Let’s mix a complete song

So, for the sake of this tutorial we’re going to assume you already know how to lay down a funky drum beat, plug in a real guitar or keyboard, and make up your own killer riffs and solos using the Smart and Touch Instruments. Of course, recording is only one part of the process– the next step is to get it all sounding great and wrap your head around the way GarageBand organizes your songs into Sections.

GarageBand’s Sections aren’t immediately obvious, but once you understand them you’ll find they offer an easy way to duplicate verse and chorus parts so you don’t have to endlessly copy and paste or re-record existing material.

Since we’re dealing with mixing, we’ll mainly use the Tracks view– the eight-track recorder at the heart of GarageBand. Your tracks appear as different rows in this view, with your song starting at the left and moving to the right. When you consider that an eight-track recorder used to be the size of a washing machine, it’s impressive that Apple has managed to squeeze it down into something as thin as an iPad or an iPhone.

To finish off, we’ll look at your exporting options. There’s no built-in way to share your music creation on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, but you can export it to iTunes or email it, then upload the file to a social network later. You can also use iTunes to import the file from GarageBand for iPad or iPhone then open it up in the full version of GarageBand on your Mac.

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How to Mix a Complete Song in GarageBand for the iPad

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  Use the Tracks View

  All your mixing is done in the Tracks view – every instrument you’ve recorded has its own track. You can have up to eight tracks and extra options (shown here) are revealed by swiping the Instruments column to the right.

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  Listen Solo

  When mixing, you’ll sometimes need to listen to one track in isolation. This is achieved by tapping the headphone icon in the track’s options. Or to remove the track from the mix completely, tap the mute icon.

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  Change the Volume

  Getting the volume mix right between tracks is crucial. In the track options is a volume slider – just move this left or right. You can also tap on the levels icon, top right, for Track Volume, Echo Level and Reverb Level sliders.

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  Edit Sections

  GarageBand arranges songs in Sections, starting with Section A. Tap the jigsaw icon, top left, to see your Sections. The easiest way to add more verses and choruses is to simply duplicate a section. Hit Edit to delete a section.

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  Change Section Length

  Sections are eight bars long by default, but sometimes you’ll want to change this so you can record more or less. Tap on the blue arrow next to a section to change how long it is, using the up and down arrows.

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  Edit Tracks

  You can move sections, or blocks, of music around, rather like moving clips around in iMovie. Tap one to select it and you’ll notice you can drag it to other places in your song. You can also move the edges inward to trim the clip.

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  Edit Tracks

  Double-tap on a track to bring up the editing options – Cut, Copy, Delete, Loop and Split. Splitting occurs at the playhead – if you chose to Split you’ll see a scissors icon. Drag this downwards to make the cut happen.

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  Try Apple Loops

  One thing we haven’t addressed so far are the Apple Loops. These are handy pre-made sections of music you can drop into your creations. Tap on the loops icon at the top, tap on Instruments, and choose one.

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  Add Loops

  To preview a loop, tap on it and it’ll play. Find a loop that you think will complement your song, and drag it into your piece. You can drop it onto an existing track or into a blank space, where a new track will be created.

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  Sharing Options

  Now we’ve got our track the way we want it, let’s explore the sharing options that GarageBand has. To get to them, tap on My Songs at the top left of the Tracks view. Swipe left and right to move between your songs.

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  Share Your Song

  Tap the Sharing icon at the bottom left to email the song or send it to iTunes. Sending it to iTunes brings up two options – choose GarageBand to open the song in GarageBand on a Mac, or iTunes for AAC format.

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  Share as an Email

  If you’re sharing over email, enter details such as composer name and a new mail message pops up in GarageBand with the song attached as an m4a file. Address the email and hit Send to send from your default account.

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  Share to Your Computer

  Connect your iPad to your computer and in iTunes click on your iPad, then choose the Apps tab. Under File Sharing, select GarageBand in the Apps list. Any file that can be shared will be here under Documents.

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  Save the Song

  Select the file you’d like to open using either iTunes or GarageBand on your Mac, then choose Save As and save it to a memorable location. Note: files that GarageBand can open end in the .band file extension.

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  Copy from iTunes

  Import options are fairly limited, but you can import a song created on your iPhone or another iPad. You’ll need to have shared it to iTunes on that device using step 11 first, then sync with iTunes and it’ll become available.

