HOW TO: Make music with Music Memos

01 RECORD YOUR IDEA

Tap the Tuner icon in the top right to check you’re in tune and then either tap the big Record button or Auto. That latter option automatically monitors the internal mic or external device and starts recording when it detects sound.

02 BRING IN THE BAND

Music Memos can play along with your song. If you look at the bottom of the screen you’ll see the icons for Bass and Drums to turn them on or off. If you long-press (shown here) you can choose the type of bass and the playing style.

03 DICTATE THE DRUMS

You can change the drums in the same way. This is a simplified version of GarageBand’s Drummer; you simply drag the dot to make your drums louder, quieter, simpler or more complex. You can choose different kits too.

04 SEE YOUR STUFF

All your Music Memos are stored in the drawer, which you can access by tapping the icon in the top centre of the main screen. It’s best to give your recordings meaningful names, unlike our example! To edit a song, tap on it.

05 EXPLORE YOUR AUDIO

Music Memos automatically detects the chords you’re playing and shows them alongside the relevant bit of audio, which is handy if you’re telling somebody else what to play. You’ll see there’s a little toolbar immediately above the music.

06 EDIT YOUR SONG

If you tap the Edit icon second from right, you can change the chord – which you’ll have to do from time to time because Music Memos doesn’t always guess correctly. You can also select No Band to stop the bass and drums.

07 CHANGE THE TIME

Music Memos doesn’t support quite as many time signatures as GarageBand, but you can choose from 3/4, 4/4 and 6/8 time as well as half and double speed. You can also tell Music Memos where the first downbeat should be.

08 SHARE YOUR CREATION

You can share your audio in two ways, both of which happen via the Share icon. The first is to send your complete track as a .m4a audio file, which you can send as a message or to an app. The second is to export to GarageBand.

09 TWEAK YOUR TUNE

Music Memos creates a GarageBand project with three tracks: the recording and its bass and drum tracks. Those tracks are just normal GarageBand tracks, so you can move or edit the bass notes or tweak the Drummer settings.