Here are the apps and devices I used that made my life a lot easier during this process.

Practice, practice, practice

One of the nice things about being the person everyone points to and says, “pick some songs” is, well, the songs I picked I already pretty much knew. However, there’s a huge difference between kinda knowing the song, and knowing it enough for a rehearsal. The first thing I did was create an iTunes playlist with the tunes. When I was driving around, I played nothing but those songs to get them stuck in my head.

When it came to actually putting my fingers to the fretboard, I used AmpliTube on my iPad for 90 percent of my practice — the other 10 percent were with my live rig to get the sounds right. One nice thing with AmpliTube is it will load the songs from my Music.app playlists and let me play along to them, as well as speed up and slow down parts. If there was a part I found particularly tricky to learn, I used Riffstation on OS X to loop that segment while I used the AmpliTube Orange amps to play along. For the first set of rehearsals, I also didn’t worry too much about getting the solos note-for-note, and instead focused on catching the feeling of the solo. I used my Fender Squire USB guitar for most of my practicing since it easily plugs into my iPad and Mac.

For what I was doing, I didn’t really care about my overall guitar sound; I just wanted to balance the volumes so I could hear both the song and my guitar equally. Then, I practiced. A lot.

Charting

I was asked by the bass player to chart the songs for a cheat sheet during rehearsal. While there are plenty of programs that will let you chart songs, I found them to be too advanced for my needs. What I really just needed to do was have the lyrics and then put the chord changes over it.

So, I used Pages ($19.99).

I went to a lyric website, cut and pasted the lyrics into Pages, and then added the chords and beat markers over the lyrics. This worked fantastically. In addition to giving the bass player a cheat cheat, I also had something I could reference during rehearsals. If I couldn’t remember how the chorus went, I had my own little cheat sheet. I printed out charts for her and the drummer, and had my iPad ready for my reference.

Running the rehearsal

Generally, I frown upon singers who use cheat sheets live, but in practice, obviously they are fine. Plus, I’m just filling in until we get a real singer (hopefully soon, I really can’t sing). I needed cheat sheets where I could see them while standing up, and I didn’t have a music stand that went that high. Plus, I wanted them right in my face.

For my cheat sheets, I used the iKlip 2 ($39.99) from IK Multimedia. It’s a mic stand holder for your iPad 2, 3 or 4 in a fairly secure fashion. Note: it slides into the holder, so I’d be a cautious using it during gigs. Not because it’ll fall out, but it’d be easy for someone to just snag the iPad during breaks. So, if you use it, make sure you take the iPad off when you walk off stage.

I was able to position my iPad with the iKlip so I could read the lyrics while warbling. A minor pet peeve is that I can’t get the iKlip to hold my iPad in the portrait position on the boom portion of the stand. Instead, I had to clip it on the main stand just under the boom.

If a note about how we played something came up, I just edited the Pages document with the note. Usually, this is how long the solos were, or if we wanted to change how a bridge went.

Final thoughts

I’ve written before about how I continue to be amazed at the way technology continues to improve how I approach music. It’s been 20 years since I’ve run a rehearsal. Back then it involved a lot of cassette tapes, CDs and photocopies. While OS X continues to be a starting point for my music, I find now when it comes to rehearsals, everything I need is on my iPad. I also have all my music theory and chord books in the Kindle app, so if I need to learn a chord I’m not familiar with, it’s very, very easy.

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First, a word about my needs

Here’s a little bit about how I make music these days: most of my guitar playing is spent practicing, or doing some light recording. While I’m not in a formal band, I jam with a few regular folks. My live rig, so to speak, is a small Egnator Tweaker tube head, a Mesa cab, and my pedal board with the usual overdrive, distortion, wah and delay pedals. For the most part, I’m a classic rock/blues guy, but one band I jam with is more fusion-oriented.

I mention this because until I started playing with other musicians, I was perfectly content to use AmpliTube as my practice and demo recording setup. I didn’t really care that the sounds I’d put in a demo reel couldn’t be replicated on my live rig. Now that I might be required to reproduce my sounds live, I’ve had to take a little care that the demo can’t be played live. That means I now split my practice time more like 50/50 between my physical and software amps.

