GarageBand for iOS gets serious, Logic gets Touch Bar support, and more

After Apple acquired UK software developer Camel Audio, it wasn’t long before the company’s acclaimed Alchemy synth resurfaced in Logic Pro X 10.2, and now it’s landing on your iPhone and iPad as part of the GarageBand for iOS 2.2 update.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Alchemy on an iOS device, of course – before Apple came calling, Camel Audio had Alchemy Mobile on its roster – but now it’s available within GarageBand and has the look and feel of the app’s other Touch Instruments. It comes with more than 150 “Apple-designed” presets, which promise to cover a wide range of stylistic bases.

With the number of Touch Instruments in GarageBand growing, Apple has also introduced a redesigned sound browser in version 2.2, with the aim of making it easier to explore what’s on offer and find the sound you’re looking for.

There are new recording options, too: Multi-Take Recording enables you to capture multiple passes, audition them and choose the best one (a feature that will be familiar to users of Apple’s desktop DAWs) while the redesigned Audio Recorder includes both fun 'one-tap' vocal effects and more serious tools that provide pitch correction, distortion and delay. Speaking of ‘serious’, there’s an expanded range of mixing effects, including a visual EQ. You can also bring third-party Audio Unit effect processors to the party.

Logic Pro X 10.3

Logic has been shown some love too, with version 10.3 launched concurrently to the GarageBand iOS update. This comes with a tweaked GUI that’s designed to look more contemporary and be more legible, while the Touch Bar can be used to navigate your project in a timeline overview. As in GarageBand, it gives you access to volume and Smart Controls, and you have the option to turn it into a musical keyboard (complete with various custom scale options) or a set of drum pads, too. The Touch Bar can also be customised to allow access to your favourite keyboard shortcuts.

Logic Pro X 10.3 also adds Track Alternatives – you can now create and switch between different playlists of regions and edits on any track. There’s also Selection-based Processing, which can be used to apply plug-in effects processing to any selected audio region, or to multiple regions.

On a more technical level, there’s now a 64-bit summing engine and the number of available busses has risen by 192. True stereo panning, meanwhile, gives you discrete control of stereo signals.

Finally, you can now save a bounced-down version of projects compatible with GarageBand for iOS to iCloud, and then add additional tracks on your iPhone or iPad. Once the resulting project is saved back to the iCloud, these parts will appear in the main Logic project on the Mac, so that they can be worked on further.

The Logic Pro X 10.3 update is free for existing users and should be available from the Mac App Store by the time you read this.