I love GarageBand. It’s is one of the best and most fun products to spring from the minds at Apple in a long time. Just one little problem with it: (Well, actually there are more than one but this isn’t a review of GB) not enough loops. Apple gives us over 1000 loops to play with! Yes that is true. Those loops are spread across many different instruments and keys. Also, once you have made a few songs, it becomes harder and harder to come up with something original and fresh without reusing many of the same loops.

Fortunately, many different companies have begun selling music loops in Apple’s format. The nice thing about these packages is that they work with all of Apple’s audio editing software like GB, SoundTrack, and Logic. The one I’m reviewing today is Tunemedia’s Tuneup Loops for GarageBand Pack Volume One. This is a collection of around 500 loops and there are some real doozys in here. Installation couldn’t be easier. Startup GarageBand and wait for it to finish loading, insert the disk, double-click it from the desktop, and drag the icon labeled “loops” to GarageBand’s edit section and GarageBand does the rest. The loops will be indexed and ready to use after a short wait. Want to find your new loops quickly? Tunemedia made it easy as a Jimmy Page solo (Well, it’s easy if you’re Jimmy Page). Every loop begins with “TU1”. Select a category, slide down to the “T’s” and there they are. I appreciate this since it makes my new eager to be used loops so effortless to get to.

Starting off with 120 Bass loops from Dark Bass to Sub Bass. Mostly geared toward rhythm and dance, but they are well put together and can be used in just about any kind of project.

Want drum loops? Tuneup Loops Volume 1 includes 127 of them. From mood changing Ambient and Electro Beats to the pumping R & B and Rock Beats, there is one to fill your mood. My only complaint about the drumbeats would be that too many of them sound artificial, which is fine for most dance tracks, but they don’t fit Rock or somber mood projects. I like a lot of natural sounding drums and percussions and if you do too, you might be disappointed by the drums and percussion loops in this package.

Next up, there are 5 effects loops. Not many really, but they sound good and make for good breaks. If you’re a Rap maker / lover, you’ll need to get your samples elsewhere. For the few times I use loops like these, these are well done and different enough from Apple’s selections.

My favorite part of this collection is next. Guitars! GUITARS! Well, before I get too excited, there are only 32 of them, BUT THEY KICK! Tunemedia, in your next collection like this, GIVE US MORE GUITARS! Just a suggestion. These loops will scale nicely into any rock or rhythm composition you make. If you need more acoustic or electric guitars than these, consider using some of the Bass or Piano loops from this collection. Many of them convert them quite nicely.

Melodies. There are 9 of them and they’re kind of difficult to describe. Some sound like Asian bells and others put me in mind of the Exorcist theme, they sound cool and I would use these as a background sound to break up repeated rhythms.

Only 5 organ loops in this package and two of those are from Clavinets. Not enough to really do much with unless you’re REALLY into making 70’s era police show theme songs.

There are 19 of what Tunemedia calls Pads sound loops. These are really neat. What these would be great for would be video projects for setting moods. Really good stuff.

20 Piano loops. All good and all different. The Chords and Melodies sets are particularly nice. Do you use Rhodes organs? I don’t, but if you do there are 12 loops to choose from. Enjoy.

I DO however use Strings in my compositions. There are 30 Strings loops and they are not too bad. A little artificial sounding for my tastes, but can be used in tunes with no problem. I wouldn’t use them in the foreground, but for background they’ll work.

Last up, the Synth loops. There are 127 of them in this collection. Enough variety for most tastes. Synth loops are typically used to set rhythm and moods and there are plenty here to do both. My opinion of this collection? I wish there had been more Guitar and Piano loops, and the Strings and Drums sounded a little artificial to me. The collection taken as a whole however is a tremendous value at $35. If you enjoy using GarageBand, don’t pass this collection up.

MyMac.com Rating 4.5 out of 5. High on value! I’m looking forward to the next set in Tunemedia’s collection.

Tune-Up 1 from Tunemedia is a collection of over 500 loops and sounds that you can drop into the GarageBand loop browser. They’re sorted into 11 different categories: Bass, Drums, Effects, Guitar, Melodies, Organs, Pads, Piano, Rhodes, Strings and Synth. This collection focuses mostly on the electronica genre, encompassing dance, trance, house, bounce, chill, rave, etc. So there’s no country western on here but that’s the beauty of add-on packs like this, they can focus entirely on a particular genre of music and provide some genuinely useful and provocative loops, as is the case with Tune Up 1.

So how do you review a collection of individual loops - over 500 of them, even? I decided to give an overall review in addition to my thoughts on each category, so here they are:

Bass: A lot of techno electronica loops but very tasteful ones, not just noise. There’s a strong sense of groove in this collection which I found very appealing. There are a few conventional bass sounds here but mostly the loops are the kind you won’t find by default in GarageBand. These loops are great, good variety and quality, and they’re enough to make anybody feel like a techno super hero.

Drums: Good variety of analog drum machine patterns and effected drums. They generally use chunkier and tastier sounds than Apple loops with a lot more variety. There are some ambient percussion loops too, to fill out your songs. Lots of distressed and distorted loops. The Rock beats seem less like rock than funk though, but this loop set isn’t geared towards rock.

Effects: 5 decent synth effects including a good record scratch.

Guitar: Acoustic guitars seem a little stiff, slightly synthetic but good overall. Funky electric guitars are convincing though, melody guitars are very good, guitar rock really rocks - but there’s no real rock drum loops to go with them. Still, if you need a good distorted rock guitar loop, it’s in here.

Melodies: Melodies are a small assortment of percussive synth melodies. They’re pretty nice, I like the way they flowed and wished there could be more of them.

Organs: Only 5 of these, but they’re good. A couple church organ loops and a couple wurly loops.