As magical as a Penn Teller trick

Touchscreen keyboards are great for quick text entry, but don’t offer a tactile experience for long-form writing on the go. Portable Bluetooth keyboards are better, but most are too small for practical use or too large for carrying around. Enter Celluon’s Magic Cube, a pocketable projection keyboard that keeps your fingers off the touchscreen.

Weighing under three ounces and roughly the size of a chunky Zippo lighter, the Magic Cube uses a red laser diode to project a virtual keyboard onto the surface in front of you while remaining compact enough for travel. An infrared signal detects your fingers making contact with the virtual keys and relays text entry to any device you have connected, even computers with an included USB 2.0 cable, which also charges the Cube’s 700mAH lithium-polymer battery in about four hours for two-and-a-half hours of continuous use.

About the size of a thick Zippo lighter and weighing less than three ounces, the Magic Cube is perfect for road warriors looking for a full-size external keyboard.

The Magic Cube paired easily with our iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, but took longer to discover than other accessories (our 27-inch iMac immediately recognized the Cube via USB). The virtual keyboard is quite usable even in a brightly lit room, but occasionally got tripped up by our fast typing. Celluon claims a recognition rate of up to 350 characters per minute, but we’d love to shake the hand of the person who could actually accomplish this.

While the virtual keyboard was more responsive than expected, it ultimately wasn’t as magical as we hoped. Most virtual keys make a satisfying click when pressed to acknowledge input, but modifier keys like Shift are awkwardly silent. Worse yet, common punctuation keys are placed on nonstandard keys, forcing users into a slower hunt-and-peck typing mode. As cool as the concept of the Magic Cube may be, at $169 it’s more expensive than a simple Bluetooth keyboard, and the amount of desk space required for projection negates the advantage of its compact size. We attempted to write this entire review with the Magic Cube, but ultimately gave up and returned to the comfort of our hardware keyboard—the novelty wears off quickly when it gets in the way of moving words from your brain to your device.

The bottom line. It’s a neat idea, but the Magic Cube still lacks the tactile experience of a real keyboard, and text entry isn’t significantly faster than the native software keyboard of mobile devices.

Celluon Magic Cube Keyboard

celluon.com

Any device with Bluetooth HID support or Mac/PC with USB 2.0 port; iOS 4.0 or later

Small, light, and versatile. Extremely portable. Allows for easy typing with an iPad propped up behind it.

Nonstandard keyboard layout for most punctuation. Requires extra desk space. Expensive and slower than standard keyboard input. Multi-Touch mouse mode only works on Windows.

The internet is buzzing with news about OS X Mountain Lion’s emergence this summer and we can’t help but get excited about how Apple will revolutionizing operating systems yet again. This time around, Apple took a big leap towards integrating the best parts of its iOS mobile interface into a desktop environment. Mountain Lion will synchronize all of your devices so so that they’re all seamlessly intertwined–a wise move indeed. Here are five ways your favorite iOS features will integrate with OS X Mountain Lion.

1. iCloud

Without a doubt the best feature of Mountain Lion, iCloud connects all your Apple gadgets with one easy sign in page. Updates are instantly reflected across each device, so storing new contacts, adding photos, or deleting apps only happens once. All your personal preferences stay organized, just as you’d like.

2. Share Sheets

Whatever you’re doing: watching a video, uploading a photo of your friends, or looking up recipes for a party, Share Sheets allows you to show off your life with one simple click. And since Twitter has been blessed by the social media gods as Mountain Lion’s golden network, you can tweet everything you’re doing in seconds.

3. Air Mirroring

In its simplest terms, Air Mirroring syncs your Mac with your HDTV. Whether used for business Skype meetings or watching downloaded shows, you can access everything from your computer on the big screen–making entertaining effortless.

4. iMessages

The new and improved version of iChat, iMessages takes instant messaging to a whole new level. Users can begin a conversation on their computer and continue it on any Apple device, sending simple chats, photos, videos, documents, and contacts to single friends or groups.

5. Game Center

Easily the most popular facet of mobile technology, games, are coming straight to your Mac. Now students, kids, and lunch-break workaholics can access everything from their iPad’s Game Center directly on their computers. Imagine Angry Birds on the go–and in your home.

