Apple GarageBand 1.3 (for iPad) Review

Just as before, you get a choice of basic touch instruments you can play live.

The Tracks window lets you arrange your compositions, split or loop individual regions, and essentially make songs out of your recordings.

The note editor lets you fine tune recorded MIDI data, and the editor is also context-sensitive; shown here is how it looks when you're editing a drum track. Note the drum icons on the left.

GarageBand's smart instruments help you play more expressively, either by restricting the notes to specific scales and chords, or by letting you control playback with multitouch gestures.

The new Smart Strings instrument gives you command of a full string orchestra, with four different styles, several octave ranges, and the ability to play pizzicato, staccato, and legato notes.

I had less success with this view; I found it almost impossible to play a solo cello line on screen without sounding like a tortured cat.

Here's how the Smart Guitar looks. It's enjoyable to play chords, play individual notes, and strum away on this view, and sounds pretty convincing for a $5 iPad app.

The acoustic drum kit view is lots of fun to bang away on, but if you're used to a typical General MIDI-style keyboard layout, it's very difficult to get your groove on with this view.

Here's what happens when you activate a jam session and have one other player (an iPhone 4) join. From this point forward, anything you play or record is locked together on the two devices, so that each person can play a different instrument.

The new Song Browser lets you manage your recordings, including syncing them to iCloud, exporting them to iTunes, or deleting them from the screen. It's still no substitute for a proper file manager, but that's more of an iPad limitation than anything GarageBand-specific.