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Apple Announces New App & Major Update To Their iOS Music Making

Apple Music Memo App iPhone

After kicking off the new year with a creative campaign for Apple devices called Start Something New, Apple have announced some important new updates for musicians or songwriters who love to create on iOS. That announcement is a major update to GarageBand which is the world’s most popular mobile music creation app, and a brand new app – Music Memos for iPhone and iPad.

Music Memos

A brand new App called Music Memos allows you to quickly capture, organise and develop your idea by recording any instrument in high quality uncompressed format using the microphone in the iPhone. Apple has optimised the app to work best with acoustic guitars and pianos, but it works with other instruments, too.

Music Memos App backing band
Music Memo on iPhone

The app can then take your recording and intelligently add a backing band, which matches the feel of your song. It does this by analysing rhythm and cords of the acoustic guitar and piano recordings, and instantly add drums / a baseline to provide a virtual, customisable backing band.

If your performance speeds up or slows down, so does the band. You can even tweak the energy and performance of the drums or bass with a few simple controls.

It quite literally blew my mind how Music Memos could transform a single guitar idea into a whole composition with a virtual drummer loose enough that it felt like you were having your mind read by some A.I. musician and a choice of stand-up or electric bass accompaniments.” said Ryan Adams, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and producer.

Music Memos is available on both the iPhone and iPad for free from the App Store.

GarageBand 2.1 Update

The second part of the announcement is the major 2.1 update to the existing music-making app GarageBand for iOS which brings brand new features such as Live Loops, a new drummer feature with nine EDM and acoustic virtual session drummers, and more.

GarageBand iPad Pro Live Loops
Live Loops on GarageBand

The new Live Loop features makes it easy to create electronic music, even with no turntables or specialised hardware. All you need to do is tap cells and columns in the grid to trigger musical loops, from there you can build your own original arrangement and combinations of sounds.

“I recorded my first album using GarageBand and I continue to use it in my music today,” said T-Pain, Grammy Award-winning artist and producer. “I love how the new Live Loops in GarageBand lets me quickly build tracks and beats, and even perform effects like a musical instrument. It’ll change the way an entire generation makes music.”

Another feature to the iOS version of GarageBand is a virtual drummer, with nine drummers in total each representing a popular electronic or acoustic style. These virtual drummers can even follow your lead by listening to a riff and coming up with the perfect complementary beat.

GarageBand 2.1 for iOS is bundled free with new iOS devices 32GB and larger, is available as a free upgrade for existing users with compatible iOS 9 devices or later, and is available to everyone else for AUD $7.99 via the App Store.

Recommended Equipment

Music Memos is available to download for free on the App Store, and compatible with iPhone 4s or later, while GarageBand 2.1 for iOS is bundled free with new iOS devices 32GB and larger. These apps are optimised to work well on iPhone and iPad, however certain some models are able to take full advantage of the apps over others;

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