• Garageband as included with iLife '08 will work fine with Tiger but you'll need to complete the free online upgrades to 10.4 to bring it up to date.
• May 23, 2018  50+ videos Play all Mix - 3 Ways to Connect Your Guitar To GarageBand (Mac) YouTube How to connect an electric guitar to an iPhone or iPad - Duration: 9:12. Pete Johns 82,276 views.

The Mac mini is the smallest Macintosh computer Apple have ever produced — in terms of both physical size and of price.Photo: Apple

Apple is seemingly prepping a new version of Logic Pro X for the Mac with support for Live Loops. The feature has proven to be popular in Garageband for iPad, and now Apple is looking to expand.

Apple kicked off a potentially exciting year for their customers at the 2005 Macworld show in San Francisco with a host of new and updated products, including the most affordable Macintosh computer the company has ever brought to market.

The jungle drums were beating louder than usual this year when Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the beginning of January to deliver his keynote speech during the Macworld show in San Francisco. As the rumours had predicted, the presentation was completely orientated towards the consumer market, with Jobs introducing a new iPod and a cheap, headless Mac computer on the hardware front. Turning to software, highlights included a major update to iLife; a new word processing application called Pages, which was combined with an update to the Keynote presentation software to form a new suite called iWork; and Final Cut Express HD, which adds support for 1080i and 720p HDV video formats and now includes a copy of Soundtrack, Apple's loop-based music production tool.

Aside from the aforementioned product announcements, one interesting point in the keynote was Jobs' demonstration of the forthcoming Mac OS X Tiger, including a brief overview of Quicktime 7, which the Apple CEO described as 'the most major update to Quicktime in the last decade'. The Quicktime Player application now supports live window resizing, allowing you to still see the image playing while you resize the Player window, along with the ability to use screen overlay controls when in full-screen mode. Additionally, this application will now include the facility to record simple audio and video clips, with a feature to easily share and email Quicktime content to other people.

In terms of the actual Quicktime technology, Quicktime 7 will bring up to 24-channel support for surround sound, and Jobs stated that the surround audio output will be down-mixed automatically if a user has fewer speakers in their system than the content being played back. The new Quicktime will also be fully MPEG-4 compliant, will offer 1920x1080 24p (24 frames per second progressive scanning) HD video playback, and will include H.264, a high-quality and efficient codec that's easily scalable for playback on anything from 3G mobile phones to HD video systems.

Headless Wonder

Perhaps the biggest pre-show buzz this year concerned the speculation that Apple would introduce a new and cheaper line of Macs, targeting users who might already have a computer (notably Windows iPod customers), but not necessarily a Mac. Jobs didn't disappoint in his keynote, with the announcement of the Mac Mini, a sub-$500 Macintosh computer that the Apple CEO described as BYODKM: Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard and Mouse — since it includes none of these latter three peripherals.

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the Mac Mini is just how mini the Mac ends up being, at only two inches high and six-and-a-half inches square. Apple offer two basic models with either a 1.25 or 1.42GHz G4 processor, attractively priced at just £339 and £398.99 — literally the cheapest Mac the company has ever produced. Both models come with 256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SDRAM installed. This is perhaps the only downside to the Mac Mini, since OS X really doesn't run to its full potential with this amount of memory, although the 256MB chip can be removed and replaced with either 512MB or 1GB instead (the Mac Mini only has one memory slot). The new baby Mac features ATI Radeon 9200 graphics with 32MB of DDR SDRAM and AGP 4X, which supports resolutions up to 1920 x 1200 (a 23-inch Cinema Display, for example), and offers a Combo drive (a Superdrive is available in build-to-order configurations) plus either a 40GB or 80GB hard drive for the two models respectively. In terms of networking, the Mac Mini has a 10/100 Ethernet port, a 56k modem, and Airport Extreme and Bluetooth available as build-to-order options. For general connectivity, there's a Firewire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a DVI output with an included VGA adapter, and a headphone output.