Pads: A good number of ambient and dark pads, they’re full and well done. Big, open pads in wide stereo.

Piano: Some chord loops, some grooves and some melodies, this is what other loop packages I’ve seen have been missing. Both acoustic and electric pianos, and the melodies were beautiful. This set is almost worth it just for these piano loops.

Rhodes: Some classic Rhodes loops, chords for doing chill, and dirtier Rhodes for heavier styles. very well done.

Strings: There’s soft and hard attack string loops here, both low and high, Very well done and not synthetic sounding. The mellow loops are contemplative and expressive. Very orchestral and big. Pizzicato strings are effected and suited towards dance. Nice “tense” strings.

Synth:There are more of these than any other group. Large variety, excellent quality. Creative combos of percussion, chords, effects and tone. The loops here work with all manner of electronica sub-genres. There are synth riffs, melodies and sequences, and they’re all well done.

In fact, as I found myself listening to all 506 of them, I realized I would use almost every one of them. That’s unprecedented for me, as I find a lot of loop collections to have a few good ones but a lot of standard or mediocre ones. This collection is different, and as I went through the drum and bass loops I noticed my head was nodding to the beat for almost every loop. There’s a lot to like in this collection, and I definitely recommend it if you’re looking to expand your abilities in GarageBand, especially in the electronica genre. It doesn’t come with any instruments to use in GarageBand, but then it only costs $34.99; well worth it in my opinion.

Reviewer’s score: 5 out of 5

To hear a demo track put together using Pack 1 by the reviewer "Qaqtly", please go to our customer downloads section here

Got GarageBand? If you’re like me, you’ve probably made good use of the 1000 built-in loops. Sure, 1000 loops seems like a lot at first, but I’m willing to bet that you sometimes struggle to find just the right one for your masterpiece. If so, this pack may be your solution. Tune-up for GarageBand Pack 1 is a product made by TuneMedia, a UK company, and comes with just over 500 loops in Apple Loop format.

Installation was a breeze. Just like installing loops downloaded from the net, all you have to do is drag the loops folder from the install CD onto the loop browser in GarageBand. After they’ve been indexed, you can access them the normal way, by choosing instruments and/or categories. Alternatively you can view them all by typing in ‘TU1’ in the search field, since TuneMedia gracefully decided to prefix the name of all their loops to distinguish them from the standard Apple Loops.

Perhaps one of the things that worried me most before I installed the pack was whether they would ‘play nice’ with other loops. I’ve had bad experiences with some loops I got from the Internet, and also with samples I tried to turn into loops. Some wouldn’t change key automatically, and others forgot which tempo they were supposed to be. Fortunately, there have been no such problems with the Tune-Up pack. I transposed, chopped, sped up and slowed down all without a hitch.

Another pleasant surprise I got when I started using the loops was the wide range of instruments and sounds. There are 11 standard instrument categories for the loops, (standard ones like piano, strings, bass, drums, synths) but within these categories are many variations on the sound of each instrument.

Generally, the quality of the loops is excellent. There are only a few where the last note gets cut off or stops too early before it loops. Like the built-in loops, some adapt to different tempos better than others. Even if set to 1bpm faster or slower there are a few loops where the timbre is altered enough to be obvious. But this is a given, and it happens with loops from any source.

Some of you may be thinking at this point, “Why buy loops when I can get them for free of the ‘net?” There are several advantages to buying a CD of loops from a professional distributor. You avoid the sometimes-problematic quality hassles, you don’t have to spend time downloading hundreds of megabytes of files, and with this pack you also get access to free support, extra downloads from a members-only section, and savings on future releases.
In comparison to other similar packs on the market, Tune-Up loops is extremely good value for money. The Jam Pack from Apple is $99 and you get 1000 loops ­ approximately 10 cents per loop. Band Mate Loops are between 18 and 30 cents each. With the discount our members get the Tune-Up pack is $29.99 ­ approximately 6 cents per loop. This price includes free worldwide delivery.

If you’re looking to extend your loop collection with good quality loops but are on a tight budget, don’t go past this pack.
 

When I started this review of TuneMedia's Tune-Up for GarageBand - I was determined to do a very methodical, almost clinical piece.

But then I loaded the 500 plus Apple Loops into my GarageBand Loop Browser...I then started making a track! You can't help it - the old creative juices start flowing and those loops just sound so sweet! There is a nice array of Apple Loops in this collection, they all seem very musical and are mostly very well edited. A couple of the loops I tried had little glitches when looped - nothing too serious though. When they were used in a typical track you can't hear these anyway.

The loops are all prefixed by "TU1" which is a great idea and makes it very easy to find them.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating - and all I can say is that these loops are very tasty. They were a delight to work with and very musical. Often loops tend to sound great as a singular sound but don't quite gel with anything when you try and mix them into a song. No such problem with these babies. I had a lot of fun with them, creating fantastic sounding arrangements with no real skill needed.

The danger with creating pure Apple Loop songs is the chance is that they may be labelled "Lego" by your peers - this audio collection will leave a different impression. With more of a contemporary sound than the bread and butter default GarageBand loops. They will make a great asset for anyone making pop music in many of it's varieties.

Overall I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tune-Up for GarageBand Vol1 to any GarageBand user. They represent excellent value for money and I am sure you'll be making music in no time and having a lot of fun in the process!

To hear a snippet of what this collection is capable of check out "Come Down" All the music except for the guitar, bass and a couple of cymbal effects was made using GarageBand and Tune-Up Vol1. Also be sure to check out the free Demo Loops from TuneMedia's Site to get an idea of what to expect from the full product.

I am very much looking forward to Vol 2... but don't expect much of a review if it's anything like this one - I'll be having too much fun.