Recording, however, is a different story. For that I’m 100 percent digital. I do not mic my amp. For the most part, it’s to eliminate unwanted noise that tends to happen when recording in a non-soundproof environment. Call me crazy, but my neighbor’s chainsaw is not a proper complementary instrument.

AmpliTube Orange amps to the rescue

Orange amps are pretty much straight-ahead rock-n-roll amps. I’ve played through quite a few of them, and were it not for the immense price tag, I’d own one or more. Thankfully, now I can get something close to that great sound in an amp model.

The AmpliTube Orange suite contains the following amps: AD-30TC, AD-200, OR-50, OR 120, RockerVerb 50, ThunderVerb 200, Dual Terror and Tiny Terror. Sadly, the Dark Terror series is missing. I spent the most amount my review time with the Dual Terror and the RockerVerb and ThunderVerb models.

Man, I loved them.

In the middle of my blues/classic rock style is a love of roots rock. So, I love me some reverb. While nothing in my mind beats an old-fashioned spring reverb, I was quite happy with the sounds I got from the two ‘Verb amps. The ThunderVerb had a nice, deep tone while the RockerVerb had a lot of pop. I didn’t try adding any effects, wanting to keep the tones as pure as possible for testing, but the RockerVerb would sound excellent with a little slap-back echo.

What’s great about this combination is I can get a rock and roll sound that’s not all that hard to reproduce with my live rig. Some of the other AmpliTube amps I enjoy are modeled after high-gain amps my little rig isn’t equipped for.  I feel a lot more comfortable recording a groove to send out to my mates with the Orange amps.

The Dual Terror is an amp with a Fat Channel and  Tiny Terror channel. I found it gave me a slightly heavier tone, similar to the tone Jimmy Page got on the Led Zeppelin live CD, Celebration Day. I’m pretty particular about my distortion sound. I like my distortion dirty and with big man parts; not the over-processed ’80s hair metal distortion. With the Dual Terror on Fat, I got a nice heavy distortion sound perfect for my heavier rhythm needs.

For lead tones, I still found I needed to add an overdrive pedal to give it a little more boost. I like a ton of sustain on my lead tone, and I wasn’t able to get that solely with the Orange amps. As always, your needs may be different and you might get a lead tone you love without adding any in-app pedals.

Post-gig report

I’m very happy with the AmpliTube Orange amp package. The entire $99 package also includes nine Orange cabinet simulators. While I could tell a difference between the different cabs, I’m still not completely sold on the idea of cabinet simulators. I still like to judge my cabs on how they move air. Yes, I know it’s a little bit weird I’m on-board with amp simulators, but not cabinet simulators. I’m just weird that way. Therefore, if you aren’t sold on the cabinets themselves, you can just buy the amps you want via the Custom Shop store. IK Multimedia also has a generous demo period. You can demo each amp for two days before the demo times out.

While I don’t think the models are a substitute for a real Orange amp, I think for most guitarists doing home recording they are a good alternative to the stock AmpliTube amps. It’s so easy to record in GarageBand with these amps, there’s no shortage of good sounds you can record with in the comfort of your own home.

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While I may be wishing upon a star here, I’m hopeful that Apple beginning support for a third-party audio interface is a sign of change from Cupertino regarding features they may add to iOS. I’m  also hoping Jony Ive brings us some great changes to the user interface design iOS.

A homier home screen

My biggest complaint about iOS is how the home screen is really just the apps that I use the most and therefore place them on the first screen. I want my home screen to be much more than that, though. I want to see today’s weather, the traffic on the way to work, what meetings I have that day, and today’s hit list on my task manager. I don’t want this limited to information obtained from just Apple apps, either. I want it to be able to read my tasks from Things, or whatever task management app I’m pretending will help get me organized this month.

That’s why I think Panic is on to something with Status Board. I like the idea of a customizable widget screen that I see when I unlock my device. I’d rather see a dashboard than a grid of icons.

Because sharing is caring

One Android feature I really like is the ability to share data between apps. If I have Instapaper installed and I’m in Chrome, I can send a page directly to Instapaper. Ditto for Evernote. Both of these are applications I use almost daily. While installing bookmarklets isn’t a gigantic hassle, it’s definitely not as good as a systemwide sharing tool.

