Chapter 17
GarageBand
GarageBand (Figure 17–1) is Apple's entry-level DAW (digital audio workstation). GarageBand allows you to record, mix, and edit multiple audio and MIDI tracks together and then save them as audio files in a variety of formats. While GarageBand lacks some features of Apple's other DAWs (Logic Express and Logic Studio), it provides a number of professional-quality software instruments and effects coupled with reasonable track-editing abilities (including volume, panning, and trackautomation abilities) that can easily create professional-sounding recordings. Additionally, GarageBand includes a few other features for fun and learning. In this chapter we will
- Create a new GarageBand project
- Build audio tracks with loops
- Work with MIDI tracks
- Record a live instrument or vocals
- Edit an audio track
- Export a song
Figure 17–1. GarageBand's main window here is divided into tracks, track information, and the track editor with the toolbar at the bottom.
Creating Projects in GarageBand
Before you can do much with GarageBand, the first thing you must do is select the type of project that you will begin with. To begin, select File > New (Command-N) from the menu. This will open up the GarageBand's Project Chooser window (Figure 17–2). With New Project selected in the list column on the left, the view area on the right will display a number of new project templates. Depending on your goals, you may select any of these project templates—the only differences are the number and initial setup of the tracks you begin with; however, you can add any type of track to any project and delete or change any exiting tracks you don't want or aren't using.
Figure 17–2. The Project Chooser provides a starting point for all GarageBand has to offer.
NOTE: The Podcast and Movie selections are a little different. The Podcast selection adds a special track to drop an image that will be displayed during the podcast. The Movie option adds a movie track to the top, where you can drop the movie onto the timeline and record or play along with the movie.
No matter which project type you choose, you will next be taken to the track view, where you can begin to create your audio work.
LEARN TO PLAY, LESSON STORE, MAGIC GARAGEBAND, AND IPHONE RINGTONE
Working with Tracks
Tracks are the individual parts of music that when put together form a song. Traditionally, each track would represent an instrument or voice in the final song. By keeping each part in a separate track, you can add, remove, or edit a singe track without affecting the rest of the song. In GarageBand, each track can contain either a software instrument track or a real instrument track. The software tracks contain MIDI information that is translated into sound based on the software instrument associated with it. Real instrument tracks contain actual sound files that can come from prerecorded music or loops, or can be recorded on the fly in GarageBand through an audio interface (including the built-in audio inputs if necessary).
NOTE: If you are serious about recording, you should probably look into purchasing an audio interface for your computer. A decent two-channel USB2 or FireWire audio interface can cost less than $200 and will provide you with much better sound quality than using your Mac's built-in audio port. Obviously, there are more expensive audio interfaces as well that include more features. Some companies that make good audio interfaces include Apogee, TASCAM, Mackie (or TAPCO), M-Audio, Digidesign, PreSonus, and MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn).
Using Loops
One of the easiest ways to start building a track is using a loop. A loop is small audio clip that can be used as building block for a track and a song. GarageBand comes with a large selection of built-in loops and many more available for download.
To view your available loops, click the Loop Browser button in the lower-right corner of GarageBand to open the Loop Browser. The Loop Browser has three views modes: Column, Button, and Podcast Sounds. Each view provides a split screen that allows you select the type of loop you are looking for at the top, and then to browse and preview the actual loops at the bottom (Figure 17–3).
Figure 17–3. The Loop Browser (shown here in Button view) allows you to select the type of loop you are looking for at the top and then preview actual loops at the bottom.
NOTE: Loops can either be real audio loops (loops with a blue icon) or preprogrammed MIDI loops (loops with a green icon). When the loops are part of your project, you may edit them in the Track Browser according to their type. However, an edit to a single loop segment will affect all the subsequent instances of that particular loop.
When you've identified a loop you'd like to use, drag it from the Loop Browser either onto the track you'd like to add it to or below the tracks to automatically create a new track.
Once a loop is in a track, you can cause the loop to repeat itself over and over again (or loop) by holding the holding the cursor over the edge of the loop until the traditional arrow cursor changes to a loop cursor. Then just drag the loop out on the timeline to loop as required.
NOTE: There are numerous loops available for GarageBand beyond the loops that come with it. Not only does Apple sell add-on loop packs, but many third-party vendors also sell loops for almost any occasion.
TIP: Even if you intend to record live instruments for all your tracks in a song, it's not uncommon to begin setting up a few background tracks built from loops just to provide some backing guidance as you lay down your initial tracks.
Adding MIDI Tracks
When you are done working with loops and ready to start recording you own music, the first step is to create a new track; this can be done by clicking the New Track button in the lower-left corner of GarageBand (the one with the + icon on it), or by selecting Track > New Track… (Option-Command-N) from the menu. This will open the New Track dialog (Figure 17–4). To create a MIDI track, select the Software Instrument option and click Create.
NOTE: If you have a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI instrument connected to your computer that you'll be using to create your MIDI track, you may click the Instrument Setup disclosure triangle and make sure the appropriate device is selected. If you don't have a MIDI instrument, you can use your computer keyboard as a makeshift MIDI keyboard. You can always change this later.
Figure 17–4. When you create a new track, you must select if the track will be a software instrument (a MIDI track), a real instrument (usually recorded through a microphone; this includes vocals), or an electric guitar (which uses GarageBand's built-in software amps and effects).
When you select a MIDI track, one of the first things you may want to do is select an instrument from the Browse tab in the Software Instrument Track Info view. GarageBand includes a wide range of software instruments, from traditional piano sounds and drum kits to far-out synth textures.
TIP: if you don't have a MIDI instrument, select Window > Musical Typing (Shift-Command-K) from the menu. This will not only provide an onscreen window where you can control the sound, but will also activate you computer keyboard to be used as a MIDI input device.
When you have the instrument you wish to use, you can begin to play or record your music.
NOTE: MIDI is really just a series of values from 1 to 127 that control everything about the music, including pitch, modulation, and volume (or velocity). When combined with samples (which are the basic sounds of a particular instrument) or synthesized sounds, you get your software instrument. Because of the way this is set up, it's very flexible. For example, you can change the instrument without affecting the other values, so if you create a MIDI track using a piano sound, you may later change the piano to a violin by just changing the instrument.
Once your MIDI track is recorded, you can make a number of adjustments to it in the Track Editor (Figure 17–5). Here you can actually click and edit every note, as well as change almost any other MIDI parameter. For a more classical composition–oriented view, if you click Score you can edit the music using a traditional music score. You could in fact entirely recreate the MIDI track in this view if you desired to.
Figure 17–5. The Track Editor showing a MIDI track in Note view. You can also view this as a traditional music score, or view other MIDI parameters such as modulation and velocity.
Recording Real Instrument Audio Tracks
To add a traditional audio track into GarageBand, create a new track as discussed previously, but select Real Instrument. This will create an audio track ready for recording. To record, select the audio input device (this can be set up in the New Track dialog by clicking the Instrument Setup disclosure triangle or in the Track Info view on the Input Source menu).
With the track selected, GarageBand will start to record through the selected input device when you click the record button.
NOTE: The Monitor menu in the Track Info view will determine if the audio you are recording will be played back through the output (or monitor) during recording. By default this is off, but if you'd like to hear what you are playing through the output as you are playing, select On from the menu. If you are not worried about feedback, you may also select “On (no feedback protection)” from the menu; however, if you start getting feedback, this may not be the best option.
NOTE: GarageBand provides a number of track effects, such as compression, equalization, and reverb. You can select some predefined effect setups based on the type of track you are recoding from the info window. Since these effect are applied post-processing (i.e., they are added over the raw audio) so any selections you make can be altered at any time without affecting the original audio track.
Recording a Guitar Track
Traditionally, recording a guitar track is difficult. To begin with, guitar amps are generally large and heavy to haul around, and then add to that dealing with guitar effects and cables, and the chore of just getting everything set up. But that's the easy part; the hard part is recording an electric guitar through a traditional amp > microphone > input setup. Guitarists love things to be loud, and often the sweet overdriven amp sound doesn't start kicking in until an amplifier is at an ear-shattering volume. This makes recording … difficult.
To help solve these problems, guitarists have been turning to digital effect processors for direct recording without the issues. Initially, some these solutions sounded less than real, but modern digital effects are often undistinguishable in recordings from a real honest tube amp. The latest version of GarageBand has digital guitar amplifiers and effects built right in, so by just plugging in your electric guitar you can play around and record with a wide range of amplifiers and effects (Figure 17–6).
Figure 17–6. In additional to the handful of amps that emulate a range of classic amplifiers, you can choose from a number of different effects for your guitar.
Beyond setting up your amp and effects, recording is pretty much the same as recording any other type of track.
NOTE: When recording using the built-in guitar amps and effects, you will want to turn on monitoring. Depending on how you have your audio set up, it can be tricky to avoid feedback. This is when a good pair of headphones comes in real handy.
TIP: Almost all guitar presets have noise reduction turned on, which can cause low volumes to cut out. I generally turn noise reduction off across the board to avoid this, unless working with extremely high gain setups where such a thing would be impractical.
TIP: If you do choose to record an electric guitar traditionally, here a few tips. First, use the smallest wattage amp you can find; a small 6-watt tube amp will sound very big when recorded (Jimmy Hendrix did a lot of studio work using a Fender Champ). Second, record it cleaner than you would normally play, which will add definition to the final recording. Finally, keep effects to a necessary minimum; you can always add them later.
Post-Processing
Once you've recorded your tracks, you can add post-processing to individual tracks or to the master track (which affects all the individual tracks). Common effects include compression, visual equalizer, and reverb, though there are many additional effects available. These effects are managed under the Edit tab of the Track Info view (Figure 17–7). To add an effect, click an empty effect space and select the effect you'd like to add. Clicking an effect will allow you to adjust the effect's parameters.
Figure 17–7. Post-processing by working with track effects allows you to fine-tune your audio tracks before saving and exporting your song.
Saving and Sharing Your Song
Once you have completed your song, you can export the finished song to disk for sharing (or directly into your iTunes library);however, there are also different ways to share your project.
If you are simply wanting to save your song so it's available through your iTunes library, select Share > Send Song to iTunes… from the menu. This will open a dialog that will allow you to add meta tags to your song, as well as select the output quality of your song. You can select what playlist you'd like to send your song to. If you'd like to simply export your song as a file on your disk, select Share > Export Song to Disk… Once again, you'll be able to choose the export quality of your song, as well as a file name for it.
Besides simply exporting your song, though, you can export your whole project. By selecting File > Save As… from the menu, you can save an archived project (which you may choose to compress or not) that you can then share with others. This is nice if you are working on a song where you may want a friend or bandmate to add a track to the song you are working on. By sending them the archive, they'll have everything they need to open the project in GarageBand and continue to work on the song.
Summary
Like the previous chapters on iLife applications, this chapter (hopefully) provides enough to get you started with GarageBand, yet there are many more features in GarageBand than we have time for here.
GarageBand, iMovie, and iPhoto provide a wide range of incredibly useful media applications for computer users. Of course, each of these apps has limits (though many people never reach them), so Apple provides a range of professional apps that build upon each of these, including Logic Pro (Apple's professional DAW software), Aperture (Apple's professional photo management software), and Final Cut Pro (Apple's professional video application).
Next we will move away from applications and go back to OS X specifically, moving from the using–OS X phase of the book to the administering–OS X phase, beginning with an in-depth tour of System Preferences.