Garage Band... the missing link

Garage Band on the iPad is really quite spectacular, and certainly a shining example of what the iPad can be used for. I have talked a bit about Garage Band before, but as usual the trick is working out how to move files in the school context. Turns out it is not too much of a problem, though it does mean each student's song file will have to be moved by a teacher (I imagine) one at a time, so this is not ideal.

I thought I knew how to do this... but I was wrong. I was missing a whole extra step that Apple have thrown in. Lets get started!

1) Create your song on the iPad. This will stay on the iPad until someone deletes it, so you can keep on editing the parts or adding new parts.
2) You can see all the songs on the iPad listed if you select My Songs. Swipe the songs left and right to locate the one you want. You can now delete it if required, start a new song (or duplicate an old song) or move it in one of two formats. The email option will not work at school as it assumes it can find your personal email in the email app. This does mean that a school could set up a common email or two for everyone to use to extract material, but I shudder to think at the management of that account in a larger school.
3) The choice of interest is "Send to iTunes". You are asked to select whether to do this as an AAC or a Garage Band file. If you choose the latter, you can import the file into a Mac version of Garage Band. The one we want is "AAC".
4) The iPad will then take a moment to process the file.
5) now connect the iPad to iTunes. What is important is that you do NOT have to sync it... and usually of coure you would not sync a school iPad to a teacher or student's machine.
6) Select the "Apps" tab, and scroll down the bottom. You will see a list of apps that can transfer data between the iPad and the computer. Select Garage Band
7) The song you chose to "send to iTunes" will be listed. Select it then selct "save to...". To add it to iTunes you would normally pop it in the iTunes folder on your computer.


So far so good. You have an audio file you can use in iTunes. How can you make an mp3 to use elsewhere? Simply right click on the file which should be in your song list, and choose convert to MP3 (or copy, then convert). You can then literally drag the file out of iTunes on to the desk top and copy it any way you like. Andrew Lack