I’d like to get an email I need to take action on, and “share” it with Things to create a task. It would be doubly nice if it could apply some intelligence and deduce the due date for the task, similar to how iOS creates calendar events based on a date and time in your email.

Preview on iOS

When Preview support for Documents in the Cloud was announced as part of Mountain Lion, I would have bet money on Preview making its way to iOS. Good thing I didn’t, or I would be out a fiver or more. So, here’s hoping Preview shows up in iOS 7 so I can sync my PDFs. While I do use programs like PDFPen, for simple PDF reading it seems overkill. PDFPen’s strengths are the ability to edit and e-sign documents, which may be more than most people need. Most of us probably just need an easy way to sync important PDFs. In my case, very few of the PDFs I want to sync are ones I want to edit; I mainly want them for reference.

Central document repository

Apple’s sandboxing, where apps can’t directly read another app’s data, is probably a good thing for security. However, when it comes to actually getting some work done, it’s a pain in the rear end. I may be wishing for unicorns, rainbows and a pretty pony here, but I really hope at some point Apple allows something like a Documents app, where I can keep PDFs, Office-type apps, text files and the like for any application to read and write too. This way, if a certain word processor app doesn’t handle a feature I need very well, I can easily open the file in that app. Using the Open With command, while a work-around, usually means I end up with multiple copies of a document strewn about several apps.

Printing to non-AirPrint devices

I have zero inclination to buy an AirPrint printer, given how infrequently I need to print from iOS. However, I wish Apple would put in a few generic drivers so people on the road with only an iPad might be able to print out items like documents, travel itineraries, boarding passes and directions.

Changing default apps

I want to be able to change default apps, especially browsers. I’ve had a few problems syncing bookmarks across multiple devices using Safari and iCloud, so I switched to Chrome as my browser. This has a secondary benefit of letting me access my bookmarks easily on my Android and Windows devices. I’d hope this would simply be something you set in Settings, where there would be an option for “Default Browser” and you can choose from the browsers you have installed.

Final thoughts

The only one of my wish list items I really expect to happen at some point is Preview. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple introduce a better home screen, especially with Jony Ive more involved with the design process. I doubt we will ever see an app like a Documents app, but a guy can dream.

How about you? What things would you like to see in iOS 7?

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user Yutaka Tsutano via Compfight cc

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I’m going to walk you through how to integrate GarageBand, Audiobus and Audiobus-supported apps. Since I’m a guitar player, I’ll be focusing on how I use it for guitars, but any instrument you can hook into your iOS device will do.

Hooking it all together

The first thing you’ll need to do is launch AudioBus. You’ll see a screen with three boxes labeled Input, Effects and Output. Tap on Input to select the apps you want to feed into Audiobus. I’ve chosen Amplitube and Pocket Beats (you can have up to three inputs). Pocket Beats is a drum machine with a heavy techno feel, and combined with my blues/classic rock playing style certainly yielded an interesting jam track. Then tap on Outputs and choose GarageBand.

You can probably do the next steps in any order, but I like to go from start to finish. I open up Pocket Beats and start the drum machine. I then launch AmptiTube and find a preset I like. Then I tap on GarageBand from the Audiobus app to launch it.

GarageBand is going to ask you what input source to use for your instrument. Note: this isn’t the Audiobus feed, but how the instrument is getting jacked in. Since I’m not using GarageBand’s craptastic amps, I choose Audio Recorder. If you don’t find the built-in amps as displeasing as I do, you can choose Guitar Amp as your input.

Now, GarageBand takes an extra step, which I found out the hard way. By default, GarageBand records in eight-measure increments. So, I was jamming along to my unholy union of blues rock and house dance beat when I noticed the whole shebang had stopped recording. So be sure to tap on the Plus icon in the upper right of the measure ruler and extend the measure as far as you need.

Next I went to AmpliTube to start the actual recording. On the righthand side of the screen you’ll see a floating palette. From here you can either change the apps Audibus is passing or start the recording. It’s important to note that you will want to start the recording here; not in GarageBand. Play along to your heart’s content.

Once you’re done, open up GarageBand, and you’ll see the Audiobus track.

