Musicians and songwriters with iOS devices should be delighted to learn that Apple has just launched a new music-making app, Music Memos, and a significant update for its mobile GarageBand app.
Music Memos, which takes inspiration from the existing Voice Memos app, is intended to help with development of musical ideas. In the app, any musical instrument can be recorded in a high quality, uncompressed format before it is named, tagged and rated for generating ideas.
The app can also analyze rhythm and chords of acoustic guitar and piano recordings and instantly add suitable drums and bass accompaniment to songs.
Meanwhile, GarageBand 2.1 for iOS builds upon what is already the globally most popular mobile music-making app by adding Live Loops. This allows different looped audio samples to be triggered through the simple tapping of cells and columns in a highly visual grid.
Music Memos is now freely available, while GarageBand 2.1 for iOS is available as a free update to previous versions of GarageBand for iOS. The updated app is also bundled free with new iOS devices of at least 32GB storage and, for everyone else, available for $4.99. iOS 9.1 or newer is required for both Music Memos and GarageBand 2.1 for iOS.