Eric and John discuss and demonstrate some useful tips and tricks.
Duration: 13min 28sec
Now we're going to show you some behind-the-scenes technology that GarageBand has built-in. Mixing music is simple and approachable for just about anybody, letting you make sophisticated music without sophisticated sound engineering skills.
Using GarageBand, you can lend your music a professional touch with less complexity than you ever thought possible. GarageBand offers the built-in skills and tools of professional sound engineers, and it's compatible with third-party additions to give your music that professional touch—all you need are a few easy tips and tricks. GarageBand gives you amazing mixing and effects tools that make your tracks sound fantastic with very little effort. As your skills grow with GarageBand, you might want to try sound editing on your own.
Achieving dynamite effects
GarageBand offers multiple ways to balance the sound levels of your recordings and tap into many of the same effects that professional music producers use every day. You can use these effects to enhance a live guitar performance, for instance. Once you've recorded your guitar solo, you can add echoes, fades, compression or reverb, adjusting the effect so you get just the sound you intended. You can also fine-tune the intensity of the effects after the fact.
Play your altered guitar solo along with the rest of your mix to see how everything sounds. And, when you created your own custom effect to get the vibe exactly right, you can save the altered sound of your guitar as a new software instrument in your collection. You never have to try to recreate that sweet sound.
GarageBand also offers level controls right in the Track Mixer, letting you control the volume levels of each track. You can even make the guitar track fade out as the lead singer comes in. And, if you're looking for spatial control, you've got it. Use panning to make your horns play out of the left speaker.
“Many people don't realize that GarageBand supports Audio Unit plug-ins. These third-party software instruments are extremely popular, but typically you can only run them in professional digital audio software suites, making them out of reach for the average user. GarageBand offers the same software instruments and effect tools that the pros use to make hit records.”
—
Eric Thomas,
Audio Marketing Manager,
Apple Computer, Inc.
You're the mix master
With GarageBand, you also get powerful equalizer (EQ) capabilities that let you boost the bass on your Upright Jazz Bass track or thicken up your vocal track. GarageBand also supports Audio Unit (AU) plug-ins—popular third-party software instruments that are typically only available with professional digital audio software suites. GarageBand is a supported Audio Unit host, so it supplies the same software instruments and effect tools that the pros use to make hit records. You can apply two additional effects per track choosing from a range of GarageBand and Audio Unit Effects, including treble and bass reduction, distortion, chorus, flanging, phase shifting, tremolo and amplifier modeling effects.
Mixing tracks and adding amazing effects is possible even if you're on an older Mac with less horsepower. You can lock tracks and turn them into audio files to save up to 50 percent of your overhead. So mix on!
“With GarageBand, you can mix everything right on the spot to achieve exactly the sound you want.”
—
John Danty,
Product Marketing Manager for GarageBand and GarageBand Jam Packs,
Apple Computer, Inc.
Control your mix, your way
You can mix your tracks to perfection with M-Audio's iControl. Just plug iControl into a USB port and you have total tactile control over GarageBand. You get dedicated transport buttons and a jog wheel, eight rotary encoders for track functions like volume or pan, or for effects parameters in GarageBand's EQ or any other AU plug-in. You also get dedicated mute, solo and record-enable buttons-all automatically recognized by GarageBand.
Once you've mixed like a master, you can output your tunes easily as iTunes playlists or audio files to store on your iPod or on a CD.
“iControl from M-Audio and is exactly what many professionals use in studios to control their software recording technologies, like Logic Pro, but iControl is designed specifically for GarageBand users”
—
Eric Thomas,
Audio Marketing Manager,
Apple Computer, Inc.
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