Although the Mac Mini is indeed the cheapest Mac ever, it doesn't take long to realise that the cost mounts up very quickly once you start building your dream Mac Mini at the Apple Store. By the time you've added more memory, Airport Extreme and Bluetooth, for example, the cost in America was nearly $1200 — double the price of the basic machine you might have started with! Fortunately, though, Apple were quick to respond to the cost criticisms and lowered the prices of the build-to-order options a couple of days after the Mac Mini went on sale. In the US, for example, they reduced the cost of the Bluetooth and Airport Extreme option by $30 and, most significantly, the 1GB upgrade by $150.

As with the iMac, while the Mac Mini is aimed at the consumer market it could still be a good entry-level machine for running, say, Logic Express. But a more interesting potential use for a Mac Mini could be as a Logic node, expanding the processing power available to an existing Mac-based music production set-up. The one problem with this application, though, is that Apple recommend G5-based systems with Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mb/s) as Logic nodes, whereas Mac Mini is obviously powered by a G4 and has Ethernet that operates at a maximum of 100Mb/s. That's not to say it won't work at all, though, and one thing I'm interested to investigate is whether networking the Mac Mini to another Mac via its 400Mb/s Firewire port makes this a viable system. If so, once a Mac Mini is configured to run Logic Node on start-up, it could run as the equivalent of a TC Powercore for hosting extra instances of Logic 's plug-ins. Watch this space.

My own Mac Mini arrived just as I was finishing this column (how could I resist?), a few days after the 22nd January introduction, which is a definite advantage of living in the US. Look out for the full review.

Apple Notes In Brief

• Since I last mentioned the Xserve, in the context of it being a more expensive and less powerful option for running as a Logic Node machine, compared to a dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5, Apple have speed-bumped the high-end Xserve model to dual-2.3GHz G5 processors with 1.15GHz front-side busses. The Xserve line-up now starts with a single-processor 2GHz model for £2199, a dual-2.3GHz for £2899 and a dual-2.3GHz Cluster Node for £2199. Interestingly, to promote the use of this technology for professional musicians, Apple had a rack of Xserve G5s with an Xserve RAID on display at the 2005 Winter NAMM show in Los Angeles.
• On the eve of this year's Winter NAMM, Apple offered a 7.0.1 maintenance release for the Pro and Express versions of Logic 7 to, as Apple put it, 'enhance reliability and performance'. Amongst the changes, Apple Loops now work correctly at sample rates other than 44.1kHz, importing Recycle files works more consistently, and Acid files transpose correctly in the Loop Browser. There are also small improvements to Track Automation, Control Surfaces, bouncing TDM Tracks, the new Ultrabeat instrument, and general compatibility with Audio Unit plug-ins. The updates can be downloaded from www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/logicproupdate.html and www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/logicexpressupdate.html.
• The only other news from Apple at the NAMM show itself was the announcement that a forthcoming version of Logic Pro would feature the much-requested Buss Latency Compensation feature, which will have a huge impact for anyone using plug-ins with buffers that add a significant latency to an audio channel (for example, those using a Powercore or UAD1). The next version of Logic will also include the ability to import Garageband 2 songs, and any new features introduced in Apple's entry-level music software, such as the new pitch-correction tools.

Back To The Garage

Apple's last major update to the iLife bundle came exactly one year ago, during the 2004 Macworld San Francisco keynote, and this became branded iLife '04. It was, therefore, no surprise that this year Apple introduced iLife '05, including major new versions of all members of the iLife family except for iTunes, which remains at 4.7.1 for now. However, the most interesting application for musicians in iLife '05 is, of course, Garageband 2.

Garageband 2 will be the highlight for musicians in Apple's iLife '05 bundle and now allows multitrack recording, score editing and enhanced tools for correcting the pitch and time of your recorded performances.Photo: Apple

Mac Mini Brings Garageband Download

The new version improves on the original application, introduced a year ago, in many areas, and during the keynote Jobs brought singer-songwriter John Mayer on stage to help him with a demonstration. Garageband 2 adds the ability to record on more than one track simultaneously, and you can now carry out a multitrack recording of up to eight tracks at the same time in one pass. The piano-roll-style (or Matrix, in Logic speak) MIDI editor has been complemented by the addition of a music notation editor, which is perhaps no surprise, as this has been one of the Emagic developers' strengths since the days of Notator on the Atari, although it's perhaps a shame Jobs didn't demonstrate the use of the Fix Tempo feature after showing John Mayer's keyboard part being notated in real-time...

