Working and recording in timeline view

GarageBand for iPad is capable of

recording up to eight different instrument tracks

for simultaneous use in a single project. Once you've finished recording one instrument you can simply tap the Instruments button at the top to select a new one and continue your recording. Do this with up to eight instruments to give your projects more depth and character.

While using a GarageBand instrument, tapping record will start recording what you're playing. You'll hear the metronome kick in if you've turned it on and you'll see an indicator moving across a red recording bar, reflecting the length of this segment that you're recording. Once it hits, the end the bar will turn green and play back what you've just recorded. If you don't like what you've recorded, just hit the stop button to stop, then hit record to record over what you've just done.

There is another view that might be familiar to users of GarageBand for the Mac. Once you've recorded at least one instrument, you'll see an icon that looks like a series of lines appear at the top. Tap this and you'll see your project laid out in timeline view. Each of the lines corresponds to the instrument you'll see to the left. You can also pull that tab out to see more information on your instruments.

The real benefit to timeline view comes with having the ability to

edit your individual tracks

. Tap part of a track to move it back and forth or up and down. Tap a track again to see a menu where you can cut, copy, paste or delete part of a track. You can also choose to loop a section or split it into smaller pieces. Of course there's also an undo button that allows you to reverse a recent edit. Also, there's a button in the lower-left that allows you to quickly add a new instrument if you haven't used all eight slots.

One thing to keep in mind is that you'll be recording in sections by default, which you can change by tapping on the puzzle piece icon in the upper-left. This allows you to add sections, duplicate sections, change section length or even see all sections. Another thing to remember is that, unlike the Mac version, you don't have the option of editing individual notes. This means that if you record a bum note over an otherwise good section of music, you might be stuck with it.