Record your debut album using Garageband Brandon Arnold, Instructor

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Record your debut album using Garageband Brandon Arnold, Instructor brandon.arnold@nebo.edu Garageband is free software that comes with every new Mac computer.

1 Record your debut album using Garageband Brandon Arnold, Instructor Garageband is free software that comes with every new Mac computer. It is surprisingly robust and can be used to create professional quality music and audio for any type of project. With garageband, you can record live audio through microphones, via a USB keyboard, or even plug a guitar straight into the computer. The newest version of garageband also comes with a variety of customizable drummers. In this introduction you will learn how to do the following: 1. Setup a project 2. Create New track and adjust settings 3. Edit and loop tracks 4. Get audio from midi files, loops, keyboard, and live inputs 5. Adjust volume and effects 6. Export for CD/iTunes, etc. Setup garageband project For now, let s keep the default settings and choose empty project.

Adjust drummer settings For our first track, let s add a Drummer.

2 Adjust drummer settings For our first track, let s add a Drummer. Kyle is the default, but if you want a different sound, click on his picture and choose a different drummer. You can then choose from any of the preset drum beats, or you can customize any of them to your needs. Drag the circle around the matrix to make it louder/softer or simpler/more complex. You can also adjust the individual parts of the drum kit and the fills. Edit / loop / copy tracks

If you hover your mouse over the upper right corner of a clip, it will change into a rotation symbol. Now drag that to the right and it will loop the clip.

To cut out part of a track, put the playhead cursor at the spot you want to cut, then choose split regions in the edit menu.

3 If you hover your mouse over the upper right corner of a clip, it will change into a rotation symbol. Now drag that to the right and it will loop the clip. This looped area shows up as greyed out. To cut out part of a track, put the playhead cursor at the spot you want to cut, then choose split regions in the edit menu. To copy, select the source region, then hit Command C, then put your playback cursor where you want to paste and hit Command V. Create new track Click the plus symbol above the drum track to add a new track. Let s choose a software track. The default sound is a Classic Electric Piano, but you can choose anything you like.

4 Record midi instruments If you have a USB keyboard plugged in, it will automatically use that for the audio. Otherwise, go to Window>Musical Typing Now you can type notes directly from your keyboard. You can also play with Pitch Bending, Octaves, Modulation, and Velocity. If you want to practice first, just hit the play button. When you re ready, hit the record button.

5 Groove Track Probably while you were typing, some of the timing is off compared to the drum track. Garageband can fix this for you easily.

Click this star, and the drummer becomes the Groove Track.

6 right click on one of the tracks and choose Show Groove Track. Now, when you hover over the drum track, a star will appear. Click this star, and the drummer becomes the Groove Track. Now if you click the check box for any of the other tracks, their notes will be instantly synched to match the timing of the drum track.

These little lines represent each note and they can be dragged around and shortened and exteneded as you like.

7 Fixing Notes In addition to timing, if you played the wrong note, you can go back and adjust it. Just double click on the clip, that will open the editor at the bottom of the screen. These little lines represent each note and they can be dragged around and shortened and exteneded as you like. You can even add notes by holding the command key. Add garageband loops If you click the loops button in the upper right, you will see all the available loops. You can narrow these down by instrument or type.

8 Let s try the Shaker. Now we can select any of these loops and drag them over to our project in the empty area below our existing tracks.

9 We can also extend the loop indefinitely. Record live voice/instruments Let s add another track, this time a microphone.

The default track doesn t have any effects, but you can choose from all

If Input Monitoring is turned on, you should be able to hear your

If you d rather not hear yourself, click monitoring off.

10 The default track doesn t have any effects, but you can choose from all kinds of presets as well. If Input Monitoring is turned on, you should be able to hear your voice/instrument through the speakers. If you d rather not hear yourself, click monitoring off. You can also mute tracks or solo tracks using the buttons to the left. If you can t hear anything, you might need to adjust the input device in Garageband > Preferences.

Import Midi files You might want to play around with pre recorded midi files. These are easy to find and download from the web.

11 Anything you record with the mic can also be looped and manipulated just like the other tracks. You can record a guitar or bass the same way, just plug your guitar straight into the line input of your computer. Import Midi files You might want to play around with pre recorded midi files. These are easy to find and download from the web. Here I just did a search for beethoven moonlight midi and came to this site. I right click to save the file. All midi files will end in.mid. Then I can drag this file straight into my garageband project and it will populate the default instruments.

12 Adjust project settings Now might be a fun time to see what happens when we change the key or tempo of our project. Go ahead and Change the bpm to 60, and the key to F min and listen to how it changes. Add and manipulate effects Once you ve got the notes of a track right, you can play around with the effects. In the upper left corner, turn on the smart controls.

13 This will open up the controls for that track on the bottom. Now if we click on the little i for inspector, we can adjust the effects, or add new ones. See that blank spot below tape delay? If we click there we can add anything we want. Like a custom guitar amp.

14 Go ahead and play around with this. Or if you want to get extra wild, the pedal board is a lot of fun too.

Adjust volume / pan Alright, we re almost there. Before we export the project, we want to check the volume of each track to make sure they re at the right level.

15 Adjust volume / pan Alright, we re almost there. Before we export the project, we want to check the volume of each track to make sure they re at the right level. Some instruments you ll want louder than others, and some you might want to fade in and out. You can adjust the overall volume of a track with the volume slider. But if you want the volume to change as the song plays, you can turn on Automation. First click the button at the top of the project.

Then turn on the automation for the track you d like

We just move our cursor over to the yellow volume line

16 Then turn on the automation for the track you d like to adjust. Let s say we want these maracas to fade in. We just move our cursor over to the yellow volume line on the track and double click. This will create a new keyframe. Now if we adjust the first keyframe down, it will automatically fade until it reaches the 2nd keyframe.

But if you would like the pan to change during the song, use

Export mix Now it s time to export your song.

17 Panning is controlled in a similar way. If we want to pan the whole track, use the panning knob. But if you would like the pan to change during the song, use the automation and insert keyframes. Export mix Now it s time to export your song. Go to the Share menu and choose from the options there. If you send song to itunes, it will let you enter in the metadata for the album.

18 Or if you prefer to just have the uncompressed file, choose export song to disk and tell it where to save. That s it!

When you load GarageBand it will open a window on your desktop that will look like this:

When you load GarageBand it will open a window on your desktop that will look like this: itongue: Our Multilingual Future -Grundtvig Partnership Project Instructions for use of Garageband software in preparing audio clips for decoded products. GarageBand automatically comes on Mac computers