There are also new features for enhancing the timing and tuning of the music you record, starting with an inbuilt tuner, although if this doesn't help you get into tune there's also a new Auto-Tune-like facility. Following on from this, it's now possible to change the tempo and key signatures of an audio recording, and you can also save recordings as your own Apple Loops, to be available within Garageband and presumably other supporting applications, such as Logic and Soundtrack.

Apple has also introduced a new Track Lock facility in Garageband 2, which, as the name suggests, locks a track such that you can't make any more changes until it's unlocked again. However, the Track Lock feature also incorporates Logic-like Freeze functionality, so a track is automatically bounced to save on your computer's resources when you activate that track's Lock button. Last, but not least, Garageband can now import MIDI files and ACID-format WAV files.Shuffle your music with the new iPod Shuffle, a flash-based player with a 12-hour battery life, in a box the size of a packet of chewing gum.Photo: Apple

iLife '05 will be included with all new Macs, and the upgrade price for existing Mac users has been raised this year (compared to the previous iLife '04 upgrade) to £49, although I don't think too many people will grumble about this, as it looks like pretty good value for money, all things considered. I decided to buy a Mac Mini and get iLife '05 bundled for free; one of many reasons I'm not an accountant...

One More Thing...

Staying with music, Apple also unveiled the iPod Shuffle, a flash-memory-based music player available with 512MB (£69) or 1GB (£99) memory. The Shuffle is so-called because the Shuffle Play mode on the iPod is apparently one of the popular ways people listen to music (so much for the 'album' format), and since the Shuffle doesn't feature a screen, playing random songs from a playlist is the most appropriate way of using the device.

Unlike previous iPod models, the iPod Shuffle offers a USB connection and is extremely small, at around the size of a packet of chewing gum. Other plus points include the fact that you can allocate a portion of the memory to use for data storage via USB, and a stated 12-hour battery life.

A recent Apple special event saw the launch of a new iMac, a new version of GarageBand and a new iWork suite - plus a new Mac Mini is waiting in the wings. Read on for more...

It's been nine years since the release of the original G3-powered iMac, the computer that arguably started the reversal of Apple's fortunes. During its life, the iMac has seen two dramatic redesigns from the original Bondi-blue CRT 'bubble'. There was the 'anglepoise' iMac in 2002, which suspended an LCD screen above a base unit and featured a G4 processor, followed by the G5 iMac in late 2004, which put the guts of the computer behind an LCD panel in a simpler, all-in-one design.

Given the significance of the iMac to Apple's recent history, it was perhaps fitting that this was the first Mac to be introduced with an Intel processor (at Macworld 2006), although this new model stuck with the slimmer, second-generation design of the G5 iMac instead of adopting a new appearance. However, at a special event held in Cupertino on August 7th, Apple introduced a new, redesigned iMac; and while it's arguably an evolution of the same design language used in the previous model, the new, now even slimmer iMac makes use of aluminium and glass for its enclosure, and looks, well, rather stunning.

iMac Pro?

There are some interesting reasons behind Apple's decision to redesign the iMac using aluminium and glass. Firstly, these materials are easier to recycle, and Apple have made a significant effort over the last few months to respond to earlier criticism from Greenpeace that they weren't doing enough to be environmentally friendly. Secondly, it's interesting to note that the white G5 iMac 'panel' was said to be inspired by the design and popularity of the iPod, and it's not difficult to see a similarity between the recently introduced iPhone and the new iMac. Finally, though, Apple have used aluminium in the enclosures of their professional products for many years, and they seem to have made a conscious effort to present the new iMac as being more 'professional'.