How I plan on using Audiobus

The Fender Squire USB Guitar is the guitar I take when I’m traveling or practicing outside. The USB 30-pin connector combined with an amp app is all I need to practice or write with when I’m not in my studio. I usually have some backing tracks I play along with and I’m getting in the habit of recording most of my practice sessions to help me get better. Now, I can use some MP3 I’ve uploaded into iOS GarageBand, get an amp sound that I’m happy with in an app like AmpliTube and record, and write when I’m sitting by the lake this summer.

Apple including Audiobus support in its own apps is an interesting sea change. It’s not often Apple includes support for a third-party service in an iOS app. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Now that Apple has increased awareness of Audiobus, I’m hoping we’ll start to see some great apps become available that will really fuel my creativity.

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The core of Riffstation is a component that lets you load an audio file, and have it scan for chords it finds in the song. Currently it’s limited to Major, Minor and 7th chords. You can then play the audio file within Riffstation and it will show you when the chord changes occur. It’s important to note that currently it only handles detecting chords, so if you want it to score an Yngwie Malmsteen solo, you’re out of luck.

Trial by fire: How it handled four songs

I gave it a mix of songs, most of them I already knew, to see how it fared.

Rockin’ in the Free World, Neil Young: This is a pretty easy song, all open chords. The main part is a E-D-C chord progression and the chorus is G-D-C. Riffstation handled this one completely accurately.

A song involving pretty girls and jewelry, ZZ Top: Again, a pretty easy song based on a E-A chug, with some  B, C# and F# thrown in as well. Again, Riffstation did an admirable job, although it temporarily thew me by referring to a C# chord as a D-flat (they’re the same chord, I just call it a C#, so it’s not inaccurate). There are a couple of ways to play the song, either with E major, or E5 chords. Naturally, it only detects the major chords, but I’ve played the song both ways depending on my moods.

White Room, Cream: This song isn’t really a fair test, since most of the song isn’t really chords, per se (for a good lesson on how to play it, I found this guy’s to be one of the better lessons). Riffstation didn’t really know what to do with the alternating major/minor chord progression in the intro, actually didn’t do a bad job with the verse chords, and did very well on the chorus. This is one of those songs I don’t think is a good song to have Riffstation detect the chords, but you can use the looping tools to help you learn difficult passages.

Wasted Years, Iron Maiden: This song shows one of the big limitations to Riffstation: while it will tell you the correct chords, it will not tell you the position they are played in. So, for Wasted Years, it did a good job on telling me the first chord is an E, it didn’t tell me that it’s played on the 7th and 9th frets; instead it showed an E chord on the 2nd frets. I’m going to repeat this several times, but while Riffstation is a great tool to help you figure out how to play songs, it is a complement to your ears; not a replacement.

Other features

Isolation: Riffstation lets you isolate the guitar tracks using the Jam Master tab. You can adjust the separation to let the guitar parts stand out as much as you want them to. I don’t like to isolate the guitars too much, since I like to hear the backbeat while I’m learning a song.

Looping: If there’s a part of a song you’re having problems with, you can select the passage in the uppermost window by clicking and dragging, clicking the loop button on the playback controls, and then hitting play. This is handy also when learning a solo. While Riffstation won’t transcribe the solo, you can loop the passage so you can figure it out by ear, or, if you have the tabs to it, while reading along. What I’ll usually do is pick a measure before where the solo actually begins and loop that with the solo.

Tempo controls: As you’d expect with a program of this nature, you can affect the tempo while the song is played back. This is very handy if there’s a passage you are struggling with, and especially useful when combined with the looping tools to repeat that troublesome passage.

Final thoughts

I think Riffstation is a fantastic tool to help musicians learn new songs. As I said, Riffstation is a complement to your ears; not a replacement. You are still going to need to listen to the songs and detect if Riffstation was correct in its analysis. The developers have said that the program is about 80 percent accurate, and I found that to be the case. However, I didn’t throw at it songs I felt it would have a problem with, like Hendrix songs. What it does do is get you in the ballpark and helps you build your ears.

What I’d love to see in future versions — other than better detection tools — is a way where it can play a version of the song based on its analysis of the song, so you can tell if it’s even close at all.

