Apple launches new Music Memos app to help musicians make songs

The new Music Memos app can analyse songs and automatically add instrumentation or transfer them into notation

Apple has announced two new music apps for iPhones and iPads.

The company has updated its popular GarageBand app, with new features that are meant to make it easier to make music. And it also released a new Music Memos app that allows people to more quickly note down their song ideas.

Music Memos is a development of Voice Memos, the app that already allows people to record short audio messages on their iPhone. The new app adds features like higher quality recordings, the ability to tag information — and a feature that can analyse the recordings and instantly add drums and other instruments.

Those smart tools are the headline feature of the app, and Apple claims that it will allow people to quickly develop music from ideas into songs. The app is also able to analyse the chords that are being played and show them in notation, for instance.

The new version of GarageBand brings a new interface that arranges songs into collections of cells, triggering loops and samples in a similar way to DJ hardware. It also adds the drummer feature that is available on the desktop, which can intelligently add drum tracks to songs by analysing what is being played.

Apple released the new apps with a set of comments from music stars.

“Sometimes ideas come faster than I can get them into my notebook so I've used Voice Memos and Notes to quickly capture songs before they're lost. Music Memos is like if those two apps came together to form some kind of superpower for songs,” said Ryan Adams. “It quite literally blew my mind how Music Memos could transform a single guitar idea into a whole composition with a virtual drummer loose enough that it felt like you were having your mind read by some A.I. musician and a choice of stand-up or electric bass accompaniments.”

T-Pain, who said that he had recorded his first album on GarageBand, claimed that the new update will “change the way an entire generation makes music”.

Music Memos is free from the App Store and is compatible for every iPhone since the 4s and every iPad but the first one.

GarageBand comes free with most new iOS devices and is available for £3.99 for everyone else. Anyone who already has the existing version of GarageBand will be available to upgrade to the new one for free.