In order to take advantage of the great guitar-processing apps available for the iPad and iPhone, you need a way to get the signal from your guitar or bass into your iOS device. For that, you’ll need a dedicated guitar interface or a more fully featured audio interface that can handle not only guitar and bass connections but also microphones and sometimes even MIDI as well.
- Guitar Lessons On Garageband Ipad
- Garageband Iphone Guitar Input
- Playing Guitar On Garageband Ipad
- How To Use Garageband Amp
- Learn Guitar On Garageband Ipad 2
Two different types of guitar/bass interfaces are available on the market:
Digital interfaces, which connect through the dock port on your device
Analog interfaces, which connect through the headphone jack on your device
- Learn how to use GarageBand to record songs, make beats, publish podcasts, share MP3s from GarageBand, and more. Taught by industry experts, our GarageBand tutorials offer step-by-step tips for beginners and beyond. Presents GarageBand for the iPad—an inexpensive app that allows you to record and edit music with both real and virtual.
- In this 9 chapter guide we discuss everything related to using an acoustic and electric guitar with GarageBand, for both amp modeling, effects processing and recording.
Going digital
Initially you could only find analog guitar interfaces for iOS, but the last couple of years have brought forth plenty of digital models. These offer better sound quality than the analog ones, because they convert your instrument signal into digital audio and keep it in the digital domain as it goes into your device. Conversely, analog interfaces bring the signal in through the analog headphone jack, and it doesn’t get digitized until it gets into your device.
Guitar Lessons On Garageband Ipad
Play the Amp in GarageBand for iPad. You can connect an electric guitar or electric bass and play it using a variety of highly realistic amp sounds that combine a guitar or bass amp with one or more stompbox effects. You can adjust the amp controls, add stompbox effects to customize your sound, and visually tune your instrument. A lot of effects and repercussions can be added to Smart Strings that will enhance your overall guitar experience on GarageBand for iPad. A single chord can be played in various inversions with just a tap on each section of the chord strip.
These digital interfaces offer 24-bit audio resolution, which is the same resolution used in most professional computer recording software. The result is that your guitar or bass will sound the same going into an app as it does coming out of your guitar, and no noise will be added.
Garageband Iphone Guitar Input
Some of the best-known interfaces of this type include:
Apogee Jam
Apogee Jam 96K
Griffin Guitar Connect Pro
IK Multimedia iRig HD
Line 6 Mobile In
Peavey AmpKit Link HD
Positive Grid’s JamUP Plug HD
Sonoma Wireworks GuitarJack Model 2
The only disadvantage to digital interfaces is their cost, which is typically in the $90 to $120 range, depending on the product.
Connecting one of these interfaces to your device is easy: Just plug it in to the dock connector, plug your guitar or bass into its 1/4” input jack, and you’re ready to rock.
Note that some interfaces feature the older-style 30-pin connectors, which means if you have one of the newer generation of Lightning-equipped iOS devices, you’ll need one of Apple’s Lightning-to-30-pin adapters in order to connect it to your device. This adapter will set you back about $30, so figure that into your budget, or choose an interface such as IK Multimedia’s iRig HD, or Griffin’s Guitar Connect Pro, which supports both formats out of the box.
If you plan on using both MIDI and audio in your live rig, make sure you buy an interface that supports both. You only have one data connector, after all— don’t make your devices fight for space!
The analog alternative
Analog instrument interfaces offer an inexpensive alternative to the digital products. Although analog audio isn’t as clean and pristine as digital audio, for a lot of applications, the difference won’t be particularly noticeable. Analog guitar interfaces tend to sell in the $20 range, for the most part, so if you’re willing to live with a signal that might be slightly noisy at times, you can save quite a bit.
These interfaces connect through your device’s headphone jack, using a kind of connector called TRRS, which is a special type of mini-plug that allows audio to travel both in and out of your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. This is important because not only do you want your guitar signal to go into your iOS device, you want to be able to hear it and any background tracks or other music you’re playing with it at the same time.
If you’re wondering where you’ll be able to plug your headphones into, since the interface is connected to your headphone jack, there’s a simple answer. All of these analog interfaces have their own built-in headphone output jack, so you can listen to the audio coming out of your device at the same time as your guitar’s signal goes in through the iOS device’s headphone jack.
Because they’re 30-pin devices (a format that Apple has replaced), analog interfaces may not remain on the market all that much longer. But currently, these three were still available, all at reduced prices (under $30):
IK Multimedia iRig
Positive Grid JamUp Plug
Griffin Guitar Connect Pro
GarageBand User Guide for iPad
Using the Guitar, you can play notes, chords, and strumming patterns. You can choose from acoustic or electric guitar sounds, and turn on stompbox effects to customize the sound.
Choose the sound of the Guitar
Tap the guitar icon in the upper-left corner, then tap the sound you want to play. You can also swipe left or right to change to the previous or next sound.
Play chords
Tap the Chords/Notes switch on the right to switch to Chords view.
Do any of the following:
Strum a chord: Swipe across the strings in one of the chord strips. You can also tap strings to play individual notes of a chord.
Play the full chord: Tap the top of a chord strip.
Mute the strings: Touch and hold the fretboard to the left or right of the chord strips as you play.
You can add your own custom chords to play.
Play a strumming pattern
Playing Guitar On Garageband Ipad
Turn the Autoplay knob to one of the numbered positions.
Tap a chord strip. Tapping a different chord strip plays the same pattern with the notes of that chord, while tapping with two or three fingers plays variations of the pattern.
Tap the chord strip again to stop the pattern playing.
Play individual notes
Tap the Chords/Notes switch on the right to switch to Notes view.
Tap the strings on the fretboard to play notes. You can also bend strings vertically to bend the pitch of a note up.
To play notes of a particular scale, tap the Scale button, then tap the scale you want to play.
The fretboard changes to show note bars. Tap the bars to play the notes of the scale.
Turn stompbox effects on or off
When you choose an electric guitar sound, stompbox effects appear above the Guitar fretboard. You can turn on the effects to change the sound.
Tap the round On/Off button in the lower part of a stompbox. A red light indicates that the stompbox is on.
Play the Retro Wah guitar with Face Control
If your iPad supports facial recognition, you can move the wah pedal on the Retro Wah guitar by moving your mouth while you play. When you record, any pedal movements you make with Face Control are also recorded.
How To Use Garageband Amp
Tap the guitar icon in the upper-left corner, then tap Retro Wah.
Hold your iPad 10–20 inches (25–50 cm) away from your face, then tap the Face Control button .
The first time you use Face Control, GarageBand asks for permission to access the camera on your iPad.
As you play, open and close your mouth to move the wah pedal up and down.
To turn Face Control off, tap the Face Control button again.
Learn Guitar On Garageband Ipad 2
Note: GarageBand uses ARKit face tracking features to translate your facial expressions into instrument effect controls. Your face information is processed on device, and only music is captured during your performance.