It’s President’s Day here in the U.S., which means most of us are working at half-mast since the banks and post office are closed for business. But the news business never slows down, and in the tech world, a Monday holiday is usually reserved for a few curveballs, such as the curious case of Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard going missing from Netflix streaming in the wake of her death (which turns out to be a case of mistaken license term, apparently). With that in mind, here’s the rest of the news for this slow Monday, February 20, 2012.

VLC 2.0 Now Ready for Download

After teasing its release last week, VideoLAN has pulled the trigger on VLC 2.0, which brings an entirely new user interface to the Mac OS X version. The new version, code-named “Twoflower,” promises “faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs” as well as “a new rendering pipeline for video, with higher quality subtitles, and new video filters to enhance your videos.” Experimental support for Blu-ray discs is also rolled into VLC 2.0, which also squashes “several hundreds of bugs” thanks to the work of 160 volunteers. While the open source software is free as always, users are encouraged to donate at the top of the download page, which keeps the non-profit organization pumping out such cool updates down the road.

Apple Threatens Defamation Suit Against Proview

Following up our report this morning regarding the iPad trademark battle in China between Apple and Proview, AllThingsD is now reporting that Cupertino is preparing a counter-attack to stop the Chinese LCD display maker from talking smack. In a letter to Proview founder Yang Rongshan, Apple’s attorney writes: “It is inappropriate to release information contrary to the facts to the media, especially when such disclosures have the effect of wrongfully causing damage to Apple’s reputation. Making misrepresentations in the press to inflame the situation is adversely affecting the interests of the parties in seeking any resolution of the matter. On behalf of Apple, we formally reserve all rights to take further legal action against any individuals and entities for any damages that may result from defamatory statements and unlawful actions intended to wrongfully interfere with Apple’s business and business relationships.” In other words: “Proview, if you hope to bleed us for any money, you’d best shut your mouths, toot sweet” — or something like that…

Well, Duh: Next iPhone Due in Fall 2012

We often hate to even republish rumors like this, mainly because they seem so obvious that they’re rarely worth the virtual ink they’re written with. Be that as it may, MacRumors is reporting that a “reliable” source has confirmed that Apple is again targeting the September or October timeframe for the 2012 iPhone model — which we hesitate to call the iPhone 5, even though it seems more likely that’s what it will be called now. Japanese blog Macotakara broke the dubious news earlier today, citing an “Asian reliable source” who claims the “next iPhone will be released in September or October, and this cycle seems to be kept for years” — in other words, Apple plans to stick to this release schedule moving forward. Might as well make your vacation plans for June this year, folks…

Apple Report Hypes Up Solar Power in North Carolina Data Center

“Here comes the sun” — that’s the message Apple seems to be singing with an updated report today on its environmental footprint, according to Cnet. “Our new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, demonstrates our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our facilities through energy-efficient, green building design,” Apple’s report reveals. “The facility has earned the coveted LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. We know of no other data center of comparable size that has achieved this level of LEED certification. Our goal is to run the Maiden facility with high percentage renewable energy mix, and we have major projects under way to achieve this — including building the nation’s largest end user-owned solar array and building the largest nonutility fuel cell installation in the United States.” The brief mention is Apple’s first comment on the subject to the public, which has been widely rumored since winning approval to reshape 171 acres of vacant land adjacent to the data center.

Slow News Day: Studio Yanks Whitney Houston Flicks from Netflix? (Nope.)

Mondays are traditionally one of the slower days of the week for tech news, which makes this bizarre little nugget all the more fascinating. According to Gawker, Whitney Houston fans are being mistreated yet again. After Sony recently jacked up the price of the deceased diva’s music on iTunes, Warner Bros. is now being accused of trying to prop up its sagging DVD fortunes by yanking Houston’s debut feature film The Bodyguard from Netflix streaming. After reading some of the venomous comments about the move on the Netflix website, Google Plus Week host Dan McDermott took it upon himself to contact Netflix directly and was told “the production company pulled the streaming rights from us because all the publicity after Whitney Houston’s passing there was an opportunity to make really a very large amount of money on the DVD sales of her movies.” Unfortunately, that story appears to be “totally untrue,” according to an update from AllThingsD. Netflix PR rep Steve Swasey claims The Bodyguard streaming rights expired at the end of last year and weren’t renewed. No need to call in Scooby-Doo to solve this mystery, folks.

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