Chapter 8. Working with Audio Instruments

If you’re like us, Audio Instruments—or, as they’re called in GarageBand, “Software Instruments,” or “virtual instruments” in more general terms—are some of the most exciting aspects of making music on your Macintosh. Put simply, an Audio Instrument is a software synthesizer or sampler that generates its sound using Logic’s audio engine. In Logic terminology, any of its own software synthesizers and samplers, as well as any third-party Audio Unit synthesizer plug-ins, are considered Audio Instruments.

As you may already know, Logic Pro has a well-earned reputation in the pro audio industry of having the most comprehensive and professional collection of Audio Instruments available in any sequencer package. Even Logic Express comes with a solid collection of professional quality Audio Instruments. We already discussed instantiating Audio Instruments on Audio Instrument Tracks in order to record. We also discussed record-enabling multiple Audio Instrument Tracks in order to layer them. Here, we just want to familiarize you with a few more unique aspects of working with Audio Instruments.