MUMBAI: Adding to the immensely musician-friendly applications that already exist in the Apple Store, the company released a new app ‘Music Memos’ dedicated to songwriters. The new app, unlike GarageBand, allows composers to register and organise song ideas instead of building complete and complex tracks. 

Music Memos basically lets the user (or shall we say the songwriter) note-down song ideas. Inspired from Voice Memos, Music Memos lets the users record any musical instrument through the iPhone’s built-in microphone and build a library of the song ideas. 

Apart from the release of Music Memos, Apple upgraded GarageBand by introducing new features including Live Loops. 

“I recorded my first album using GarageBand and I continue to use it in my music today,” said T-Pain, Grammy Award-winning artist and producer. “I love how the new Live Loops in GarageBand lets me quickly build tracks and beats, and even perform effects like a musical instrument. It’ll change the way an entire generation makes music.”

GarageBand was an instant hit among professional musicians. However, the focus with Music Memos steers towards beginners and aspiring musicians.  

What We Liked:

Analyses the music being recorded and recommends suitable chords that could follow- ideal for beginners. 

Additional instruments like bass and drum tracks could be added in the background, and the tempos of the instruments speeded up or slowed down depending on the music’s tempo. 

Syncing with Apple devices through iCloud is possible. 

Sharing tracks with Apple Music Connect, SoundCloud and YouTube acts as an additional important feature. 

Recordings can be tagged- for example- “bridge” or “verses”- so it becomes easier to relocate or find them. 

What We Did Not Like:

The app can only analyse the rhythms and chords of an acoustic guitar and piano recordings. 

Users can only see chord names and hear bass and drum background when hearing either of the two instruments.