Finally, I got around to buying the new iLife’09 sofware for my MacBook. After eagerly tearing away the cellophane shrink wrap and effortlessly installing the software. I opened up Garageband ‘09 for the first time.

My inital reaction was that not a lot had changed from the previous release, but how wrong I was. One of the complaints I had about the previous version was the GUI for garageband especially when it came to the effects and virtual instruments.

In Logic - Garageband’s bigger brother you get some amazing GUIs such as the ES2 synth and the space designer reverb effect.  In Garageband ‘09 the GUI has massively improved and looks a lot more professional and intuitive.

This new design is most prominent on the new guitar effects that are featured in this version. They look great - there’s a range of different amps that are modelled on amps from Marshall, Vox and others. The stomp box effects have also had the magic from Apple’s designers and look great as well as been intuitive to use.

As well as the great looks, these new guitar effects sound brilliant too. I was very impressed with the tone that you can get, without having to flip through numerous settings and menus. To be honest the included presets are more than capable of giving you a great electric guitar sound on your recordings.

I also use NI’s Guitar Rig & Amplitube and can say that sonically the Garageband amps sound just as good to my ears, although you don’t get the customizability or the number of options that these two pieces of software provide.

Which leads to my final point, as a musician do you need the extra options, multiple menus, 17 reverbs, 50 synths, etc that more expensive software offers? After trying dozens of different plugins, sequencers and hardware synths I’m coming to the conclusion that what matters is that you can get your musical ideas down quickly and intuitively without fuss. Garageband ‘09 fulfils this remit perfectly, which is probably why you’ve got established artists such as Oasis, Fall Out Boy, Justice, Snow Patrol among others who use Garageband as their main composition tool of choice.