Whether you’re an experienced musician or someone who can barely hum, GarageBand enables you to create original musical compositions. All you have to do is mix and match stock loops, or repeatable segments of beats and notes. Best of all, as you add new loops, GarageBand matches tempo, beat, and key to make you sound like a pro.
By the Way
The loops that come with GarageBand are royalty-free. That means your compositions really are yours to distribute freely...unless, of course, you happen to re-create a song that’s already been written.
You can also record music from your own instruments or use the built-in keyboard to pick out a melody. Then, edit the result until it sounds as ideal as you hear it in your head.
When you’re finished with a song, you can export to it iTunes, where you can make your own CD—literally—or use it with your iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD projects as a special personal touch.
The GarageBand application consists of a main window for combining beats and notes, a keyboard for recording your own melodies, and several more specialized windows for editing and adding effects to the notes you add to your song.
We’ll begin by exploring the main window, and then discuss the other elements as they become relevant.
By the Way
When you open GarageBand, the first thing you’ll see is the New Project window, where you can name your tune, choose a place to save it, and set the basic tempo, time signature, and key. You can bring this window up at any time by choosing File, New from the menu.
The main window, shown in its default state in Figure A.1, is made up of several regions and controls.
Did you Know?
If you don’t see the track mixer, click the arrow in the track header to slide it open.
Timeline—Where you build your composition by adding measures of music. The Timeline contains some important controls and gauges, as shown in Figure A.2:
Onscreen Keyboard—. Allows you to record notes. (If the keyboard is not visible, you can open it by choosing Window, Keyboard from the menu.) We’ll discuss using the keyboard in the section “Recording Original Music.”
Tracks—. Hold the different layers of instrumentation added to a song.
Beat Ruler—. Marks the “time” in the Timeline in beats and measures counted out at the top of the Timeline.
Playhead—. Represents the current point in the composition.
Track Header—. Labels the tracks, or individual layers of instrumentation added to a song. Click the Mute button to silence the current selection, and click the Solo button to listen to it.
Track Info button—. Reveals additional information about a selected track.
Track Mixer—. Controls the volume and stereophony of each track. Use panning to make sounds appear to come from one speaker more than the other. Use the volume slider to balance the tracks.
Zoom slider—. Changes the amount of the Timeline that is visible at a time. Use it to see a close-up of the Timeline, or zoom out to see a longer stretch of your work.
New Track button—. Adds a new blank track to your project.
Track Info button—. Reveals additional information about a selected track.
Loop Browser button—. Opens the Loop Browser, a pane in which you can sort and search prerecorded music. (We discuss the Loop Browser further in the next section.)
Track Editor button—. Opens a pane where you can edit the notes in a track. We examine this option in depth in the section “Using the Track Editor.”
Transport controls—. Control the standard functions for record, return to the start, play, rewind, and fast forward. The last control is the Cycle button, which sets the range for your composition for which you will record music either from real or electronic instruments. (We discuss this further in the section “Recording Original Music.”)
Time Display—. Indicates the position of the playhead either in musical time or in regular time.
Master volume slider—. Sets the overall loudness of your song. Above it are level meters that show how loud the song is at a particular time.
Loops are the basic building blocks for songs in GarageBand. They are prerecorded measures of music that you can mix and match. To help you find a loop in the right style or genre or performed by the right instrument for your composition, GarageBand includes a pane called the Loop Browser, as shown in Figure A.3.
To open the Loop Browser, click the button that looks like an eye at the lower left of GarageBand’s main window. Then, start clicking buttons to select an instrument, genre, or style. As you click, the options displayed in the far right of the Loop Browser change to show only those loops that meet your selection criteria.
For each loop, the browser shows its name, tempo, the key it’s in, and the number of beats it contains.
Did you Know?
If you know a term that is in the name of the loop you are looking for, you can enter that word in the search text field at the bottom of the Loop Browser.
By the Way
There are two views of the Loop Browser: Button view and Column view. To switch between them, click the view buttons at the lower left of the Loop Browser.
