I can't believe I'm so excited about this, but, this morning I discovered that an iPhone version of Apple's Garageband is now available! For the low, low price of £2.99!
When we moved out of our flat for the remodel, I put my guitars in storage. I also stored the sundry equipment I use for home recording. When you're a musician, even an amateur like me, having your creative outlet removed is tough. You feel bereft, adrift on a sea of blah-blah-blah. You get the picture.
As the build dragged on, the feeling got worse. One evening, after a couple of sneaky pints in Soho, a friend suggested we go for a jam at a nearby rehearsal room. We rented instruments and played, just for one hour. It was enough to pull me out of my slump. That weekend I paid our storage unit a visit, liberated my travelling guitar (a Les Paul copy) and a little dohickey thingamabob called an iRig.
iRigs are adapters which allow you to plug a guitar into your iDevice. You then fire up one of any number of amp modelling apps, usually equipped with a variety of effects pedals, multi-track recorders and so on built in.
With my main set-up at home, I never really explored using the iPhone as a tool for practice and composition. I've used it to fill in for an errant drummer on many occasions, but that's another story.
When I first got an iRig and the Amplitube app I played with it for a bit then put it to one side. The quality wasn't great and there weren't that many features. Between then and now, there have been many updates to the software. The app now has improved sound, a fourtrack recorder and music import to name just a few enhancements.
So, what other option did I have? I gave the iRig/Amplitube combo another shot. And it's great.
The biggest problem on any iOS device is the challenge of getting data from one app to another. For example, if I want to record a whole song on my iPhone, I need to first record the drums, say using InstantDrummer. I then need to wifi sync the clip to a computer and save it. Next, I do the same thing in reverse and bring it into Amplitube, bump it from the sounds library to a blank track and only then am I ready to rock. If you have access to a computer (which I don't at the moment) then it's a frustrating but workable solution. But what if you're jamming and the drums just don't work? You have to go back, re-program them, do the wifi shuffle and you're back in the room. It's hardly an all-in-one solution.
Historically, in recent history that is, your best option for portable recording was to lug around a laptop equipped with an audio interface and a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). Until our forced exile, I had thought that my next mobile rig would be something along those lines. My re-discovery of Amplitube and the knowledge that Garageband was available on iPad made me consider going the tablet route.
But now there's a full-featured Garageband that will run on my phone?!?
YES, PLEASE!!!!
Disclaimer: I'm not saying that I'm no longer considering an iPad. I do have fat fingers, after all. Plus, I suspect a full-featured desktop or laptop plus DAW combo may be the way to go for recording proper demos. Who knows. Maybe I'll be surprised.
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