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Siri

Expectation: This is an iOS 6 issue, but I expected to use Siri on a near-daily basis.

Reality: I use Siri on a near-daily basis. With iOS 6 she got better, and I frequently have a desire to send and receive texts while operating a motor vehicle. Looking at the phone and typing while doing this, I’ve heard, is frowned upon. So I use Siri instead. For the most part, she does a decent job. I’ve learned the hard way to keep my messages short. I don’t really use Siri to create Reminders, move calendar events, and the like. I do, however, use her to check on when the Red Sox are playing and what the score is.

What I’d like to see improved: I don’t like her all-or-nothing option to change a text message. I’d love to be able to tell her to replace a word. Often, in a multi-sentence text she’ll get it correct, except for that one word that’s crucial to understanding the meaning of the message.

The camera

Expectation: I expected that the iPhone 5 would continue to replace my point-and-shoot camera.

Reality: Even with the purple haze problem, the iPhone 5 has indeed solved my needs for a point-and-shoot camera.

What I’d like to see improved: Maybe a little better image focus and stabilization. If I’m shooting a picture of a handheld object and my hands are slightly shaking, I’ve noticed the iPhone auto-focus is tad sensitive. I imagine the camera on the iPhone 5S (or whatever the next-generation iPhone is called) will be better in ways I won’t be able to detect, but I think the iPhone 5 camera is good as is.

The screen

Expectation: It would be really different than the iPhone 4S screen.

Reality: Well, it’s certainly taller.  The extra row of icons is helpful. With the previous screen size, I always had apps I use frequently sitting on the second screen. Now, all the apps I use often are one screen. Apps like Twitter, Facebook, Notes, and Evernote feel more comfortable with the taller screen. The Kindle and iBooks apps feel like I’m reading from a weird legal size paper. Other apps seem to think the extra real estate is perfect for showing me more ads — I’m looking at you, The Weather Channel.

I was hoping I would use Pages more, but it still doesn’t seem to adapt well to the large screen. In fairness, this complaint may be me moving the goal posts since even on my Nexus 7 I’m not doing any writing. Nor do I feel my life is really missing an iPad mini, either.

What I’d like to see improved: I agree with Andy Ihnatko’s take on the Samsung Galaxy S3 screen. I frequently keep my iPhone in a car mount where it sits right in that hard-to-see range for my old guy eyes. I want to see Apple release a larger screen. There are few things that tempt me towards Android phones, and the screen size is always the demon on my shoulder.

My workflow

Expectation: The iPhone would continue to be command central for my life.

Reality: It still remained command central, but my iPad usage for non-leisure activities increased. This isn’t an indictment against the iPhone per se, and it likely has more to do with buying an iPad with cellular connectivity this time around, along with a keyboard case. However, the majority of my communications, note-taking and task management functions have been on the iPhone 5. What was previously an 80-20 split is now about a 70-30 split. For long-form writing away from my Mac, the iPad will likely always win that battle.

What I’d like to see improved: A system-side sharing feature like there is in Android. I absolutely love that I can send links to Instapaper and Evernote in Android with one easy click, as long as the app is installed. No messy bookmarks to install.

Final thoughts

My only regret with the iPhone 5 is self-created: Instead of opting for a 64 GB phone, I bought the 32 GB and AppleCare+. I should have bought the 64 GB as I’m now struggling to find room for my music. I’m swapping out albums more than I’d like. I bought AppleCare+ because I expected for financial reasons that I’d skip the 2013 iPhone update and wanted the extra coverage — I was too far off my upgrade cycle for any discounts last year, so I’m going to wait until I don’t need to pay the off-contract price.

I’m impressed with the overall sturdiness of the iPhone 5. I don’t keep it in a case, and with the metal back I don’t feel like it’s going to shatter with a bad fall. I don’t seem to have as many weird cell reception issues as I had before. I work in a section of a building with notoriously bad cell coverage (about 1 bar), but outside of that, I don’t seem to have many “you’re holding it wrong” issues. The LTE speeds are nice, I just wish AT&T’s coverage net was wider. I get LTE at work, but not near home.

