It may be hard to believe, but we are only 14 days away from Christmas. The holidays have arrived and I bet you are already running your favorite Christmas songs on your favorite music service, such as Spotify or Apple Music, but there is a change in the wind with regard to the way in which your next favorite Christmas song could be recorded. .
In addition to releasing iOS 18.2 for the iPhone, Apple releases a major update for Voice Memos, of which Michael Bublé thinks this “the way we will make music forever will change.” Speech memos have long been used to record songs, jam sessions and even ideas for songs from artists, but now the app supports layered recordings of speech memos.
This allows you to place a singing recording over an existing instrument -based number, and all with only your iPhone. However, you need a new one, in particular an iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max with an A18 Pro chip in it. With only that one device you can play the existing instrumental background track via the speakers of your iPhone and use the built -in microphones to absorb your singing in real time.
For example, Michael Bublé, Carly Pearce and producer Greg Wells recorded the singing for their new Christmas song: Maybe this ChristmasOn an iPhone 16 Pro in Speech Memos. After recording and during the process, the A18 Pro chip only insulates the singing by using AI and ML models-probably comparable to what Apple uses within Logic Pro for separating instruments, but the big difference is that this is this For everyone is free on the top class iPhone.
Apple even released a bit behind the scenes with Pearce, Wells and Bublé, in addition to the announcement that layered speech memos were being rolled out. You can see a piece of the process, including the recording on the iPhone, but also thoughts about the wider impact. Bublé is optimistic about it and says: “If an artist has a moment of inspiration, the advantage is that he is not hindered by the traditional studio experience, and not the limitation.”
After completing a layered recording within Voice Memos, the result is two tracks-one with vocals and one with instruments that are synchronized within the app on your Apple devices or that can be exported to another tool such as Logic Pro for extra Mix or recordings. And thanks to a new update for Apple’s professional mixtool for the Mac and iPad, you can also easily send that instrumental base layer to speech memos.
So say that the inspiration strikes, and you write down the lyrics in notes. Ask your band about the basic number; They can record it in Logic and send it to you, and you can put sweet, soulful vocals on your iPhone. It’s pretty crazy.
If you prefer to listen to the new holiday song, “Maybe This Christmas” is now streamed on Apple MusicMixed with spatial audio. Assuming you have carried out the update to iOS 18.2, you will see this new function in speech memos in addition to some important new Apple Intelligence functions such as Genmoji and Image Playground.
And as far as Christmas numbers are concerned, I am still running ‘Santa Claus is Coming To Town’ by Bruce Springsteen … who knows, maybe he and E Street will recording it again with Voice Memos and the historic saxophone solo of Clarence Clemons.