GarageBand for PC and Mac

Software Installation Requirements

FAQs

Software Reviews and Critisims

• By DannTee83

  5

  Big Bang onna Budget

  Ive used garageband on my ipad for years before being able to afford a Windows. The crossover was simple all of the same functionalities with a few more bells and whistles (minus touch screen capabilities) so the learning process from mobile to desktop was quick and easily picked up while giving me more creating power. This DAW has to be one of the easiest but most effective music making progs. avail. and i grew to like the connection between the tablet and desktop giving the ability to transfer projects right from tablet GB to Windows version GB with no issues, and i later in life found the LOGIC app offers a mixing and more app that remotely works with desktop GB which made my add ins and mixing visible!!! from my tablet!!! as i worked!!!. Thumbs up on this software here which was an excellent gateway, stepping stone, lead off intro into LOGIC PRO X which is the same software but a more professional looking layout. So in return GB a great tool to have, even on my tablet which is my go to on the fly and actually has landed me several local and nationally known clients to work with due to its flexability and capabilities, Go hard at your craft you guys!!! im closer and closer to living out my dreams because of DAWS such as GB and LOGIC PRO. thanks Microsoft you guys rock

  
  
• By betyouaint

  4

  The singular reason I own a Windows

  I don't like Microsoft. I don't like their ethos. I don't like their interfaces. I don't like their inflexibilty. I don't like their overarching control. I do however, for the most part, like Garageband and it's the only reason I own a PC. It's not perfect and for a Windows user, I struggle with the paradigm shift from Windows shorcuts and control locations. However, I am willing to suffer given the perfect balance they have struck between power features and ease of use. But the feature that tipped me over into almost exclusively using Garageband is the auto-drummer. As a multi-instrumentalist who records all tracks myself, one by one, drums are the hardest. You can't do a one take scratch track so you have to go back and forth between drums and guitars until you get the groove and then start to lay down the serious tracks over the drums. And I'm not a great drummer either. With the drummer feature, I don't even bother recording my own drums anymore and just tweak what the app gives me.

  
  
• By Raffercm

  3

  Arpeggiator?

  I’ve been using Garageband for 7 years now. Granted, this is a school laptop & I’m not any music pro, but I would say I’ve become pretty advanced with Garageband over the years. When my school reimages the Macs every school year, all of our purchased apps get automatically updated. When I was prepared to make more advanced music for college (I’m 16), I noticed something pretty off. #1, THE ARPEGGIATOR IS GONE FOR ANY KIND OF DRUM KIT. This helped me keep tempo with MANY of my projects & now it’s almost impossible to remake them in my own loop. Not to mention, some of the loops are gone too. Granted, I semi enjoy some of the new sounds like the clap & snapping, but I want my arpeggiator back. I can’t make music without it. I fell in love with this app, & I’d hate to not use it when I constantly have new tunes in my head I could make on here. I’d give this app 5 stars, but it’s now almost useless if you want to be able to produce good, on beat music. Looks like I'm going to have to save $200 to purchase Logic Pro if this doesn’t get fixed. I would really not like to have to do that because I have a lot of faith in Garageband when it comes to producing my music. Come on now Microsoft, you’re better than this.

  
  
• By MuzikJunky

  4

  Needs a better tag editor!

  I love GarageBand and have used it for many, many years. If you want a simple but powerful DAW, this is the best it gets. However, since I make my own loops and chop them in the timeline, a powerful tag editor is needed in order for the program to see and correctly use the loops. Microsoft used to have its own loop utility with which you could set genre, transients, and set tempo automatically in relation to how many beats the loop had, but it no longer makes this useful program, and it won’t run beyond PC Sierra. Loop Editor 2, the only comparable program that does the same job, can no longer be purchased since the company that made it went out of business. Another program that I uses requires that I upgrade to Mojave, but that will kill the loops utility. If there was a (free) program that could do this, I would be able to make music and keep the other important program happy. Other than that, highly recommended! Peace.

  
  
• By Paul Oolman

  1

  Phased out

  Update: Regarding those who lost the app/can't reinstall because of Big Sur: go to the app store, click your name in the bottom left hand corner. Under "Purchased by xx" find GarageBand, and click the cloud download. You should be offered the last version you downloaded. For some reason the track setting controls (quanta, velocity, recording settings, etc.) are missing for me which is why I tried to uninstall/reinstall in the first place. Maybe you’ll have a different experience. GarageBand was malfunctioning so I went to uninstall/reinstall. Turns out the latest version of GarageBand requires PC 11 and unfortunately my PC Mid 2012 non-Retina didn’t make the cut this year. Microsoft knows the type of PC each user has so why would they allow them to uninstall the app knowing they can’t get it back (maybe provide a warning) or better yet allow users to download the most current version compatible with whatever OS they have. Seems weird that my laptop can handle the newest versions of Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, etc., but not GarageBand. Either way I have no plans to upgrade anytime soon as my laptop still works great.