GarageBand for Mac: Music Production for Beginners

1. Welcome and What You’ll Learn: There, and welcome to this GarageBand class where you'll learn how to use garage band for Mac to produce your own music. Whether you're brand new to music production or you've been using garage band for a while, this class will teach you the essentials and more helping you confidently use this digital audio workstation to produce your own music. In this class, you'll learn how to record the virtual instruments and edit media information in the piano roll, as well as how to record and edit audio and also how to use a drummer feature to create beats for your own songs. I'll then show you how to arrange different tracks and regions to build a complete song. You also learn how to mix music, including level balancing, panning, and using essential effects such as EQ, compression, reverb, delay, distortion, modulation effects, and also automation. Then after this, I'll show you how to export your mix and also the basics of mastering so your songs are ready to be released. So if you're a Mcuser and you want to learn how to use garage band, they recommend joining me in this class. 2. GarageBand’s Interface Tour: There, and welcome to this video. We'll be going to take a tour through GarageBand interface. So in this video, I'm going to quickly show the areas of this digital audio workstation so you can start to understand the workflow of garage band. We won't be creating any music yet, but don't worry. We'll be looking at creating and recording music very soon. Okay, so let's get started. Menu bar located at the top. This is where users access different menus, such as file, edit, and view. Functions include creating new projects, saving, importing, exporting, and adjusting preferences. Control bar located at the top center. It includes essential playback and recording tools. Play, Stop button. This starts and stops the playback. Record button. This activates recording. Cycle button. This loops a selected portion of the track for editing, recording or playback. Metronome. This turns a click on or off. Tuner. This allows you to tune any instruments you have connected to GarageBand. Counting. This provides a short metronome counting before recording begins, giving you time to prepare and play in sync with the tempo. Then over here we have the tempo, time signature, and key signature. More on this later in the lesson, though. Then we have the master volume over here, which controls the output volume. Before continuing with the tour, we need to understand the two main types of tracks used across all doors. Let's first talk about MIDI tracks. These contain performance data such as note pitch, duration, and velocity. These can be used to control virtual instruments, allowing you to edit and manipulate the sounds even after recording. This also allows you to program parts instead of performing them. I'll just quickly add a loop so you can see this now. But we'll look at Apple Loops in detail later on. So we can add a loop by pressing this button here, and the MIDI loops are the green loops. So let's just click and drag this over to our track. In this track, we have mini data. The other type of track is an audio track. I'm just going to drag this below to create a new track so you can see the audio waves. Audio clips store actual sound recordings like vocals or instruments and are based on waveform data, making them less flexible for detailed editing, but ideal for capturing real audio performances. Okay, let's now continue with the tour. The tracks area. This is where all the tracks are displayed and edited. Each track has its own track header with controls like mute, solo, and volume. Mute is the speaker icon with a line through it. If we enable this, then this will silence the track so you can't hear it. Using this can be useful if you want to listen to the rest of your mix without that specific track. Solo. This is this headphone icon. When this isolates the track, muting all of track so you can hear it on its own. This helps you focus and fine tune individual tracks without interference from the others. Regions, these are small blocks that represent recorded audio or media events. Multiple regions can be stored on one single track. For example, let's just drag this over. And you can see now we have two regions on this track, each with different MIDI information. Playhead. The playhead in garage band is the vertical line that moves across the timeline, indicating your current position in the project drawing playback or recording. Ruler, the ruler in GarageBand is the horizontal timeline at the top of the workspace that displays a project's musical structure, including measures, beats and time, allowing you to navigate and arrange your audio and midi regions easily. Editor window. You can access the Editor window by pressing E on your computer's keyboard or by pressing the pencil icon up here. This opens and closes the low window of the interface, which is used for detailed editing of the individual tracks and regions. The options in the Editor window depend on whether you have a MIDI or audio region selected. When an audio region is selected in GarageBand editor window, you can perform detailed editing tasks such as cutting, trimming and moving audio regions. You can also adjust timing issues, apply pitch correction to fix off key notes, and edit the waveform visually to fine tune the performance. Additionally, you can control fade in, fade outs, adjust the