Hands-On GarageBand: The Instruments
GarageBand (GB) is to music what Word is to writingit's a way to get the result you want without worrying about underlying complexities. It allows you to focus on results, letting the program crunch away on getting you there. GarageBand is simple in its interface, yet powerful in data manipulation. But like working with Word, there will be times when you want to change the ways that GarageBand processes information and alters it. We'll look at some of the tools available to you when in GarageBand that are built in to the program and can change how instruments sound.
Audio Units
Audio Units (AUs) are plug-ins first developed by Apple for their high-end music applications such as Soundtrack and Logic, and were migrated to GarageBand. They work with the Core Audio functions that are built into OS X since version 10.2. Core Audio is the system code that generates sounds, whereas Audio Units are the instructions that tell Core Audio exactly what to do. Most of the Audio Units are buried within the GarageBand interface, but let's dig them up and see if we can't make them boogie.