Getting real guitar sound on GarageBand

If you thought playing GarageBand's

Smart Guitar or Smart Bass

seemed a little too mainstream, then you can always rebel by picking up one of your electric instruments and plugging it into your iPad. Go to Guitar Amp in the Instruments list and select it. Now, you'll need to somehow plug your instrument into the iPad. We suggest the

IK Multimedia iRig

that plugs into your iPad's headphone jack and allows you to plug in an instrument through a 1/4'' port. You can also plug your headphones into the iRig so you can hear playback clearer.

Users of GarageBand for Macintosh computers might also want to know if they can plug in a convertor box. This is possible, as with the

M-Audio Fast Track Pro

, though you may want to check if your particular model is compatible with the iPad. Also, our iPad didn't have enough power to power the Fast Track Pro, so we had to connect through a powered USB port and then through the

iPad Camera Connection Kit

and into the iPad.

Once you open

Guitar Amp in GarageBand

, you'll notice an amp with a number of dials that you can toggle to your liking. You'll also notice that you can't actually hear your guitar. To fix this, click the icon that looks like a patch cord and slide Monitor to On. You can also turn Noise Gate On and adjust the sensitivity if you want more or less noise. Slide your finger forwards or backwards to change the amp within the category or tap the name of the amp to change the category.

You can also tap the stomp box icon in the upper-right to open up a list of effects pedals. Tap a pedal or empty space to see a list of available pedals and feel free to play with the dials for different effects. The button at the bottom turns pedals on and off. Tap the amp icon to go back to the amplifier. If you want to tune your guitar, you can tap the tuning fork icon in the upper-left. Play a note and tune your guitar until the note in the center turns blue. That tells you that you've tuned your string to the right note.