region gain, and loop sections for more refined editing of your audio track. We'll look at this in more detail later on in the course. When the midi region is selected in garage bands editor window, you can adjust the individual notes in great detail. You can change note pitch, length, velocity, and timing. The editor also allows you to add or delete notes and apply midi effects such as arpeggiation. This gives full control over the performance and allows for precise editing to perfect the MIDI track. We'll look at this in more detail later in the course. The loop browser. We've looked at this briefly. This is a library of loops over here on the right hand side. We can show and hide the loop browser by pressing this button here or by using the key command, Oh. So this is a library of pre recorded Apple Loops. Here you can search and filter loops by instrument, gamre and descriptors. We'll be looking at this in detail later on in the course, though. For now, though let's just close the Apple Loop library so we have a bit more space. The library. We can show how the library by pressing this button here or by using the key command Y. The library allows users to choose different instrument sounds and track presets. Options will differ depending on whether you have a midi or audio track selected. For now, though, let's just close the library by pressing Y, so we have a bit more space again. Smart Controls panel. You can access this window by pressing B or the dial icon at the top left of the main window. Here you can adjust specific settings for each track, such as EQ, compression, reverb, and other effects. I'll show this in greater detail later on in the course. Okay, let's now talk about notes. We can access the notes by pressing the notepad icon, which is in the top right next to the loops icon. Here you can write any notes that you might have for your project. For example, you might want to write a to do list, the cause of your project, lyrics or just jot down ideas. Okay, so let's now have a look at a few more of the transport controls. So just a few more to mention is rewind and fast forward. So we can tap this to jump back or forward. And we can go to the beginning or start of the project with this button here. We can also use the key command Enter for this. By the way, we also have a key command for play, which is Space Bar, and we have a key command for record, which is, And we have a key command for the cycle region, which is C. So that's just a few basic key commands to remember. By the way, when we have the cycle region enabled, it will just loop round and round this area. So you can drag over this area to move it somewhere else, and you can trim to make it longer or shorter. But remember, it's just going to cycle around this area. The cycle is also used to create a section of the tractor export, which we'll look at later in the course. Let's now talk about zooming and scrolling. So you can use a Zoom slide in the top right over here. If we drag this to the right, it will zoom in, and if we drag it to the left, it will zoom out. Horizontal zooming is ideal for working on precise edits with a small section, such as trimming audio regions or adjusting mini notes. To navigate through different sections of your song, you can use a two finger swipe gesture on your track pad or the scroll wheel on your mouse. Or alternatively, you can drag the small bar at the bottom of the tracks area. Okay, so that's a really quick tour of GarageBand Interface. Don't worry. We'll be looking at creating music very soon. I just wanted to quickly show GarageBand interface so you can understand the workflow of this digital audio workstation. Okay, so next we're going to look at creating a new project and Project Templates, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks for watching, and I'll see you there. 3. Creating a New Track and Project Templates: So now let's look at creating a new project. So we can create a new project by going to file and then new. We can also use the key command Command N. So when we do this, this new project window will appear. So here we can see I have my recent projects, but let's click on New Project, which is above here. So you can see down here we have this details area. If you can't see this, you can show this by pressing this arrow button. So this we can select the project tempo, key signature, time signature, and input and output devices. These settings can all be changed later in the project, but generally it's good to set the tempo, key signature, and time signature early on in the process, as these are the musical foundations for your music. We'll explore these in detail shortly. For now, though, let's select choose. When starting a new empty project, the first window that will open will ask you what track you want to start with. So here we have a mini track for software or virtual instruments. Then there's a drummer track, which is a drummer that plays along with your song. We'll discuss this in detail later on in the course, though. Then we've got two audio tracks, which give you slightly different presets for an audio track. The first one is for recording a mic or line, and the other is for recording, a guitar or bass, which gives you virtual amps and pedal effects. Again, we'll discuss this in more detail later on. For this example, let's select a midi track, and let's press Create. Once you've created a new track, you can add more tracks by pressing the plus icon at the top of the track's header