The new iMac is an elegant evolution of its all-white predecessor, boasting a slimmer, sleeker, more professional aluminium and glass design. With a high-end model available featuring a 24-inch display and a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo processor, this really could be your studio in a box. Photo: AppleI had the opportunity to sit down with some of Apple's product managers a few days after the event in Cupertino, and they reiterated what Apple CEO Steve Jobs had stated during his introduction of the new iMac: that this new design has the duality of looking like both a high-end consumer product and a professional product. But this professional appeal extends beyond the exterior aesthetic, because this is the first iMac to offer both a Firewire 400 port and a Firewire 800 port, a feature certain to raise the eyebrows of a few musicians who rely on external Firewire devices. Another feature that's great for those that want to run audio (or video) applications on the new iMac is that you can now order systems with either 500GB, 750GB or 1TB hard drives instead of the default option.

Apple offer three basic configurations for the new iMac: the first two feature 20-inch displays, while the third model has a 24-inch display. This is significant in that the entry-level iMac, which previously offered a 17-inch display, now has a 20-inch LCD for no extra cost, with a resolution of 1680 x 1050, instead of the 17-inch's 1400 x 900. The 24-inch display offers a resolution of 1920 x 1200, and both displays are now glossy, providing more vibrant colours. While I haven't been so keen on glossy displays in laptops, since they're more reflective than the normal displays, for a desktop computer that's going to be used indoors this is obviously less of an issue.

The entry-level iMac has a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a 250GB 7200rpm hard drive and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory for graphics, while the other two models feature a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, a 320GB 7200rpm hard drive, and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB memory. All models come with 1GB memory (upgradeable to 4GB), an 800MHz system bus, an 8-speed, dual-layer SuperDrive and all the usual iMac features, such as the built-in iSight camera and an infra-red receiver for the included Apple Remote. In addition to the Firewire ports there are three USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, built-in 802.11n wireless networking, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a mini-DVI port (with support for VGA, S-video and composite video), and headphone and microphone ports, which, annoyingly, are still on the back of the computer.

The entry-level iMac costs just £799, while the 2.4GHz 20-inch model retails for £949 and the 24-inch iMac costs £1149. A fourth, high-end iMac is also available from the Apple Store for £1459. This 24-inch model features a 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, 2GB memory and a 500GB hard drive.

Another significant change for the new iMac is the introduction of a new, incredibly thin Apple keyboard, which is also made of aluminium and features the same key style as the MacBook. At the time of writing I hadn't had chance to type on the new keyboard for any length of time, so I can't validate my scepticism on how it will feel; but one definitely positive point about it is that it features two USB 2.0 ports instead of the old (and slower) USB 1.1 ports, as with the previous keyboard. The new Apple keyboard is already available to buy separately and costs £29.

The iMac has often been a favourite entry-level machine for musicians on a budget, but with the new model Apple are actively targeting professional users who might not need a Mac Pro to carry out their work, or might prefer the iMac form factor and price. Speaking of which, the pricing on the new iMac is quite aggressive, especially for Apple, and especially as the entry-level model now features a 20-inch screen. The only part of the iMac that feels a little less than professional is the amount of memory supplied with the three standard configurations: 2GB instead of the 1GB standard supplied across the whole line would have been more appropriate. Still, when the iMac was demonstrated to me it seemed pretty damn fast, and I didn't notice too much noise, although I was in an office environment. I hope to try it out on my own once Apple are able to send us a review model.

Mini Improvements

Although it was not featured in Steve Jobs' presentation, Apple also upgraded the Mac Mini with Core 2 Duo processors on the day of their recent special event. Two Mac Mini models are now available, the first offering a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor (with 2MB L2 cache), an 80GB 5400rpm hard drive and a Combo drive, for £399. The second model offers a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor (with 4MB L2 cache), a 120GB 5400rpm hard drive and a SuperDrive, for £499. Both models have a 667MHz system bus, 1GB memory (upgradable to 2GB) and Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB shared memory, and offer four USB 2.0 ports, Firewire 400, Gigabit Ethernet, a full-sized DVI port (that supports VGA, S-video and composite video), built-in 802.11g and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR wireless networking, plus headphone and microphone sockets.

