Filed under: Audio, Macintosh, Commercial
When GarageBand just isn't musical enough

For the last few years, Windows users have been clamoring for Apple to release it's vaunted GarageBand music creation software on Microsoft's OS. While we can't see this happening any time soon, we will say this: there are just some things GarageBand makes more difficult than they need to be, and for that, Windows users can be happy they have Acid Pro.
If you're a GarageBand user (and what Mac-based musician isn't?) then you've probably wondered how you can create your own digital instruments without spending an arm and a leg on software. Up til now, of course, making your own digital instruments was just too hard, but we suppose Apple figured their own digital instruments (and supplemental Jam Packs) would be enough aural eclectics to satisfy everybody. Sadly, musicians, like all artists, have ever-evolving tastes. What sounded good enough yesterday will sound horrible tomorrow.
That's why Sonic Amigos introduced their PolyPhontics Software Instrument Toolbox for GarageBand. This package will let you create your own software instruments--based on your own recorded samples. So if you think the built-in saxophone sounds like a dying mallard, you can now replace it with a software instrument of your own creation, perhaps sampled straight from grandpa's antique tenor sax... and the PolyPhontics package costs $25, so you could probably pay for it by selling grandpa's sax after you've sampled it.
Since this tool lets you assign an individual sample to each key on the keyboard (there are 88), you could create a very large drumset or percussion instrument with ease. When you're done sampling, PolyPhontics will compile and drop the new instrument into your GarageBand banks folder, and off you go. Check out the video tutorial and you'll be creating instruments in no time. Oh, and if you're a Logic or ProTools user who needs a little more power in your studio than what GarageBand offers, check out Sonic Amigos' high-end version of PolyPhontics, too.

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
