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Learn To Play

It's clear from the way Apple is marketing GarageBand '09 that the new features it's most proud of are those that fall under the Learn to Play banner.

Specifically, we're talking about nine Basic Lessons for both piano and guitar (one of each comes as part of the installer, and the rest can be downloaded with no further charge) and the Artist Lessons that are available from the all-new Lesson Store.

The standard piano and guitar tuition is good – though, obviously, spending plenty of time practising your instrument remains the key to learning how to play it – but it's the Artist Lessons that are the real coup.

For £3.95, you get a sumptuous high-def video guide that features a celebrity musician teaching you one of their most famous songs on either piano or guitar. The likes of Sting, Ben Folds, Fall Out Boy, OneRepublic and Norah Jones have already signed up, and Apple say that more artists are going to be working with them in the future.

The lessons feature notation, tab and chord displays, as well as a virtual keyboard/fretboard. What's more, they're brilliantly presented – the only snag is that you'll need to have an Intel processor rather than a PPC model in order to run them (and the same goes for the Basic Lessons, too).

Overall, though, Learn To Play is seriously impressive, making most other on-screen tuition look positively antiquated.

Summary

Like its predecessors, GarageBand '09 is a pleasure to use, but given that we're partly reviewing it from the perspective of an existing user who's thinking of upgrading (those who buy a new Mac will get it pre-installed anyway), we have to say that we're a little disappointed.

From a production point of view, there's simply not enough here to justify spending £69.

It feels like Apple has made a conscious decision to hold back on adding any more DAW-type functionality, presumably to entice those who are outgrowing GarageBand's features to upgrade to Logic, which is a shame.

It's also worth bearing in mind that, if you want to run GarageBand '09, you need to have OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard) installed. If you don't already own this, that's another cost (£83) you'll have to take into account.

There is a bigger picture to consider, though. GarageBand '09 ships with three other excellent apps (iMovie, iPhoto and iWeb), and we're well aware that many people use these, too.

If their new features (and there are quite a few) appeal, iLife '09 is a no-brainer; but if you don't play guitar and have no desire to learn either that instrument or the piano, upgrading to it on the strength of the GarageBand update alone would be a mistake.

Take a listen to some of GarageBand '09's guitar presets in action (rhythm part preset/lead part preset):

Clean Combo/Seventies Metal

Punk Rock/Big Hair Metal

Country Twang/Chunky Chorus