• Garage Games To Make Play For Machine

In the past few weeks we’ve covered features of GarageBand that are helpful to nonmusicians—, and using the application’s loops. In this lesson I’d like to address those people who, at one time in their life, were plunked down in front of a piano keyboard and forced to play “.” At the risk of making this all about me, when I played piano professionally one comment I heard over and over was, “I wish I’d kept playing as a kid.” To which I unvaryingly replied, “You could always start again.” But of course that ignored the practicalities of doing so. It meant getting a piano if one wasn’t already ensconced at home, risking other people hearing them while they got back up to speed, and finding a teacher to help them along. Were I presented with the same comment today I’d reply differently: “Get a copy of GarageBand, an inexpensive keyboard, and a set of headphones.” Setting it up In our last lesson I told you that GarageBand has a collection of prerecorded loops and a Drummer track. But this isn’t the only sound it’s capable of producing.

Embedded in the application are software instruments. Essentially, GarageBand turns your Mac into a music synthesizer—one capable of playing purely synthetic sounds as well as mimicking real instruments such as pianos, other keyboards, guitars, drums, basses, voices, and orchestral instruments. You have a few ways to play those instruments. To begin, we’ll concentrate on a real keyboard that you connect to your Mac. Connected musical keyboards use something called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) to transmit the keys you’re playing on the music keyboard to your Mac. At one time these keyboards had a special five-pin MIDI connector and required that you used a MIDI interface between the keyboard and Mac to make the connection.

That’s no longer the case. Most of today’s keyboards have a USB connector.

To set things up, just string a USB cable between the keyboard and the Mac, switch on the keyboard (if it's not powered by the USB connection), and you should be ready to go. There’s no need to install drivers or do much in the way of configuration—GarageBand can automatically sense when such a keyboard is connected to your computer. A not-terribly-expensive MIDI keyboard can get you back to playing. MIDI keyboards from companies such as can be had for about $100 and up.

These use plastic keys and a “semi-weighted action,” meaning that the keys don’t offer nearly as much resistance as a piano when you depress them. You can purchase a sustain pedal to go with the keyboard as well. It plugs into the back of the keyboard and serves the same function as a piano’s sustain pedal—it holds notes when the pedal is pressed and then cuts them off when you release the pedal.

The playing’s the thing Once you’ve connected your keyboard, you can use it to play GarageBand's instruments. To do that, launch GarageBand, and from the project chooser window select Keyboard Collection and click Choose. The GarageBand window will open and display a long list of keyboard instruments in the track headers. The first track— Steinway Grand Piano—will be selected by default. Choose the Keyboard Collection project to get started.

Drop your hand on the MIDI keyboard, and you should hear the sound of a piano. If you don’t, choose GarageBand Preferences Audio/MIDI and look at the MIDI Status entry. It should display at least one MIDI input. If it doesn’t, simply click the Reset MIDI Drivers button. (Also, be sure to check the volume on your Mac and whether the right device—connected headphones or speakers—is chosen in the Output Device pop-up menu.) To play one of the other keyboard sounds, click on its name in the list of tracks.

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If you’d like to record what you’re playing, click GarageBand’s red Record button. (We’ll talk about recording and editing in another lesson.) Other input options I said before that there were other ways to “play” GarageBand. Although it’s hard to imagine a more painful way to do it, you can play single notes by clicking your mouse or trackpad. To do that, choose Window Show Keyboard.

An onscreen keyboard will appear. You can resize the keyboard by dragging on its edges or corners. To play it, just click on keys. Click and hold, and the note sustains until you stop holding. To move to higher or lower parts of the keyboard, either click on the arrows that appear on its right and left side, or click somewhere in the smaller representation of the keyboard.

The key plays with greater velocity (which usually means louder) the farther toward the edge of the key you click. Slightly more useful is the Musical Typing keyboard, which you can invoke by choosing Window Show Musical Typing (-K). When you activate this keyboard you can play GarageBand’s instruments with your Mac’s keyboard.

Garage Games To Make Play For Machine

The Mac’s A key corresponds to the Middle C pitch. S is the D note a whole step above Middle C, D is E, F is F, G is G, H is A, J is B, and K is C, an octave up from Middle C. So, the keyboard’s middle row of keys acts as the piano’s “white keys.” The W, E, T, Y, U, O, and P keys are the piano’s “black keys.” Play GarageBand with your Mac's keyboard.

With the Musical Typing keyboard you can play multiple keys at the same time. For example, press A, D, and G to play a C major chord.

But wait, there’s one more thing. If you have an iPad 2 or later running iOS 6 or later, download Apple’s free from the App Store. Launch it, and it will look for any open copy of GarageBand (or Logic Pro X or MainStage 3) on your local network. On the Mac you’ll be cued to grant it access to GarageBand. Then, back on the iPad, tap on the View menu (in the app’s top-left corner), tap Smart Controls & Keyboard, tap the keyboard layout below, and a virtual keyboard appears. Tap on this keyboard’s keys (it too can play multiple notes simultaneously), and GarageBand’s sounds play through your Mac.

