One of the highlights of iLife ’04, GarageBand is Apple’s new music application. It follows a similar paradigm to other loop-based music programs: samples are dragged to a timeline and arranged to form tunes. However, GarageBand goes beyond that – each professional quality sample’s key and tempo is automatically adjusted to fit, and you can plug in a MIDI keyboard (or use the one on screen) to control the range of software instruments provided. More loops, samples and instruments are available in a “Jam Pack” expansion pack.
We think the program deserves a mention because GarageBand performs a very useful function – not only can you export your creations into iTunes to listen to and share, but you can also use them as the soundtrack to your iDVD projects, giving far more professional results.
GarageBand homepage at Apple
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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