Overall, I’d say the iPhone 5 met my expectations. While I’d likely buy an iPhone with a larger screen, I do like that the iPhone 5 is the same width as previous iPhones; it’s not too bulky in my pockets.

Next time, though, I’m getting the largest storage option available. I guess size does matter after all.

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Powerful editing tools on small-screen devices still to me seem an odd pairing. While I appreciate the ability to make more than cursory edits to a photo on my iPhone, it’s unlikely I’m going to delve too deeply into PS Touch’s feature set on my iPhone. The screen, even on the iPhone 5, it still too small to make editing photos a joy. There aren’t many times I’ve looked at a Samsung Galaxy S screen with envy, but testing out PS Touch was one of them.

While taking a look at PS Touch, I scanned my iPhone’s Camera Roll. It appears I take a lot of pictures of my cat. Hardly the sort of photo that requires a the full might and power of PS Touch. The cat, after all, is pretty much naturally cute. Looking through my Photo Stream, it’s still a lot of pictures of cats, guitars, my friends and my favorite fishing spot. Again, hardly photos I’d want to spend significant time editing. I’m not going to assume my uses are yours, but I think most people’s iPhone photos are more of a photo diary of their life than pictures that need significant rework.

What is has, what it’s missing

Now that I’m done grousing about my Camera Roll, PS Touch for the iPhone does have an impressive feature set. You can create layers, use a variety of selection tools, including magic wand, and apply a host of effects and filters. I had a lot of fun with the filters, especially the charcoal one.

What you can’t do, that I can see, is create masks. I don’t think this is a huge deal on the small screen since I can’t imagine creating masks on the iPhone would be at all fun.What it’s really missing, though, is content-aware healing. Given the fast and loose nature of iPhone photography, being able to remove the guy mooning the camera from a lovely beach shot would be very handy.

Photoshop Touch at times isn’t a very intuitive program. It took me a few times to get how adjusting the tolerance on the magic wand worked, for example. I thought once I had made a selection, I could use the tolerance tool to expand the selection on the screen, but instead it looks like I had to reapply the wand. After playing around with it for a few hours, I had the feeling that there were likely additional features or tools I hadn’t stumbled across. The help area seems to exist largely to check off “create help file” on the project plan.

Once nice feature is you can use Adobe’s Creative Cloud to work on images between your Mac, iPad and iPhone. Again, I can’t see myself doing heavy edits on a photo on my iPhone, but it’s nice to have an easy way of getting images between the three platforms.

PS Touch ran well on my iPhone 5. While it has an impressive feature set, it almost feels like overkill on my iPhone. On my iPad, with the extra screen real estate, a version of Photoshop makes more sense. Some people might complain that it’s not a universal app, but I don’t mind. I think there’s likely enough challenges creating the separate versions to warrant a $4.99 iPhone price, with the iPad version being $9.99. And, hey, a Photoshop for $15 for both platforms seems almost like a deal with strings attached.

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Here’s what I use for storing documents related to my freelance business, as well as the voluminous amount of research data for my hobbies.

iCloud

iCloud’s biggest limitation is the app sandboxing model. By that, I mean, a document stored in Pages can only be accessed in the Pages app on iOS and OS X. While I can “Open in” another app on iOS, that creates a separate copy; changes made to that copy aren’t reflected back in the Pages’s version.

I’ve made my peace with this.

The bulk of my freelance and personal writing is done in Pages ($19.99) and Numbers ($19.99). I have found these two apps sync the best, with the fewest formatting issues. Oddly, I have an Excel document with graphics that opens fine in Numbers for iOS, but QuickOffice and OfficeHD do not display it properly on my iPad. My day job files need to stay on my company-supplied laptop, so I’m not as worried about keeping those files in sync.

I’ve also made a decision to focus on Pages/iCloud for my writing because I don’t have to worry too much about a third-party developer either ceasing support, or worse, having the app pulled from the App Store. For writing apps, it’s unlikely they’ll get pulled, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I figure if Apple were to drop iCloud/Pages, I’d likely have bigger problems. That said, I do routinely back up my Mobile Documents folder so I can access them if something bad happens to iCloud.