You can also play and control GarageBand with your iPad. Above the keyboard you’ll see the current instrument’s smart controls. For a piano, this includes knobs for controlling low and high tones and reverb. For an organ sound, you see drawbars and switches. To change instrument sounds, just tap on the right or left arrows that sit beside the instrument name at the top of the Logic Remote screen. You’ll find that you can also control GarageBand’s transport (the Back/Stop, Play, and Record functions) from Logic Remote (along with several other features that we won’t go into in this lesson).

A little extra help You’re now set up to revisit “Bone Sweet Bone” and other childhood favorites except for one thing—you’ve almost entirely forgotten what the keys are called and how to properly manipulate them. GarageBand (with the single $5 in-app purchase that gets you all of GarageBand's content) can help with this as well. Close the current project to return to the project chooser window. In that window select Learn to Play and then click the Piano Lesson tab. You’ll spy a single lesson called Intro to Piano. Click on it and in a short time a young man named Tim will take over your Mac’s screen.

Tim is the instructor for both GarageBand’s guitar and piano lessons. I won’t waste your time explaining how the lessons work, as the interface is quite intuitive. GarageBand's teacher, Tim, will set you on the right musical path. When you’ve learned everything you can from that lesson, close the window and click the Lesson Store entry in the project chooser. Click Piano Lessons and you’ll see three artist lessons along with Pop Piano, Classical Piano, and Basic Piano lessons. If you’re starting out or looking for a quick reminder on how to play, select Basic Piano. In the resulting window you can choose to download all eight lessons or download lessons singly.

And yes, they’re free with that in-app purchase. Of course, if you’ve already mastered the piano and wish to take up the guitar, choose those lessons instead. While GarageBand’s lessons are no substitute for a real teacher who can give you feedback, they’re organized and presented well and cover the basics. And that’s it. When we next meet, you’re welcome to begin with, “I wish I’d kept playing as a kid,” but I hope that you’ll then ably close with, “so I did something about it and am trying again with GarageBand.” Next week: GUITAR!!!!!

Ready for a career in the hectic world of auto repairs and services? Do you believe you have the skill set required to combine the challenging ‘hands-on’ aspect of a car / truck repairs shop with the day-to-day running of the successful business? If you think you’ve got what it takes, it’s time to don your work gloves - and get right down to it! Garage Tycoon is a stimulating, high-speed virtual mechanic game for boys and girls where you have to quickly and efficiently carry out repairs and general services for a steady stream of customers. By performing essential maintenance on all sorts of vehicles in good time, you earn valuable virtual income which can be used to buy spare parts, and generally upgrade your business. If you keep hitting your income targets, you can transform your humble service station into a massive nationwide franchise!

This high-octane, pressure-filled business simulation game requires a great deal of concentration and fast mouse-clicking action on your part. The customers come thick and fast with a variety of different requests, so you have to be very much on your toes to make sure you fulfill their order in good time. As well as quick reactions, you also have to display savvy business acumen as you must carefully replenish stocks and hit sales targets in each level. The world of auto repairs is a highly competitive area – you simply cannot allow customers to leave disappointed! Ok Garage Tycoon, it’s time to exhibit some solid business know-how! Good luck too, as every business needs a bit of luck! How to Play: Your objective is to consistently hit your ‘sales targets’ at the top of the game screen by efficiently repairing and servicing the many vehicles that come through your busy garage.

The often banged-up cars and trucks pull up at the gate of your store. Click on the Green Check Mark beside the vehicle to accept the job (the vehicle then appears in one of the 6 main parking lot spaces).

Your store provides four different services: Body Repairs, Tune Up, Paint Job, and Wash. By hovering your computer mouse over the customer's machine, you can see which of these jobs is required by their corresponding icons above each ‘service garage station’. Click and drag the car or truck to the specific requested station(s) to begin the service.

Once the Green Bar above the station is filled, the vehicle automatically appears back in the main parking lot. Note: You have to double-click on a vehicle in order to begin a ‘Wash’. This can be done while the vehicle is in the main parking lot. When you have completed all of the required services, a Green Arrow flashes above the vehicle. Drag it to the open parking space beside the main office (on the left hand side of the game screen) to complete the transaction.

You don’t receive payment from the customer until you have moved the finished vehicle to this ‘collection parking spot’. The faster you complete all of the services, the more virtual cash you earn. If you fail to complete the work on the vehicle before the red Timer Bar (above the vehicle) runs out, you lose out on any possible income from that car. Occasionally, you have to order ‘Spares’ from the tab at the bottom of the game screen. Try not to wait until you are prompted to do this, as you waste valuable time. If you get a couple of seconds in between cars, order your spares in that time. Keep hitting your virtual income ‘sales targets’ in order to increase your ‘Level’.

This, in turn, attracts more customers to your garage. Enjoy your work! If this Flash-based game no longer works on IE11 on your PC / MAC, try playing on Chrome or Firefox browser. Due to new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements for websites & browser cookies, we are unfortunately unable to load this game file in EEA countries at this time. The new requirements mean great additional site management cost and potential loss of ad-related income needed to support game sites & developers. Thank you for playing games on our site over the years.

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