Click one of the loop options to audition it before adding it to your project. If you like what you hear, click on the loop and drag it into the Timeline. A new track will be added containing one segment, or region, of the loop, as shown in Figure A.4.
If you want the loop to repeat for several regions, which is something loops are designed to do, position your mouse cursor over the right edge of the loop until the cursor changes to a looping arrow, and then drag for as many measures as you want the loop to repeat. An example of a repeating loop appears in Figure A.5.
Watch Out!
If you try to drag a loop without the looping cursor visible, you will either move the loop in its track or stretch it. Not that either of those things is against the rules, but if you are trying to make repeating loops it can be frustrating to merely move one region back and forth.
If you find a loop you really like to use in your projects, you can check the box at the end of its row to add it to a special category of Favorite loops.
If you decide you don’t like the loop you’ve added, select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard. Note, however, that the track will still be there in case you want to try a different loop in that place. If you want to remove the entire track, you must select it and choose Delete Track from the Track menu.
While the basic prerecorded loops that come with GarageBand can be put together to make complex music, there might be times when you want to record your own melody from real instruments or software instruments.
You can use the onscreen music keyboard, shown in Figure A.1, to play a song, or purchase a microphone to record your own instruments.
Did you Know
The onscreen music keyboard that appears in Figure A.1 displays fewer keys than a real piano. If you want to expand the range of notes available, click the arrows at either end and drag to show more keys.
To record from the onscreen keyboard, select Track, New Track from the menu. In the New Track window that appears (see Figure A.6), choose Software Instrument and the specific sound you want to apply. (The instrument icon at the bottom of the New Track window doesn’t affect the sound; it only changes the icon labeling of the track.) Click OK to close the window.
Then, click the record button (the round button below the list of tracks), and pick out notes on the keyboard. Any other tracks you’ve added to your song will play in the background, unless you’ve muted them.
As you record, a region will appear in the Timeline with marks to indicate the notes you’ve played. When you’ve recorded enough, click the Play button to stop recording. You can treat the recorded region as you would a prerecorded loop from the loop browser.
If you want to record a real instrument, you’ll need to connect a microphone. Then, you have two choices for adding a new track into which to record.
By the Way
If you plan to record from a real instrument, be sure you have enough space on your hard drive. Each minute of high-quality audio requires approximately 10MB of disk space.
Choose Track, New Basic Track from the menu if you want to record the original sound of the instrument, or choose Track, New Track and then open the pane for Real Instruments (shown in Figure A.7) to choose some effects settings and the channel for your input source, which is the microphone you’ll be using to record your sound.
You can also choose whether the track is recorded in Mono (the default setting) or Stereo (an option if two channels are available from your input source). Turning on Monitor will allow you to hear what’s picked up by the microphone without having to record first. This is good for practicing with the background music, but it should be turned off for actual recording because of potential feedback problems.
Did you Know
You can also switch between Monitor on and off in the Track Info window, so the setting you make in the New Track window isn’t irreversible. We discuss the Track Info window in the next section.
To record, move the playhead to the point at which you want to start recording, and click the record button. Play the instrument and click the play button when you are ready to stop recording.
Did you Know
If you want GarageBand to count out a measure before your recorded playing begins, choose Count In from the Control menu.
Your real instrument track will appear in the Timeline in purple with a waveform instead of discrete line segments to represent the recorded sound.
By the Way
You can add existing music files, even full songs, to your own song by dragging each file from iTunes into the GarageBand window. A track will be created and the imported file will appear purple with a waveform, just like instruments you record, to indicate that the notes are a sound recording and not a digital representation.
If you do add existing music files to your composition, keep in mind that the original artists and their record companies probably don’t consider them to be royalty-free. Wide distribution of your work might infringe on an existing copyright.
After you’ve added a track or two (or even a full song) to your project, you might want to make changes to how they sound.