area. You can also use the key option Command N. Let's just cancel this for now, though, and let's actually talk about project templates. When starting a new project, you also have the option to choose from a range of project templates. So let's now create a new project by going to file and New for this example, I'm not going to save this, and now we have this window appear again. Non left here, we can select project templates. So here we have a number of different templates. Each template offers a selection of preset tracks that best suits the drama or star you selected. For example, the Amp collection template starts with a selection of audio tracks, each with a different Amp simulator. We'll look at Amp simulations later. But for this example, let's choose. Let's just close this project by pressing the X button in the top left, and this takes us back to the pop up. Let's have a look at another project template. Let's select electronic and let's press choose. This has a drummer track and midi or software instrument tracks that have different synth presets. We can play this back by pressing Space Bar. Again, let's close this project by pressing the X button in the top left. Feel free to choose a template based on the project type you plan to create. This can be a nice way to start a project with some interesting tracks. If you want to improve your door and garage bound skills, I recommend starting projects from scratch and setting up the tracks manually. This will help you get to grips with the layout and explore options for creativity. So for this, let's click on New Project and select choose. Again, let's just select a mini track for this example. Okay, so that's the end of this video. We've looked at creating a new track and project templates. In the next video, we're going to look at some basic musical information. So thanks for watching, and I'll see you there. 4. Basic Music Knowledge for Beginners: Now let's have a look at some basic music knowledge to get you started. You don't need to know loads about music theory to be a good music producer, but understanding the fundamentals will help you navigate your way through a garage band and a music production process in general. Okay, so let's begin. Tempo. Tempo measured in beats per minute or BPM refers to the speed or pace of a song. It determines how fast or slow the beats are played. A higher BPM, for example, 120 BPM means a faster tempo, resulting in a quicker rhythm and a more upbeat feel. Conversely, a lower BPM, for example, 60 BPM, creates a slower, more relaxed pace. In garage band, adjusting the tempo changes the overall speed of the project, impacting how fast loops, instruments and recorded audio play in relation to each other. Tempo is crucial in shaping the songs mood and energy. So just for this example, I'm going to add a Apple loop so you can hear the tempo changes. So let's go over to the Apple Loops over here, and then go to instrument. And for this, I'm going to choos a drum loop. Okay, this one's fine. 80 pop beat 20. So let's drag this over to our project. Let's just loop this by turning on the cycle region by tapping up here or by pressing the key command C. So right now this is on 120 beats per minute. Let's hit us back at 120 BPM. So we can click and drag this number to change the tempo. Let's drag down to 80 BPM and hit us back. We can also click and drag up to make it faster. Let's try 170 BPM. For this, let's choose 120 again. Okay, let's now talk about bars and beats. Music is divided into bars and beats. A certain number of beats goes into a bar, and this is dependent on the time signature, which we'll look at in a moment. In any door, music is organized on a timeline that's divided into bars and beats. Each bar is displayed as a segment in the ruler at the top of the workspace. And tracks are aligned with these bars and beats to keep everything in time. This system allows you to precisely place notes, loops, and audio regions as specific points in the song, ensuring that musical elements stay rhythmically aligned. The timeline makes it easier to arrange and edit music while staying in sync with the song's tempo and time signature. You can see the bars and beats in a display up here. Okay, now let's talk about time signature. A time signature defines the rhythmic structure of a song by specifying how many beats are in each measure or bar and what type of note gets one beat. The most common time signature is 44, meaning there are four beats in each measure, and each beat is a quarter note. In 34, there are three beats in each measure, typically creating a waltz like feel, while six, eight groups of beat into six eighth notes per measure, often used for more flowing or compound rhythms. Time signature shape the rhythm and pulse of the song, influencing how it feels and how instruments are played in sync. Let's explore a few examples of different time signatures using Apple Loops. Okay, so offscreen, I've just quickly made some loops and different time signatures, so you can hit a difference. I'll play about these different loops and explain how they're different. So for these, I'm using the eight oh eight flex electronic drum kit. I'm just going to hide the library for now, though, so we have a bit more space. So the first loop here is in 44. So every four beats or four quarter notes, I have a kick drum. And every beat or every quarter note, I have a closed high hat. I'm just going to solo this track now by pressing this headphone icon, and