This week we’re getting back to our discussion of the features in Apple’s new upgrade to the iLife suite of digital lifestyle applications. Why am I spending so much time on iLife ‘05? The iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand applications that make up the suite are a major part of what makes a Mac a Mac. Singularly, they are as good as or better than any consumer digital media applications on any platform. However, no platform but the Macintosh can offer the interoperability and synergy between applications that powers iLife.

I mentioned last time the 15 gorgeous new themes and support for all popular DVD formats (including rewriteable DVDS on some SuperDrive models). I also briefly mentioned two new features I want to expand on this week.

Suppose you want to just archive your digital video to DVD without editing it. iDVD ’05 now includes OneStep DVD. Simply plug in your camcorder, and insert a blank DVD. iDVD takes control of your camcorder, rewinds the tape, and imports and masters your video directly to the DVD as an AutoPlay movie.

When you complete an iDVD project and burn it to a DVD disk, iDVD will ask you if you want to burn multiple disks while the rendered project is available in memory, saving you time on subsequent burns. If you don’t do multiple burns then and quit iDVD, your project will need to be re-rendered and encoded again next time.

Sure enough, you’ll make a DVD for someone, and later on they (or someone else) will want another copy. To save time, with iDVD ’05 you can save fully-rendered and encoded projects as Disc Images. A Disc Image is a file that the Mac treats like a CD, DVD, or hard drive. Double-click it, and it “mounts” the Disc Image like a CD. You’ve most likely seen a Disc Image in action when installing software on your Mac. So, when you need to make another DVD of your project, you just use burn the DVD from the Disc Image. It’s also a great way to archive your projects.

Now, on to GarageBand, iLife’s home music recording studio, or “band in a box”. With GarageBand ’05 you can record up to eight real instrument or vocal tracks and one Software Instrument track at the same time (with appropriate third-party audio input/output hardware, of course). Got a singer who’s slightly off key, or a note that needs to be moved forward just a half-beat to make it perfect? GarageBand can enhance both tuning and timing. You can also easily save those perfect passages as loops, to be used later.

Always wanted to see your masterpiece on paper as sheet music? No problem. GarageBand can display full music notation of any live or software instrument recording. Once recorded, you can edit the music by manipulating the notation. Sadly, you cannot print your sheet music directly from GarageBand. That feature is reserved for Apple’s high-end Logic recording application. You can, however, do some creative cutting and pasting to preserve your music on paper.

Another nice feature in GarageBand ’05 turns your computer keyboard into a, well, keyboard keyboard. It’s called “Musical Typing”, and it’s a window that lets you play notes on your keyboard, as well as change the octave, change modulation, bend pitch, or turn sustain on or off. It takes some getting used to, but will suffice for quick fingering when a keyboard’s not at hand.

Finally, GarageBand includes a built-in instrument tuner to get everyone started on the right note.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski