Garageband...

I am no musician, but have owned an iMac now for around four years. During that time I have had Garageband installed. I have dipped in and out very occasionally as I would like nothing more than to be able to get my head around it just for my own amusement really. I would at least like to be able to record my electric guitar with loops and tracks etc, just try to be a bit creative and see what comes out. The problem that I have is that perhaps its me, but every time I try to get to grips with this software, I just can't seem to get my head around it, even to begin to do something. I have now recently downloaded 10.0.2 which is confusing in itself, as, as far as I can ascertain that is actually version 11, but I'm not even sure about that. I have also recently purchased a Rocksmith RealTone Cable to connect my guitar. I can sometimes get a sound come out, but nothing to brilliant. And every time I try to set something up, it just doesn't seem to work out. I end up hitting buttons and controls in the simple hope that I may hit the correct control in order to get some sort of result. But I'm kind of fumbling in the dark with this. I have trawled the Internet just trying to find either a good manual or video tutorials for absolute beginners, but there just simply doesn't seem to be anything of that nature out there and what there is appears always to be very sketchy and not particularly detailed in explaining anything properly, and so I always find myself seemingly jumping in with both feet and just struggling to try and find a foothold with this on how to really begin. It is so frustrating as I can see the fantastic potential of this software, but just can't understand how to use it properly. If there is anyone out there who may be able to offer me some advice with this, I would be most grateful indeed... Many Thanks.

P.S. If I have posted this to the wrong section please advise...

You're in the right place and hopefully someone will come along and give you some help. I tried doing some simple things with the new GarageBand such as creating a ringtone for my iPhone. I gave up after several tries and went back to the older version which was easier to understand.

There are innumerable free tutorials on garageband on the net, youtube, etc.

There are another metric tonne of low-cost tutorials from places like Lynda.com.

There are books.

I'm not a musician, but I opened Garageband, plugged in a USB mic (acknowledged "change sound source" dialog), added a track and pressed record. Seemed to work fine.