Even though Auto-tune - that funky robot effect that ruled the radio for a big chunk of 2008 - has been officially declared dead by no less a rap superstar than Jay-Z himself, people still went nuts for T-Pain's Auto-tune app on the iPhone. You don't have to have an iPhone (or pay hundreds of dollars for official Antares Auto-tune software) to get that T-Pain sound, though. In fact, you can do it with an app that comes preloaded on the average Mac: Garageband. Check out the gallery for a step-by-step guide to bringing the T-Pain.

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.

For those non-Mac using readers, today may well have been just your normal day. However for us Mac-loving folk, today saw a special event at Apple HQ. Whilst Apple unveiled some shiny new hardware, they also unveiled arguably the most long-expected software upgrade ever: the iLife '08 suite. So what's new? Well from the look of things, it's a fair bit. iPhoto and iMovie saw the most change, with iMovie apparently undergoing a substantial re-write.

iPhoto brought us a whole new set of consumer-friendly tricks, such as 'events' where instead of simply going by date you can effectively stack a number of images into one group, set a 'poster' image which represents the event, and easily 'skim' through the contents of an event, without having to expand the event's pictures within the user interface. Whilst some sites' initial reaction seemed to simply claim these as glorified albums, the implementation of events seems similar to 'stacks', a feature from Apple's professional photography application Aperture, allowing you to group photos in expandable stacks based on periods of time between shots. On top of Events, there's a far more complete set of editing tools, and the ability to easily apply a set of adjustments from one photo to another. One final, rather important feature to note was the integration with an enhanced .Mac service, allowing you to upload photos from your Mac, iPhone and even you PC to the service. Photos are then added to the online Gallery, and even sync back to the original iPhoto library the gallery came from. Apple have even provided a demo of the new gallery, which can be found here.

According to Apple chief Steve Jobs, iMovie was significantly re-written following an Apple engineer's inability to make a movie of footage within 30 minutes and the result is a significantly changed application, which not only offers enhanced editing, but also a neat media cataloguing ability, similar to the third-party iDive application. The new version is seemingly designed with quick, polished results in mind with more ways to "add polish quickly" throughout. There's even a super-handy 'Export to YouTube' option, thanks to the Google - Apple partnership.
iWeb saw yet another extension of the partnership with Google, allowing users to easily add Google Maps, Adsense and YouTube clips and more via Widgets in an iWeb page. iWeb '08 also allows the use (finally) of custom domains, and creates "enhanced photo pages" which allow you to share yet more photos via an iWeb site.

GarageBand '08 also offers you yet more tools in the digital armoury, with Magic GarageBand creating bands for you (!) by choosing a style, instruments in the band, and then allowing you to plug in your guitar or keyboard and get recording. Other tools such as the Arrangements tool (where you specify a section of a song as a chorus or verse etc) and Automation of tempo effects will undoubtbly help new users organise their next hit song better.

The $79 upgrade fee for current iLife owners seems, perhaps unusually, a very fair price for a compelling upgrade. The new version is available today, although there's a few days wait via Apple's online store.

You mean Microsoft isn't going to quit making iLife-style apps just because Macs can boot into Windows? Well, I doubt Windows Movie Maker is going anywhere. And Max, Vista's photo application, is set to be a major selling point to the consumers out there. So I can only think Monaco, or Vista's answer to GarageBand, will also be at least a bullet point on the back of the box (which box remains a question). There's a heated discussion on this topic over at ArsTecnica's M-Dollar. One comment to note: Microsoft set out to dominate the office, which they did. Apple set out to dominate the creative studio, which they did. Now we see each traveling to the other corner of the ring (Apple's got rack-mountable servers, a true server OS, and iWork for what its worth), what will be the result? I can't wait to see the Monaco interface. I have been intrigued with Max, and it'll be interesting to see what Vista technologies are leveraged by Monaco in a similar fashion. So far not enough details have emerged about Monaco to make a call... Let the Studio battle begin!