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iReal Pro is an iOS and Mac-based program to help musicians of all levels, even aspiring ones, make better music. It simulates a three-piece band that can accompany you as you practice and also lets you collect chord charts from your favorite songs for reference. iReal Pro also allows you to export your songs as chord charts or audio files that you can share with other musicians.

In this episode, Mike helps you discover iReal Pro on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. You learn the basic playback options, how to change styles, keys, and tempo, and how to use Practice Mode to help you develop your skills. Mike wraps up by showing you a real-world example: Exporting a song from iReal Pro and using it alongside a home video in iMovie.

This week's tip is all about using iTunes views to access your music.

The main views all look very pretty, but they aren't very information dense, at least, not enough for my liking.

In this tip, I cover the main views, but focus mainly on the Song view, and take a look at using the Column Browser. The Column Browser allows you to display more information on screen, and allows you to filter your music with a greater degree of control.

Using Genres is a bit of a blunt instrument to organise and categorise your music. What if you have a ton of Rock tracks but many many different "sub genres"? Well it's possible to create your own "sub genres" using the "Groupings" feature.

All is revealed in this week's tip show.

One of the problems of keeping on top of the latest developments in Mac and iOS is the sheer number of updates to apps over time. These can range from minor to major updates, and are designed to fix issues or introduce brand new functionality. So for this week, I’m going to take a look at a number apps that I’ve previously covered on ScreenCastsOnline, and bring you up to speed with the latest updates. 

The three apps are Hazel, Ulysses & Garageband Live Loops

The third and final Plex instalment. Following on from the previous Plex episodes, I take a further look at some of the benefits of a full Plex Pass subscription.

With the advent of the Plex Apple TV app, Plex has suddenly become hugely popular with the Mac community.

Use Plex to organise, play and share your local media library.

Apple Music has now been out for a couple of months, and it’s still the cause of much frustration for some people.

There seems to be a deep misunderstanding of some of the core concepts, as well as a feeling that Apple is perhaps expecting too much of iTunes, by shoehorning too many features into this very old application.

In this show I’m going to try and dispel some of the FUD - that’s Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, that seems to be prevalent, and try and explain in detail what Apple Music is, and how the various components work together.

Musixmatch Lyrics Finder is a great free app to enable you to view lyrics for the currently playing Apple Music track. It’s actually three components: an iOS App, a Today Widget and an Apple Watch app.

Apple Music is here! 

Apple Music is is the latest offering from Apple combining three new services - a new music streaming service, a new global Radio channel and Connect - a new way for fans to follow and interact with artists.

Launched just a few short days ago, this episode brings you up to speed with installing and configuring this new service. 

MUSIC is here and it’s made for iOS!

MUSIC is the latest offering from Apple combining three new services - a new music streaming service, a new global Radio channel and Connect - a new way for fans to follow and interact with artists. Whilst MUSIC is great on the Mac, it’s even better on iOS.

Launched just a few short days ago, this episode brings you up to speed with installing and configuring this new service on iOS.

The third tutorial taking a look at the new Apple Watch, in which I delve more deeply into some of the new features, namely Email, Photos and Music .

The third and final episode covering the new features of GarageBand for the Mac.

In this episode, I take a look at using the built in keyboards and connecting external keyboard controllers. I also cover organising your tracks and using track automation to control volume, pans and much more. Finishing off with a look at the various ways you can export your finished masterpiece.

As a special bonus, I also include a section on using your iPad to control Garageband on your Mac - pretty cool!

Take a great application and make it even better! That's what Rogue Amoeba have done with their flagship Audio application - Audio Hijack 3.

Now renamed as simply Audio Hijack, the "Pro" label has been dropped as the application should really be considered as an all purpose tool, rather than a Pro tool. Further to this, they've simplified the user interface and included a number of presets for different project types to get you up and running quickly.

Continuing on from last week, I take a look at some of the new features of GarageBand for the Mac.

This episode explores the brand new Drummer feature, as well as recording live instruments such as Guitar and Bass. I also take a look at how you can fix sloppy or problematic recordings using Flex Time and Groove Matching.

A long overdue show, this week I return to Garageband on the Mac.

It's been quite a while (can you believe 2008!) since I looked at Garageband on the Mac and since then the app has had a complete re-write.

It may have lost Podcast support, but with a new user interface and some stunning new features, it's still an extremely powerful and impressive application.

GarageBand for iOS was one of the first applications to be released as a fully touch enabled application for the iPad and iPhone.

Elevating the iPad and iPhone from just a device for consumption of content to a true creative platform, GarageBand has some unique features and is an incredibly powerful application.

In this third and final part, I take a look at how easy it is to create multitrack songs with no musical experience.

GarageBand for iOS was one of the first applications to be released as a fully touch enabled application for the iPad and iPhone.

Elevating the iPad and iPhone from just a device for consumption of content to a true creative platform, GarageBand has some unique features and is an incredibly powerful application.

In this second of a three part series, I take a look at some of the "Smart Instruments" - it's really easy to create songs without any musical knowledge. A good ear does help however!

GarageBand for iOS was one of the first applications to be released as a fully touch enabled application for the iPad and iPhone.

Elevating the iPad and iPhone from just a device for consumption of content to a true creative platform, GarageBand has some unique features and is an incredibly powerful application.

Plex is a complete solution for local and online media. It's been a couple of years since I abandoned Plex and stuck with a rigid 100% Apple solution for my media playback, the main issue being playing content on the AppleTV.

However, recent developments in the Plex ecosystem has caused my to re-evaluate my stance and convinced me to return to Plex. Boy, has it changed and improved! Plus, it's now possible to configure your Apple TV to access your Plex Library, along with virtually every other device.

In this show, I take you through digitising personal media such as DVDs and Blu-Rays in preparation for creating your digital media library in Plex. I also demonstrate installing the Plex Media Server, and take a brief look at configuring your Plex Media Server and using various clients for playback.

Plex is a complete solution for local and online media. Following on from this week's Mac show, I demonstrate the capabilities of the Plex App for iOS.

As a universal app, it works on the iPad, iiPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to access and stream media from your pled Media Library. With the addition of a PlexPass subscription, you can even sync media from your Plex Media Library, direct to your iOS device for offline viewing.

Add in a free myPlex account, and access your Plex Media Library remotely across Wifi or Cellular.

It also acts as a remote for your Desktop media player.

iTunes Match is Apple's unique service that allows you to access your iTunes music collection in the cloud, from any supported device - Mac, iOS or Apple TV.

This tutorial takes you through the intricacies of setting up your iTunes music collection with iTunes Match.