Most importantly, other than some initial growing pains when iCloud was launched, I haven’t had any memorable issues in the last year or so. I open the iWork app and it automatically downloads new or updated files. I have yet to see that completely seamless action with other third-party storage options.

Dropbox

My Dropbox usage can be be simply summed up with this: any document that the sandbox model flatly doesn’t work with, goes into Dropbox. I’m also a musician, so I have several gigs worth worth of sheet music, scanned music magazines (that I’ve scanned myself) and other reference files. These documents need to be read on either my iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC or Android device. Obviously for my cross-platform needs, Apple’s sandboxing won’t work.

I also have crucial folders from my Documents folder moved to my Dropbox folder. This way, I can access them remotely as well as have another backup if they are deleted (I use CrashPlan for my online backup). Dropbox’s ability to restore files has come in quite handy.

So, what would it take for me to forgo iCloud and just use Dropbox?

Better Office-type apps, for the most part. For my uses, Pages remains the best word processor on iOS. I’ve had just enough “hmm, that didn’t work the way I thought it would” moments with QuickOffice and OfficeHD. Sometimes it didn’t refresh the Dropbox folder fully, or the document open with the formatting a mess. While these overall percentage this occurs is small, I don’t want to risk it.

What the future could hold

The biggest change that could happen to my workflow is if Microsoft ever releases Office for iOS. This will likely result in yet another cloud service (Microsoft’s Skydrive), I’m OK with this. SkyDrive works similar to Dropbox where I can get file level access if I need to.

What I expect to remain unchanged is that a single-source of cloud storage will likely never be possible for my uses.

I can live with that.

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The devices

Apogee Jam ($99): At 99 bucks, the Apogee Jam isn’t cheap, but it earns high marks for me. The great thing about the Jam is it comes with connectors for the Mac, and a 30-pin iOS cable. I’ve never had a problem with it and the audio quality is very, very good. The chief concern is with the two small, cables it’s easy to misplace them. To avoid that, I keep them both rubber-banded to the body of the Apogee. You can also buy replacement cables if you lose them.

Line 6 Pod Studio UX2 ($199): The Line 6 UX2 is a very versatile device. It will let you record two instruments at the same time (handy if you’re recording with a pal). It also has two XLR inputs if you want to mike your amps instead of directly inputting your guitar. But wait, there’s more: the UX2 also has more than 20 models of guitar and bass amps, and more than 20 models of guitar and bass cabinets. The amp models are based on Fender and Marshall amps. The UX2 is a good piece of gear to start building your budget studio around and is great if you’re recording multiple instruments at the same time.

Ubisoft Rocksmith Real Tone Cable ($29.99): While the Ubisoft Rocksmith Real Tone Cable is primarily designed for the Rocksmith game (not available for the Mac, which is either a good or bad thing, depending on your view of learning devices such as these). I’ve found it to be a pretty decent USB guitar interface given the cost, and while it has no iOS connectivity, that’s not a deal breaker, especially since this article primarily deals with OS X. In the short time I’ve had it, it feels like a decent cable and I haven’t experienced any issues with it.

USB Fender Squier Guitar ($199): Now, admittedly the USB Fender Squier guitar won’t let you plug in any instrument to GarageBand, it being a guitar and all. However. for $199, I’ve found it to be a great guitar. Since the Squier is Fender’s low-cost line, when I got mine I expected it to be extra low-budget, given the additional electronics for the on-board USB interface. Instead, I was quite happy with it and still continue to play it almost four months after I got it. The iOS interface is especially nice if you’re traveling and want to practice. It comes with the cables to connect the guitar to your Mac and iOS device.

Connecting the devices to GarageBand

Obviously step one is connecting the USB cable to your Mac. (Note: for best results plug them directly into your Mac; not into a USB hub.) After that, open GarageBand and go to Preferences and click on the Audio/Midi tab. Select your input device from the pull-down list.

After that go into your project and add a new track. Select Real Instrument from the selection screen if you are miking your amp, or using a keyboard. Select Electric Guitar if you want to use GarageBand’s built-in amps and effects.

Last, go the Track menu and select Show Monitoring for Real Instrument Tracks. This will ensure you can hear your instrument through the speakers while you play.