The Mac Mini's form factor does come in handy for some applications, but considering that the new low-end iMac costs just £300 more than the 2GHz Mac Mini, and the former includes the display, keyboard and mouse missing from the Mac Mini, along with a larger, faster hard drive, Firewire 800, and a faster system bus, the iMac is probably the better option for the musician on a budget.

It's MiLife...

In many ways, August 7th felt like Macworld seven months late (or five months early, depending on how you look at it). In addition to the new iMac, Apple also announced new versions of their consumer-oriented iLife and iWork software bundles which, in the past, have been announced at the aforementioned Macworld show held at the beginning of each year in San Francisco. iLife '08 features new '08 versions of all five iLife applications: iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD, and, of course, GarageBand (see box). Within iWork '08 are updated versions of Pages and Keynote, along with a brand-new spreadsheet application called Numbers.

Even if they mostly use their Mac for audio and musical tasks, most Mac users I know still like to occasionally dabble with the iLife applications, especially iPhoto and iMovie. And in the case of iMovie, unlike the other applications in the iLife bundle that are updates to the versions supplied in iLife '07, iMovie '08 is in fact a complete rewrite aimed at making it even easier to assemble a simple movie from a series of shots imported from a video camera. The new user interface is pretty neat, but because the application is a rewrite, not all of the functionality from the previous version of iMovie is currently implemented. To compensate for this, Apple are offering iMovie 6 as a free download from their web site for anyone who purchases iLife '08.

If iPhoto '08 is a less significant update than iMovie, it nevertheless offers some indispensable features for organising and sharing your photos. In addition to organising your shots manually into albums, iPhoto will automatically arrange your photos into so-called events, based on the fact that the photos taken in a single day are likely to belong to the same 'event'. Merge and Split commands are provided if this isn't the case, but the simple one-day rule already makes managing your photo library easier.

There's also a new way of sharing your pictures online in iPhoto, via the new .Mac Web Gallery (which also works with iMovie for movies), and .Mac users now get 10GB of online storage instead of the previous 1GB, so you'll have enough space to store your media.

One particularly neat feature of .Mac Web Gallery is the ability for iPhone users to automatically upload their photos to a gallery on-line; and if this on-line gallery is synchronised with iPhoto, the application will automatically download the previously uploaded photo to your Mac. What's exciting about this is that it's the first time Apple have released an innovative web application that ties together multiple devices, and hopefully this type of workflow will be extended to other areas in the future — perhaps even music and audio.

GarageBand '08 & Logic

Mac Mini Brings Garageband To Mac

Photo: AppleHere you can see two Inspector windows for the same loop: one is the AIFF version supplied with Logic and previous versions of GarageBand (top), and one is the CAF version supplied with GarageBand '08 (bottom). Notice the big difference in file size and data rates.Photo: AppleOne interesting change to GarageBand that Logic users may want to be wary of is that GarageBand's Apple Loop library is now supplied as CAF files, rather than AIFF files, as in previous versions. CAF (Core Audio Format) is a new audio file format that was introduced with Mac OS X Tiger (v10.4), and one of its main features is that it describes the amount of audio stored in the file as a 64-bit value instead of a 32-bit value (as AIFF does), allowing you to store more than 4GB of audio data in a single file. However, it is not for this reason that Apple chose to use CAF for GarageBand, since the loop library is now stored as compressed AAC audio within the CAF file, instead of uncompressed PCM audio data as before with the AIFF files.

Mac Garageband Tutorial

The good news is that the 'Apple Loops for GarageBand' folder that contains 1198 loops now takes up only 233.1MB instead of 1.09GB; but the bad news is that, aside from the fact that it probably takes more CPU cycles to play back AAC-encoded audio, Logic Pro 7.2 doesn't actually support CAF files (although it does support the playback of AAC audio data). This means that if you've used any GarageBand Apple Loops in a Logic song, they will no longer play back. You can, however, reinstall the original uncompressed AIFF loops by reinstalling Logic, if you want to, although in addition to Logic not being able to use CAF files, it's also currently impossible for Logic to import songs created with GarageBand '08. Since Apple have always maintained file compatibility with GarageBand in the past, I image this situation will be rectified with the highly anticipated next version of Logic.