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GarageBand for iPad: guitar amps hands-on

News
By Chris Vinnicombe
Published 21 March 2011

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GarageBand for iPad hands-on

GarageBand for iPad hands-on

With the UK release of the iPad 2 just hours away, it's time to take another look at the app that's already causing a huge buzz amongst music-making iPad 1 owners. We've already presented a hands-on review of GarageBand for iPad, now it's time to zoom in and take a guitarist's eye view of the onboard guitar amps.

For demo purposes, we threw together a simple little ditty using nothing more than a Gibson Les Paul Studio '60s Tribute guitar and sounds from within GarageBand itself. As you can see from the session file, it's not exactly Bohemian Rhapsody, but in addition to some lead and rhythm guitar, we used a drum loop, a shaker, some Smart Bass and the Soul Organ keyboard preset.

For each of the following examples, all that changes is the virtual guitar amp selected for the lead and rhythm sounds, with a little additional tweaking of gain and EQ levels to taste. The only exception is the Modern Stack amp model, which we felt deserved its own, more aggressive composition in order to do it justice.

Click through and let us know what you think of the sounds...

Page 1 of 10
Page 1 of 10
Small Tweed Combo

Small Tweed Combo

Page 2 of 10
Page 2 of 10
Blackface Combo

Blackface Combo

Page 3 of 10
Page 3 of 10
English Combo

English Combo

Page 4 of 10
Page 4 of 10
Vintage Stack

Vintage Stack

Page 5 of 10
Page 5 of 10
Stadium Stack

Stadium Stack

Page 6 of 10
Page 6 of 10
British Blues Combo

British Blues Combo

Page 7 of 10
Page 7 of 10
Sunshine Stack

Sunshine Stack

Page 8 of 10
Page 8 of 10
Small Brownface

Small Brownface

Page 9 of 10
Page 9 of 10
Modern Stack

Modern Stack

For this final example, we felt that the Modern Stack sound deserved a demo tune with a harder edge. Check it out:

Liked this? Now read:

GarageBand for iPad: 7 things musicians need to know

GarageBand for iPad: first hands-on review

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Page 10 of 10
Page 10 of 10
Chris Vinnicombe

Chris Vinnicombe worked with us here on the MusicRadar team from the site's initial launch way back in 2007, and also contributed to Guitarist magazine as Features Editor until 2014, as well as Total Guitar magazine, amongst others. These days he can be found at Gibson Guitars, where he is editor-in-chief.

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