Using Amps and Effects

Unless you are miking your amp, you’re probably going to want to play around with GarageBand’s amps and effects. To do that, select the guitar track in the track listing on the left. On the far right, you can choose the amp you want. You can also choose from a number of preset sounds from a pull-down menu in the same area. You can also adjust the bass, treble, etc. from this screen.

How I use them

For input devices, I float between the Rocksmith cable and the Apogee Jam. For the most part, choosing one comes down to which interface I can easily find at the moment. The Jam and the iOS cables may take up permanent residence in my gig bag so I can practice outside the house regardless of what guitar I happen to have with me (I tend to favor Les Pauls over Fender guitars).

I don’t usually use the amps built-in to GarageBand. Instead I use the GarageBand plug-in for Guitar Rig and Amplitube. However, if you can’t afford either of these programs the included amps will do the trick. The presets are really helpful in quickly dialing in a sound.

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What are Apple Loops?

GarageBand ships with a pretty hefty selection of loops. A loop is basically a few seconds worth of a track that you can repeat as you want. For example, you could have drum loops that range from basic “kick, snare, kick, snare” to a multi-tom tom fill. They aren’t limited to drums either: you can find piano, bass, orchestral strings and many more.

To access the Apple loops, press the little loops button on the lower right-hand corner of the application window.

How to use loops

Using loops is pretty much a drag and drop operation. Select the loop you want to use and drag into your project window.

If you want the beat to repeat for several bars, mouse over to the upper-right hand corner of the loop until you see a circular pop-up. Grab that and drag it out as many bars as you want.

One other note: some loops work best with a specific beat count (the ones in the screenshot are for a 115 bpm count.) If you play them on a slower beat count, the loop will sound drastically different. I learned this the hard way when a lively beat I sampled sounded like the drummer took too much Valium.

Using loops for songwriting

I play the guitar and the bass equally poorly. Most of the time I use my guitar to write songs, but for some grooves I like to write on the bass. Therefore, since I don’t play the drums, I start with a drum track. Rather than use the supplied Apple drum tracks, I use the Beta Monkey drum tracks. The reason I love the Beta Monkey ones so much is they are recorded loops of real drummers in real recording studios and sound so much better than the Apple ones.

Sometimes I have lyrics in my head I’m writing music to, but most often I start with writing some riffs. To start the riff-writing process, I’ll set the key and bpm in my project info and drag out a very basic drum loop, usually a kick, snare, kick, snare level of basic. At this point I’m not too worried about fills and the like. I’ll then drag the loop out for a few minutes worth of bars, and also set the entire project to loop so I have uninterrupted boom-chicka-boom.

At this point, I’m not recording anything. I just want a consistent back beat to jam along with and see what clicks. Depending on what I think the song needs, I’ll also drag out some piano riffs, or any loop I think will spark the creative process. One of the nice things about even the supplied loops is there are so many varieties, sometimes sampling a random loop will send me down a fun creative path.

Once I’ve got a riff I’m happy with for the main verses, it’s time to start thinking bridges and choruses.

While I’m coming up with riffs, I’ll start laying the guitar foundations for the bridge and chorus. But now, I’ll start breaking down the infinite loop I’ve been working on. Rather than a straight drum loop, I’ll start looking for loops that compliment the riff a little better. If I decide to use my basic drum loop, I’ll shorten to the number of bars my verse has. Now, I’ll start adding some fills and different drum tracks for the bridge and chorus. Again, at this point I’m not hitting the record button yet (or, if I am, it’s just to remember a riff I might want to come back to, but nothing formal).

Creating a finished song

Once I’ve got the basic song structure down, it’s time to create a finished draft in GarageBand. Once I have the loops laid out in a way I’m happy with, I’ll break out my bass and lay down the bottom beat. Then, I’ll lay down the guitar tracks and the guitar solo. When I’m done with that, I’m probably not going to mix it too much. I’m not looking to publish this, mostly to have some basic tracks to use with a songwriting partner.

Final thoughts

Back in the day, I used a four-track recorder and a drum machine to write songs. Now, GarageBand and loops fuel the creative fire.  Since I don’t need the full power of an app like Logic Pro ($199) yet, GarageBand’s ease of use really makes writing and drafting songs a breeze.

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