SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Forty years ago at
Woodstock,
Jimi Hendrix stirred the crowd with a rocking version of the American national anthem, full of stinging feedback provided by the walls of Marshall tube amplifiers behind him.
Today, Bob Robles can get similar sounds just by plugging his guitar into an Apple laptop.
"The sound quality is amazing," says Robles, a Los Angeles studio musician. "I'm just blown away by it."
Apple has cranked up its offerings for musicians of all kinds — especially guitarists. After a January revamp of its popular GarageBand program, the music-editing software bundled into its iLife suite, guitarists can plug their instruments directly into a Mac via a guitar-to-USB cable and rock out with five simulated amp sounds.
In July, Apple released advanced software ($499 Logic Studio and $199 Logic Express) that includes even more amp and guitar combinations — 25 in all.
And this week, veteran audio gear manufacturer Apogee lets guitarists control their sound hands-free with the launch of the $395 GiO for Mac computers. It lets you tap controls with your feet, like those guitar pedals favored by guitarists going back to Hendrix and his Wah-Wah pedal.
Marrying musical instruments with computers isn't new. For years, musicians have been able to connect with a variety of interfaces, mixers and other tools for making music. But once connected, musicians had to fiddle with a computer mouse and space bar to control the recording process.
"Now you're free to play," says Sean McArthur, director of marketing for Apogee.
Peter Thorn, a Los Angeles guitarist who is currently in Eagle Don Henley's touring group, has used the GiO and says the big advantage is being able to keep his hands on the guitar and not the mouse.
"It's just really cool to be able to do it all with your feet, on the floor," he says.
Apple's GarageBand is far and away the most popular program for creating and recording music on the computer, since it's free and shipped with every new Mac. It was introduced in 2004. (If you have an older Mac and don't have GarageBand '09, you'll need to fork over $79 for the current iLife suite.)
Music software like GarageBand and higher-end programs like Logic, Avid's Pro Tools and Steinberg Media's Cubase have totally revamped how music is made. Bands no longer need to hole up in studios for days. They can record directly to laptops and hand off recorded files to their producers.
Music software sales are booming, according to the National Association of Music Merchants, which represents music shops. Revenue grew to almost $500 million in 2008, from $140 million in 1999.
(Note to guitar players: Besides the axe and software, you'll also need a USB-to-guitar interface cable, and they're not cheap, averaging around $100.)
Veteran producer Tony Berg (Bob Dylan, Squeeze, Aimee Mann) says 80% of the acts he works with now record music at home, with software such as Logic and ProTools.
As a producer, he doesn't mind if the track didn't come from his session. He just takes the tracks and adds them to his final mix later.
"It's their first vision," Berg says, "And it's that spontaneous act of recording that you could never duplicate. If it sounds good, and it grooves, and it complements the song, then nothing else matters."
Back in the 1960s, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones famously heard the opening riff to (I Can't Get No)Satisfaction in his head while sleeping, quickly awoke and sang it into a tape recorder. He then went back to sleep and worked on the song when he woke up.
Now, in country music mecca Nashville, many songwriters begin by recording demos with the internal mikes on MacBooks, says Nashville-based music producer Nathan Chapman, who has produced songs for best-selling artist Taylor Swift. "They record the first version of the song that way, and then re-record it later."
Guitarists who do session work or collaborate with others, like Robles, don't even have to bother re-recording a track later. Robles says plugging his Fender Stratocaster straight into the Mac gives him what he needs and is a huge time and money saver.
"If I get an idea, I don't have to book a studio, hire an engineer and pay an hourly fee to record it," says the guitarist, who has performed with Jackson Browne, Natalie Cole and Lyle Lovett. "Now I just record it directly into GarageBand or Logic, save the file and send it off."