let's actually loop this region, so it's 4 bars in length. We can loop by hovering over the top right of the region and dragging to the right. Okay, let's hear this now. So you should hear every four beats we hear a kick, and every beat we hear a closed high hat and also the metronome. Okay, so that's 44. Let's now look at free four. So let's change the time sign that you're here to free four. So the measures match up with the region. Let's loop the second one now to make it 4 bars as well. So now you can see the rule has changed. Let's loop their second region now so it's 4 bars in length. And again, let's solo this by pressing the headphone icon over here. So you can see every free beats, there's a kick and every beat, there's a closed high hat and also the metronome. I'll play this back now so you can hear a difference. You can also count draw and playback, as well. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Let's now look at 54. Again, let's change the time sing that you're here to 54. And let's loop this, so it's 4 bars. So let's change the cycle region as well by clicking and dragging up here. So it's 4 bars. So for 54, we have a kick every five beats, and we have a high hat, every beat. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. Let's play this back now. So let's solo this by pressing the headphone icon and play this back now. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. Okay, so it gives a different kind of feel. Let's now have a look at 68. Again, let's change the keysing that you're up here, and let's change it to 68. Now, the beat divisions are in eighth notes rather than quarter notes. Again, let's change this so it's 4 bars. So let's loop this two bar region, so it's 4 bars in length. So now we have six eighth notes. So we have a kick every six eighth notes. And then we have one, two, three, four, five, six, eighth notes, as well. So when I play this back and count, you'll notice, I'll be counting a lot faster because I'll be counting eighth notes rather than quarter notes. So let's solo this and play this back. One, two, three, four, five, six, 12, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six. Obviously, these are very, very simple beats, but I just wanted to make it very simple so you can hear the difference. So you notice we have other options as well. We have seven, eight, 12, eight, 138, and custom where we can type in a number of beats, and we can also choose the note value. Once you select a new time signature, GarageBand will automatically adjust the project's rhythm structure based on new time signature. For now, though, let's go back to 44 as this is the most common time signature. However, every now and again, you may wish to use one of these more unusual time signatures. Okay, let's now talk about key signature. Of screen, I've deleted what we had previously and I've added a new loop. So I went to the Apple Loop Library. Then under the instrument tab, I selected Piano and found this one here called Latin Roja piano seven. I've also turned off the metronome and changed the cycle region, so it's 2 bars in length. So right now this is in C major, and we can see it says C major up here in the display. Let's play this back in C major. We can click on the keys that you're here, and this drop down list will appear. The top half will give us major keys, and the bottom half will give us minor keys. So the key signature establishes the tonal center of the song, define and which notes and chords will sound most harmonious throughout. A song in a major key tends to have a bright uplifting feel while a minor key creates a dark and more emotional tone. The key signature guides the melodic and harmonic content, ensuring that all the musical elements such as instruments, vocals, and harmonies are aligned around the same central pitch or tonal home. It provides the foundation for the song's mood and character, influence in the chords, scales, and overall musical direction. Okay, so for this example, let's choose another key. Let's change it to G major. Note that changing the key signature has little impact on the other functions of garage band, unlike changes to the tempo or time signature. The only major aspect this affects is the vocal pitch correction in garage band, which we'll look at later in the course. It is still useful to see what the key of the track is, as this will help guide musical decisions when revising the project. Okay, so let's now hear this loop in G major. Let's try another key. Let's try D major. And we can see the mini notes here change to the different key. So I recommend adding your own loops and musical parts and changing the key so you can hear a difference. And at the end of this video. We've looked at basic musical information, including tempo, time signature, and key signature. So I hope you find this video useful, and I'll see in the next one. 5. Introduction to Apple Loops: Hi there, and welcome to this lesson where we'll explore how to use Garage bands loop library, customized loops, and how to use them in your music. Apple loops are pre made royalty free audio and midi files, covering various genres. They're great for instant inspiration or for composing songs. Open the loop browser at the top right of the screen or press O on your computer's keyboard. You can search loops by instrument, damra and vibe descriptors such as relaxed or cheerful, for example. We can reset the search by pressing the X button in the top left. The heart next to the loop