... countless innovations were born out of this very idea.

i hear what you are saying about "canned" music. but to say that this limits someone's creativity contradicts the very meaning of having creativity.

anyway that is just my opinion. i think it's time to agree to disagree :)
 
It was Garage Band that first got me using a Mac around 10 years ago. I occasionally try to create music. Garage Band and now Music Memos for me are much more entertaining apps than are gaming apps. Thanks Apple. Keep creating and enhancing these types of apps.
 
SqueakyTech said:
I am a musician and I find these things to be pretty ridiculous and almost funny. Most of the functions shown are actually a roadblock to the creative element of music making, which to me is why you would pick up any tool to begin with. Makes me think of canned sounds on keyboard synths of the 80s, just with an iPad.
Click to expand...
So then the sounds are awesome is what you're saying. Because the best song writing and sounds come from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
 
patent10021 said:
So then the sounds are awesome is what you're saying. Because the best song writing and sounds come from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
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Not even a little bit. Those early synths were/are a fine example of creatively manipulating technology to find sounds and create music, it's the later prepackaged sounds that were built into keyboards for ease of beginners is what I'm talking about. Any synth sounds you hear from the 60s and 70s were created from nothing, each sound had to be sculpted. It's partly why they sound so amazing.
 
SqueakyTech said:
Not even a little bit. Those early synths were/are a fine example of creatively manipulating technology to find sounds and create music, it's the later prepackaged sounds that were built into keyboards for ease of beginners is what I'm talking about. Any synth sounds you hear from the 60s and 70s were created from nothing, each sound had to be sculpted. It's partly why they sound so amazing.
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You just confirmed what I said lol. You do know that most of the software instruments plugins are using the same synthesis right? Sometimes even better due to newer algorithms. The only debate (which is long dead) is whether or not analog sounds 'better' than their digital versions. But that has nothing to do with this topic.
 
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patent10021 said:
You just confirmed what I said lol. You do know that most of the software instruments plugins are using the same synthesis right? Sometimes even better due to newer algorithms. The only debate (which is long dead) is whether or not analog sounds 'better' than their digital versions. But that has nothing to do with this topic.
Click to expand...
Nope, I think we're just talking about different things. I'm speaking to the creative musician that builds that sound vs. one that hits a button and instantly has that sound, not what that sound is. If you know how to build the sounds, you'd have no reason for the prepackaged ones. In the words of Ian Malcom "You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it." It's all these apps are.
 
This is, i hate to say it, effects are starting to become really close to Audio Hijack.
 
rhoydotp said:
"roadblock to creative element of music making"? almost funny that this is coming from a musician ... a tool is a tool is a tool. how you use it is, well, that's where creativity really starts.
Click to expand...
Well, a tool that anyone can create a song on in 2 minutes with zero background is hardly an instrument. While I get the appeal of it and understand it can be leveraged by even the most seasoned of musicians, there's no way it can be compared to picking up and learning a real instrument IMO.
 
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