This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Whether you’re an accomplished musician or a student, Garageband is the most rewarding way to create, record, and mix your own music. In the only Apple-certified guide to GarageBand ’09, composer Mary Plummer shows you just how easy it is to turn your Mac into a full-featured recording studio. Plummer offers a complete course in all aspects of GarageBand—starting with the interface and Magic GarageBand, and moving on to recording and arranging a song, editing and mixing tracks, adding effects, and distributing your music files. Using practical step-by-step lessons and original music, you’ll learn how to record with an electric guitar, score a QuickTime movie, create an iPhone ringtone, jam with virtual musicians, and much more. The book also includes complete coverage of Garageband 09’s new Learn to Play feature, so you can learn piano and guitar through interactive video lessons from such artists as Sting, Norah Jones, Fall Out Boy and more.

•    DVD-ROM includes lesson and media files for over 12 hours of training.
•    Focused lessons take you step by step through practical, real-world projects
•    Accessible writing style puts an expert instructor at your side
•    Ample illustrations help you master techniques fast
•    Lesson goals and time estimates help you plan your time
•    Lesson review sections summarize what you’ve learned

The Apple Training Series is both a self-paced learning tool and the official curriculum of the Apple Training and Certification program. You can work through this book as a self-paced course or attend a class at an Apple Authorized Training Center.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 1 Ratings

Thorough but mechanical tutorial - 2009-09-07
Reviewer Rating:
This is a thorough tutorial that leads you from the beginning through some quite complex projects in Apple's music arranging and recording program, GarageBand.

It's hard to get started with this book if you are not a musical performer. The first three chapters assume you are going to record your own performances, and then manipulate or add to them. The fourth chapter shows how to assemble a short movie score from existing loops, but it is an extremely complex project and not the best for beginners. The remaining chapters also do not assume that you will play anything, and are simpler than the fourth chapter, but they build on the knowledge of that chapter so you can't just skip to them.

The book concentrates on the mechanics of GarageBand, and has somewhat of a paint-by-numbers feel, where you are told exactly what loop or effect to use and where to place it. I think this is probably unavoidable, given the myriad choices in the program, but has the drawback that in the book you follow a strait and narrow path with few digressions. There are not a lot of helpful hints or troubleshooting tips on the way; you're just supposed to follow the instructions and if you're lucky nothing will go wrong. It took me a couple of days to get through the fourth chapter, mostly because I ran into a number of snags that were not anticipated in the book.

Within these limitations the book does a good job: the writing is clear, and there are clear and well-chosen screen shots throughout so that you can check your work. The enclosed CD-ROM includes all the needed media files, and several in-progress snapshots of each project.

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