GarageBand ’11, the much-anticipated update to Apple’s wonderful GarageBand application, has a number of new features that make recording and creating music even easier than before. I’m currently updating my two ebooks—Take Control of Making Music With GarageBand and Take Control of Recording With GarageBand. Here's a list of what I plan to change:

• Flex Time and Groove Matching: Flex time lets you fix imperfect performances and correct rhythmic mistakes quickly and easily. I’ll show you how you can easily move those off notes so they line up with the rest of your tracks. I’ll also walk you through the Groove Matching feature, which let’s you lock an entire track to the timing of another. So if, for example, you’re trying to use two loops with slightly different grooves, you can now make one of them sync up with the other so they’re in perfect rhythm.

• New guitar amps: Apple has added 7 new guitar amp models to their roster of virtual gear. There are now 12 different amp models to choose from, giving you a wide variety of tones and sounds for your songs. They’ve also thrown in 5 new stomp boxes, giving you a whole studio full of virtual toys to play with. I'm planning to talk about strategies for getting great guitar tones, how to get the most out of one guitar, and how to use guitar amps and stompboxes to effect other instruments as well.

• Synth programming: GarageBand’s synths aren’t the most full-featured models out there, but they’re capable of some interesting tones. I’m adding a section on programming the GarageBand synths so you can create all kinds of new, exciting sounds to use in your compositions.

• Personalizing you loops: GarageBand comes with some great loops, but they're pretty ubiquitous. I'll show you how to add effects and use other tricks to make your loops more unique, and I'll walk you through the creation of a new tune using a wide variety of loop-warping techniques.

• Mixing and effects: I plan to add to to the sections on effects and mixing, giving you more information and a lot of tips and tricks to make your masterpieces really shine.

• Interfaces and mics: I plan to update the sections on audio interfaces and microphones, adding some newer equipment and suggesting compelling options for those on a budget (which is all of us, really!).

• Creating a Ringtone: I touched on iPhone ringtones in past editions, but I'm adding a much more detailed walkthrough, showing you exactly how to write and export your very own personal ringtones.

—Posted by Jeff Tolbert on December 10, 2010