What is the best GarageBand Sound Pack?
If you find yourself looking for even more sounds, or are on the lookout for something in a specific genre, you can add dozens of freely downloadable Sound Packs to GarageBand‘s Sound Library.
Not all Sound Packs are created equal however.
In the video below I share what I think are the Best GarageBand Sound Packs EVER!
What Apple Say
“With the Sound Library, you’ve got instant access to an incredible and expanding collection of free loops and instruments from inside the app. With Producer Packs, you can use royalty-free sounds in your songs that were created by some of the biggest hitmakers in music today. And Remix Sessions let you create your own versions of hit songs.
You can easily manage your library as it grows, and GarageBand will even notify you when new sound packs are released and ready for you to download.”
#5 Rock Drummers
Rock drummers gives users access to 3 new Drummers; Gavin who plays in an indie rock style on the new Indie kit. Nikki, who plays Indie disco on the four on the floor kit and – the reason why this sound pack is in my top 5 – Anders.
Anders plays hard rock on the heavy drum kit and is probably (depending on what genre you’re working with) the BEST of Garageband’s Auto Drummers. Something about the patterns at his disposal and the way the kit he plays has been sampled just makes him almost passable as a real drummer when used in a full project.
#4 Prismatica
Released back in 2019, Prismatica brings Disco back from the dead with it’s collection of funky retro sounding guitar and synth sounds.
Coming with 250 Loops, 3 drum kits and 2 live loop grids there’s a pretty beefy selection of new content in this pack.
What I like about Prismatica and what I think separates it from some of the other Sound Packs is how unique the included loops are. There are thousands of loops available to users in GarageBand’s loop browser at this point, but the ones that come with Prismatica are really unique and in most cases usable in loads of other genres.
#3 Chinese/Japanese Traditional
I’m going to cheat here and lump the Chinese Traditional and Japanese Traditional Packs in together at number 3.
You might be surprised to see these two packs this high on the list, or even on it at all, but the Chinese and Japanese traditional packs do something that no other sound packs do.
They add new playable touch instruments.
Absolutely fantastic, unique additions to Garageband’s collection of touch instruments and a reminder that Apple COULD add more touch instruments to your iPad if they really wanted to…
#2 Keyboard Collection
My number 2 pick adds the most new instrument sounds of any sound pack and they are all absolutely brilliant.
The Keyboard Collection pack was a bit of an oddity when it was released back in 2020, containing only 57 keyboard sounds and 150 software instrument only loops. The sounds on offer here though are absolutely phenomenal. Whether you’re making Hip Hop, Jazz, Rock or German Regge, this is an essential addition to your GarageBand sound library.
#1 Alpha Waves
Back in 2021, Apple briefly came to their musical senses, realised that genres other than Hip Hop do in fact exist and dropped the best GarageBand Sound pack ever.
Alpha Waves just hits different.
It comes with 50 new Alchemy Synth patches and 140 Apple Loops. I’m not exaggerating when I say that these are some of the very best instrument sounds you’ll find anywhere. The Alchemy synth inside GarageBand is already one of the very best synth on iOS anyway, but the new Alpha Wave patches take things to a whole new level.
Nothing else comes close to the quality of the sounds available ion the Alpha Waves pack and that’s why it’s my absolute favourite GarageBand Sound Pack!