Developed by Apple INC., GarageBand is currently one of the best Digital Audio Workstations in the industry. You must have come across several articles and blogs describing GarageBand as software for beginners and intermediate users and how it is not meant for professional use. All of them mainly recommend Logic Pro X for professional use. While GarageBand is an extracted version of Logic Pro X, it has made no compromise in providing users the best audio quality possible. The interface has intentionally been kept user-friendly such that users across all backgrounds will feel at ease using this application. The following list of musicians has taken GarageBand to another level by using various loops and sound effects in professional songs that have hit top charts across the world.
From 2017 onwards, all Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, or Mac) have GarageBand pre-installed as a music application. In that same year, Apple sold over 200 million devices. This only goes to show how Apple is promoting its flagship DAW and urging people to use it as soon as they buy an Apple device.
Musicians who have used GarageBand in major productions
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy is an American musician, singer, songwriter, bass player, and record producer. He gained popularity as a member of the band The Internet which led to a Grammy nomination. What is so spectacular about this artist’s way of producing music is that he completely uses his iPhone or iPad to create beats and tracks. Along with BeatMaker and iMPC, he extensively used GarageBand to produce ‘Damn’ by Kendrick Lamar and ‘Ego Death’ by the Internet. Both these songs earned Grammy nominations each. He started by just recording bass and lead guitar parts into GarageBand. In fact, some of the most famous hits of the Internet in their Ego Death album have beats produced by GarageBand namely Curse and Gabby.
Grimes
Claire Elise Boucher, better known as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and music producer who has used GarageBand to produce the very first of her albums that shot her to fame. Some of the loop genres she used to produce her album ‘Visions’ include dream pop, R&B, electronic music, and hip hop. When she started, she had absolutely nothing at her disposal other than GarageBand for producing her music. She used the application to its best potential to create what would later feature in the Top 100 charts. Grimes is an inspiration to many GarageBand producers as she has led the way to show people how good music can be made out of a free application like GarageBand.
Rihanna
Yes, you read the name right! Rihanna has used GarageBand to produce one of her biggest hits – ‘Umbrella’. Back when it was released in 2007, no one could ever have imagined that a drum loop of GarageBand has been used in the song for the basic rhythm. People hardly had the idea then of how advanced the electronic music scene was. What looked like something that could not have been done without a studio was a simple pop and R&B loop for the Apple loops music library. The song went on to win a Grammy and also reached the important milestone of Billboard Hot 100. Umbrella is also featured in Rolling Stone’s ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’. The GarageBand loop that was used here is the Vintage Funk Kit 03. It is still available in the music library of the application.
George Pringle
George Pringle is a London based musician and well known for his single, ‘Carte Postale’. If you ever wondered which studio this song was produced in, it was in his home studio, on his Macbook, on a DAW called GarageBand. He had some beautiful words to say about GarageBand when he was asked about the make of his song:
“You can put it through an amp emulator, you can change the preset sounds, you turn your voice into an instrument, you can plug old beatboxes into it, you can make your loops. GarageBand is like an instrument itself – if you know how to use it and play it right, you can make virtually any kind of sound.”
Justice
Justice is a French electronic music duo consisting of Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay. They mostly create EDM beats and funky hip hop loops. While most of their music is derived from GarageBand and Logic Pro X, the entire album ‘Cross’ was made using GarageBand specifically. Xavier humorously said in an interview that no one believes that they use DAWs to produce their music, GarageBand being an integral one of them. Justice loves the idea of creating music that common people connect to and they have promised to work more with software like GarageBand to make great music in the future.