You can make overall changes to tracks containing software and real instrument regions in the Track Info window. This window lets you apply different instrument sounds to the selected track, as well as apply or remove effects that give the track a particular mood associated with its style or genre.
To open the Track Info window, select the track, or region in the track, you want to work with and click the button labeled with a capital “I” that appears under the Track heading column. If you select a software instrument track, you will see options similar to those in Figure A.8.
You can choose a different generator to make the sound and style, which will replace the original preset options, but you will keep the notes that were there. Under Details, you can change the same Generator settings using a pop-up menu rather than the columns at the top of the Track Info window.
Also under Details, you can try out different effects that alter the amount of bass, distortion, vibration, and many other characteristics that contribute to musical style.
By the Way
If you change from the preset options for a track, and then change it again, you will be prompted to save your first set of changes. That’s because what you created is not stored as a default, so you wouldn’t be able to return to it if you later decided it was the perfect sound. If you don’t think you want to save a change, feel free not to save.
As you make changes in the Track Info window, they are applied to the affected track and you can leave the window open as you play your song to try out the new settings. (The Save Instrument button at the bottom of the Track Info window is for those times when you construct a sound you want to keep for other projects. It’s not necessary to click this button to apply your changes.)
Did you Know?
Combining notes and effects in real time can be hard work for your computer’s processor. As you preview your song, you might see a message that there are too many tracks, effects, or notes in your project for it to be played. To maximize processor performance, you will need to open the Systems Preference panel (choose System Preferences from the Apple menu), and then go to the Energy Saver pane. Click the button for Show Details and choose Highest from the pop-up menu for processor performance.
Also, you can monitor the effort your computer is giving to play your composition by watching the playhead arrow change colors from yellow to orange to red as its workload increases.
If you choose a real instrument track, your options in the Track Info window will change (see Figure A.9).
The top half of the window is exactly like the New Track window discussed earlier, but if you click the arrow to open the Details section, you can apply additional effects to the sound you’ve recorded or imported from an existing sound file.
The changes you make will be available for you to listen to, just like with software instrument tracks.
The Track Info window also gives you options to change the fundamental structure of a project beyond the sound of the individual tracks that it contains. While working with either software instrument or real instrument tracks, you can click the pop-up menu at the top of the Track Info window to switch to Master Track, as shown in Figure A.10.
The Master Track settings apply to an entire song. You can use them to change the key of a project as well as the time signature and tempo. You can also add effects to all the tracks in your project. Changes made to the time signature will change the measure markings on the Timeline, and changes to the tempo, key, or effects will be audible when you play your composition.
Besides adjusting the generating instrument and effects for individual tracks and the key, time signature, tempo, and effects for an entire song, you can adjust volume by track or for the whole. To change the overall volume of a track, you will need to open the Mixer to the left of the Tracks column, as shown in Figure A.11. (If the Mixer is hidden, click the right-pointing arrow in the Tracks header.)
Drag the slider to adjust the volume. You can also change the amount of sound coming from the left or right speaker. The monitor bars above the volume slider will show the relative volume of each track as you preview it.
To adjust the volume of your entire composition, use the volume slider below and to the right of the Timeline. It also has level meters above it to show the volume level for each speaker at a given instance in your project.
If you want to fine tune the volume of a track to make it fade in or out at specific points, click the down arrow in the Tracks column to reveal the track’s volume curve, as shown in Figure A.12.
To change the volume curve, click and drag the line representing volume. This will add a control point, which breaks the volume curve into segments. To remove a control point, click to select it, and press the Delete key on your keyboard.
By the Way
In addition to adjusting volume curves for individual tracks, you can also adjust the volume curve for the master track that controls the entire project. Choose Track, Show Master Track from the menu to reveal the master track at the bottom of the Timeline. Adjust its volume curve as discussed earlier.
So far in this section, you’ve learned ways to modify the sound and volume of a track or an entire song without changing the individual notes. But there are times when you want to edit a track to add notes, move the notes around, or transpose a track.
By the Way
Transposing means the relationship between notes stays the same but their key or pitch changes. For example, you can change a group of notes so they are played at a higher or lower octave than before.
To change notes themselves, you’ll need to open the Track Editor by clicking the button that looks like a pair of scissors with sound waves springing from its sides. The Track Editor for a software instrument track appears in Figure A.13.
In the Timeline portion of the Track Editor, notes appear as blocks in a grid. The grid represents time horizontally and pitch vertically. To change a note, click the block representing it, and drag it up or down to change its tone. Drag it left or right to change when it occurs in your song. To alter a note so it takes up more or less time, click an edge and drag it left or right. As you click on each block, the note it represents will sound.
By the Way
When working with loops, only the first region is editable—the rest are duplicates of it, so any changes will carry over.
Did you Know
If you record music from a software instrument, you might find that notes aren’t exactly on the beat, and this can sound sloppy. If you click the Fix Timing button, notes will be aligned with the closest beat on the grid. You can change the grid to represent different fractions of a beat using the slider at the bottom of the Region column.
If you want to transpose the track, drag the slider labeled Transpose. Keep in mind that dragging by increments of 12 will give you the same notes in a different octave than the original, but you can also change the key by choosing numbers that aren’t multiples of 12.
When you are satisfied with your song, you can export it to iTunes, where it will be added to your iTunes Library and treated just like any other music file. From there, you can add the song to your iPhoto, iMovie, or iDVD projects, transfer it to CD or iPod, or simply listen through iTunes.
To export your song, choose File, Export to iTunes from the menu. A status window appears, as shown in Figure A.14, to show you how encoding is progressing. The playhead also progresses to show where in the song encoding is.
By the Way
By default, your song is exported in AIF format, which results in a higher quality file for the size than an MP3. However, some music players aren’t compatible with AIF. If you find you need to switch the format, you can convert between file types with iTunes, as discussed in Chapter 22, “Using iTunes.”
When GarageBand is finished exporting, iTunes opens and you find your song in the iTunes Library listing, as shown in Figure A.15. The information about your song is the title you saved it under as well as the artist name and album that you can set in the GarageBand preferences. Notice also that a new playlist is added at the bottom of the Sources pane in iTunes to contain your original works.
Did you Know
If you export a song with a name, artist, or album, but then change your mind, you can click once on each of these details in the iTunes window to make them editable.
Now, let’s discuss the preference settings.
The GarageBand Preferences are split into categories: General, Audio/MIDI, Export, and Advanced.
In the General settings, you can decide whether to have the built-in metronome play during recording or during both recording and playback. You can also choose whether to see a message if GarageBand is about to replace unsaved changes when you apply a new setting. When you check the Keyword Browsing setting, it limits the results in the Loop Browser to those with a similar key to your project. Finally, if you have customized the arrangement of Loop Browser categories, you can reset it back to the default.
Among the Audio/MIDI settings are pop-up menus that control which input and output devices GarageBand uses. Also, if you have any recognized MIDI devices, they will be listed at the bottom of the window. The Optimize For preference gives you the choice between maximizing the number of tracks that can be added (a large buffer that allows GarageBand to “plan” allocation of its resources) and minimizing the time you’ll need to wait while recording live instruments (a smaller buffer that cuts GarageBand’s reaction time).
With the Export settings, you set your artist and album names and specify which playlist to add to hold your original compositions.
Under Advanced preferences are choices for how many tracks to allow each for real and software instruments. (Remember, processing and playing audio is quite intensive in GarageBand because every part is editable. You might want to limit your tracks to improve sound quality in playback and exporting.) You can also choose the number of different “voices” that are combined to form a single track.
GarageBand is a music composition and editing tool that enables you to mix and match prerecorded loops or record your own music, either from real instruments or software instruments. You can edit loops, individually change their volume, and add special sound effects to get the mood you want. When you’re finished with your song, GarageBand will encode your work and export it to iTunes, where you can use it as you would any other music file.