is the favorites. When at least one loop is favorited, you'll be able to filter your favorites, as well as the instruments, gumre and descriptor by clicking this heart icon up here. You can audition loops by simply clicking on them. We can scroll down the list to see the loops, and we can audition them by simply clicking on them. You can click on the loop again to stop the playback of the loop, or you can stop the playback by pressing the speaker at the bottom left of the loop window. By the way, the speaker icon down here will light up green when the loop is playing back. You can import a loop into your project by simply clicking and dragging it to the arrangement window. Audio loops in blue must be dragged onto an audio track, and Mi loops in green must be dragged onto a software instrument track. Dragging loops to the blank space underneath the listed tracks will automatically create the appropriate track for the loop. So for this example, let's drag this midi loop to this track. And now this has changed the instrument to match the loop. You'll notice that when I try and drag this audio loop to this midi track, it doesn't allow us to. You can see it says, drag green apple loops here. Drag blue loops to an audio track. Or we can drag below, and it will create a new audio track. Okay, let's play this back, and you should be able to hear the audio loop and the mini loop. In the loop library, you can also see how long each loop is measured in beats. This is useful when arranging your loops. So for example, here, we can see the midi loop is 4 bars long, and the audio loop is 8 bars long. We can always hover over the top right of the loop and drag over to the right to loop this or we can use the key command L, and this will actually loop and unloop the selected region. We can also hover our mouse to the bottom half of the region, and this allows us to trim back the length of the loop. We can also see how long each loop is measured in beats. Loops come in a variety of tempos to provide a wide selection available to all musical dramas. The clever thing about Apple loops is that they will automatically change the tempo of your project when you import them. This means you're not limited to the choice of loops, and you can keep all the musical elements in your track synchronized. Loop categories. As well as audio and mini loops, we have yellow drummer loops. We'll look at these in more detail later in this course, but feel free to use the drummer loops in your tracks by dragging them to their empty space below the track list. We can also fill to the loops by pressing this icon here. So we can show all the loops or we can click here to just show the drummer loops. Let's just preview some of these now. As I said, we can drag these to the empty space below the track list, and this will create a drummer instrument. I'm just going to mute the audio loop that we added previously by pressing this mute bottom, and let's press Enter to go to the beginning and space bar to play this back. So this drummer loop is 32 beats. So if we want to make this section this long, we will need to hover over the top of this mini loop and drag it to the right so it's the same length. So now when I play back, you'll notice we can hear this guitar loop and this drummer loop. The benefit of using Mi loops over audio loops is that you can make changes to the loops once you have them in your arrangement. Let's now talk about audio loops versus Mi loops. The benefit of using Mi loops over audio loops is that you can make changes to the loop once you have them in your arrangement. You can do this by clicking on the Mi loop and then pressing E or this icon up here to open up the editor. This will open the piano roll, which we'll look at in more detail later on. So we can change this MIDI information in the piano roll if you wish. So for example, let's just change these down here so you can hear difference. You should hear now, it will sound different. I'm just going to undo the changes I made by pressing Command ed a few times. Let's now hear what it was like before. This is not possible to do for audio loops, though, as the musical information is printed inside the loop itself. So if you want to be able to quickly customize your loops, I do recommend using Mini loops over audio loops. 6. Customizing Apple Loops: Okay, now let's look at customizing loops. Let's first look at trimming regions. So you can easily modify regions and loops to suit your arrangement by trimming them, allowing you to use only a specific part of a loop. This is useful when you want to make a shorter or altered variation of the loop for different song sections like verses and choruses. Let me show you now how to trim a loop. We looked at this before, I'll show you how to trim so you just have a certain section that you can loop. For now, let's mute this drummer track and let's unmute the drum track, and let's now trim this audio region. Let's zoom in by using this slider here. So for this example, let's just use the second bar. So let's hover over to the bottom half of the region and trim this back to bar three. And then we can also trim the start of the loop. So let's trim this back so it's at bar two. And now we can click and drag this over to the start and I hover over to the top right of the loop and drag this to the right, so it's 8 bars in length. Let's just zoom out now and play this back, and you should be able to notice that we're now looping just this one section of the loop. You can