It's easier than you think to get your groove on with GarageBand. While recording and mixing music on a computer has been possible for years, many audio recording and editing technologies have been daunting to use. Not so with GarageBand. GarageBand puts professional-quality recording and sound engineering well within the reach of both aspiring and experienced musicians. And best of all, it's intuitive to use. Apple delivers unique technologies in GarageBand so that nearly anyone can have fun and be successful making music.
In this chapter, we will show you how to get started making music on your Mac, from playing music using the instruments in GarageBand to creating compositions using Apple Loops. You'll also learn about the accessories available for adding I/O to your studio.
“There are really three things you should know about GarageBand. It turns your Mac into a musical instrument. It turns your Mac into a recording studio. And, even if you can't play an instrument, GarageBand has the band built-in”
—
John Danty,
Product Marketing Manager
GarageBand and GarageBand Jam Packs
Apple Computer, Inc.
GarageBand Hardware and Software Tour
Join Eric Thomas, Apple audio marketing manager and John Danty, Apple product marketing manager for GarageBand and GarageBand Jam Packs, as they provide an in-depth tour of GarageBand.
Duration: 31min 2sec
Your Mac is a musical instrument GarageBand turns your Mac into not one, but several musical instruments. You can record your guitar licks and piano concertos into your Mac and edit and mix the music right on the spot. With GarageBand, you have dozens of software instruments ready to play, from strings and drum kits to guitars, horns, bass and killer synthesizers.
Create a new track and choose your instrument. The quality of the musical instruments you'll find in GarageBand equals or surpasses that of professional stand-alone keyboards that can cost thousands of dollars.
You can also play and record GarageBand's software instruments using any USB or MIDI keyboard with a MIDI to USB adapter. Simply plug the keyboard into your Mac—Mac OS X and GarageBand will automatically recognize it. Then hit a key on your MIDI or USB controller, and it triggers the sound in GarageBand, right over a standard USB cable like the one you use to plug in a printer. And, if you don't have a keyboard, GarageBand provides an onscreen music keyboard that lets you display up to ten octaves at once.
Once you start playing, you'll be amazed at the capabilities of GarageBand. Wish you could view musical notation as you play the keyboard? Now you can. Whether you're displaying existing software instrument tracks or recording them live as you play the keyboard, GarageBand can generate music notation in real time, displaying it on the fly. So, you never have to go back and create notation from scratch.
Band in a box
Even if you haven't mastered a musical instrument, you're in luck. With the Apple Loops library in GarageBand, you've got an entire band at your disposal. Apple Loops are prerecorded musical instrument parts that you can assemble to mix and create music like a professional producer.
You can use Apple Loops to build a strong foundation for your solo or construct a composition entirely out of loops. In other words, the band is built-in and never needs tuning. If you are a guitarist or songwriter, Apple Loops offer the perfect way to practice with other parts of a band. They also provide a creative playground that can spur new ideas for your latest composition.
You can work with Apple Loops to build up your musical backdrop, then trim or extend sections, change their timing, and edit them to perfection. Once you've assembled your composition, you can record it with the click of a button.
Your Mac is a recording studio
GarageBand also turns your Mac into a professional recording studio. You can plug your guitar right into the audio jack of any Mac with a guitar-to-mini-jack cable and play along with any combination of Apple Loops. There's even a built-in tuner in GarageBand that lets bassists and guitar players tune up before they ever start recording.
You can also experiment with GarageBand's built-in guitar amplifier modeling. Without having to hook up expensive, bulky equipment, you can give your guitar that saucy vibe, whether you want Classic Rock, a vintage British Invasion sound or the heavy distortion of Arena Rock. You can also edit the amp sounds to add more chorus, reverb, acoustic echo, equalizer or other effect.
With GarageBand, you can record up to eight Real Instrument tracks and an additional Software Instrument track at the same time, offering many ways to build your newest compositions. Sing while you accompany yourself on the guitar, or while someone else backs you up. All you need is any of the available audio input/output hardware devices compatible with Mac OS X.
Lining up timing and tuning
GarageBand lets you enhance or fix timing. If your bass and drums are out of time with each other, for instance, GarageBand can easily synch up the timing. Or, using new tools like vocal transformer, you can even enhance the characteristics and pitch of your vocalist-dramatically transforming the quality and tuning up anyone's voice so it's right on key.
Once you've got your composition down, GarageBand gives you everything you need to fine-tune and remix the music. You can control the volume of each track, change the amp modeling or delay the drum track-whatever it takes to transform your tune into a hit.
Exporting your masterpiece to an iTunes playlist
You can export your song to an iTunes playlist, then play your exported songs in iTunes, download them to an iPod, or burn the playlist to a CD.
To export your song to an iTunes playlist:
— Choose File > Export to iTunes.
The entire song, from the beginning to the end of the last region, is exported.
— Set the name of the iTunes playlist.
You can also set the name of the album and composer in the Export pane of GarageBand Preferences.
— You can export a single track, or a group of tracks, to an iTunes playlist.
To export a single track, solo the track (or mute all other tracks) before exporting. To export a group of tracks, solo the tracks (or mute all other tracks) before exporting.
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Create a new track and choose your instrument. The quality of the musical instruments you'll find in GarageBand equals or surpasses that of professional stand-alone keyboards that can cost thousands of dollars.
Band in a box
You can also experiment with GarageBand's built-in guitar amplifier modeling. Without having to hook up expensive, bulky equipment, you can give your guitar that saucy vibe, whether you want Classic Rock, a vintage British Invasion sound or the heavy distortion of Arena Rock. You can also edit the amp sounds to add more chorus, reverb, acoustic echo, equalizer or other effect.
Lining up timing and tuning
