Those experiments eventually led to the 27-year-old's breakthrough album, Visions, which was recorded entirely on the digital audio workstation, or DAW. Take Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, who spent years tooling around with GarageBand in Montreal's underground scene while searching for her voice as an artist and producer.

For many musicians, the rudimentary software acts as their first home recording tool, digital effects pedal, practice space, and, in many cases, their first bandmate. While GarageBand effects have directly blended into the sound palette of even the most popular music- the beat for Rihanna's 'Umbrella', for one, was created using one of the program's loops-it's played a greater role by compressing the space between an expensive studio and a DIY artist's bedroom, between professionalism and amateurism. And with Apple selling nearly 300 million devices in the last year alone, it's no wonder that GarageBand has engendered praise for its egalitarian simplicity as well as some ire for its creative limitations. Pre-programmed into every Apple device, anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac can open the program and record something amazing (or, perhaps more likely, something totally embarrassing). Over the last decade, GarageBand has become the Starbucks of digital recording studios: consumer-friendly, global, omnipresent.

Garageband beat maker