Book excerpt: Whether you're a professional musician or a mere novice, Apple's GarageBand software has everything you need to produce commercial-quality recordings entirely on your own. Just imagine how many thousands of singers and instrumentalists remain undiscovered because they lack the capability to produce viable demos. Well, no more. Now there's no need to assemble a backup band or book time at a professional studio--GarageBand has it covered. And GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual gives you the know-how you need to make it all happen. It's an authoritative, witty guide to constructing digital recordings with GarageBand. Written by the master of the Missing Manual series, and a musician himself, David Pogue, this top-selling book shows you how to maximize the program's entire set of tools. Pre-recorded loops, sampled sounds, live recordings--they're all explained in easy-to-understand language. It also shows you how to apply professional-sounding effects like reverb or chorusing, and then export the finished product to iTunes, where you can download your work to an iPod, export it as an MP3, or burn it onto CDs. Now revised to reflect GarageBand's latest features, this book's second edition also addresses how to: use GarageBand's eight-track capabilities display music notation in real time enhance timing and pitch for better quality recordings change the tempo and key of recorded instruments tune guitars with GarageBand before recording So if you're chasing a dream or just having fun, GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual is the only resource you need to make the finest musical recordings possible.