also copy and paste trim versions to different areas of your project, create variations, helping build interesting dynamics across different sections of your song. You can do this with Command C and Command V. So let's copy this audio loop by pressing Command C, and let's move the playhead ruler now to bar nine and make sure we have the correct track selected and press Command V. Let's now talk about loop families. Not all loops will have this, but if you have this arrow button here, it will show you another loop in a loop family. So this will be another loop or several loops that sound very similar. So you can see here that when I clicked on this arrow button, we have this other loop here. So let's now select this. You can see this isn't trimmed. So if you want to trim this, you will need to trim this new loop. Let's just loop over this guitar loop now. Now let's play this back so we can hear it from the old loop to the new loop. By the way, drawing playback, you can see the project move if you don't want this and you want the project to stay still drawing playback. Just deselect this button up here. Okay, now let's talk about reversing loops. Reversing loops can create a unique and unexpected twist in your arrangement, adding texture and creative effects. The reverse feature in garage band lets you easily play any loop backward. However, this is only possible for audio loops and not for midi loops. Here's how to do it. Open the editor for the audio loop, and this will show us the waveform editor down here. Make sure the region tab is selected in the waveform editor, and then check reverse playback. Now let's listen to this reverse drum loop. So for this example, I'm going to trim this back, so it's only 1 bar in length, and now I'm going to copy and paste this loop, which we can do by pressing Command C and Command V. Or we can duplicate by holding down option button and clicking and dragging. Now I'm going to loop this 1 bar loop. At this time, I'm going to uncheck reverse playback. So you should be able to hear now that from bar nine to bar ten, we have the reversed loop and then from bar ten to bar 17, we have the loop playing forwards. Let's hear this now. Reversing a region can be great for creating risers, drops, and ambient effects, and other creative production. You can also combine reverse loops with standard loops to add contrast and interest to specific parts of your tract, especially for transitions. 7. Layering Apple Loops: Okay, now let's talk about layering loops. Layering different types of loops together is a powerful way to create a fuller, richer arrangement. By combining loops, like drumbeats, bass lines, melodic elements, you can enhance your songs groove and depth. Here's how to layer loops. So let's now add another loop to this groove. So just for this example, I'm going to cycle bar 13 to bar 17, and let's now find another loop to add to this groove. In the loop library, let's select instrument, and next to name, I'm going to click here and change loop types to all loops. For this example, let's add a percussion part. So in the instrument, I'm going to select percussion. And now in the genre, I'm going to choose rock blues. Now let's play this cycle region back and drawing playback. I'll preview some of these loops to see if they fit with our groove. Okay, let's do this now. Okay, like this one here called funky strut Shaker. Let's now click and drag this below to create this new track. Now let's loop this, so it's 4 bars in length. Okay, let's now play this back and drawing playback or just the volume controls for each track to balance the loops. By the way, we can also click and drag on each track header here to change the order of the tracks. So let's put this percussion track above this muted drummer track. Okay, let's play this back now. Okay, drawing playback, I just turned the volume down of the percussion quite a bit and turn the volume of the guitar track down slightly. Okay, so that's an introduction into Apple Loops. Next, we continue looking at the different features and functions of GarageBand. Thanks watching, and I'll see you there. 8. MIDI and Virtual Instruments: Hi there, and welcome to this lesson where we're going to dive into the world of MIDI, which stands for musical instrument digital interface and garage bands built in virtual instruments. By the end of this section, you'll know how to create, edit, and manipulate MIDI data, use virtual instruments, and connect MIDI controllers. So what is MIDI? MIDI is a protocol that allows electronic musical instruments, computers, and other hardware to communicate and control musical notes and performance data without containing actual sound. MIDI and garage band control software instruments by sending data that represents musical notes rather than actual audio. When you record using a MIDI controller or the virtual keyboard, the information captured includes the pitch of the note, its duration, which is how long it's held, and the velocity, which is how hard the note is played. This allows for a lot of flexibility, as you can edit MIDI data after recording without re recording the performance. You can adjust individual notes, change their timing, or tweak the length and velocity in the piano roll editor. This flexibility makes MDIideal for refining performances, creating variations, or even drawing in notes manually. Unlike audio, which capture sound waves, MIDI data acts like digital sheet music, controlling how software instruments behave. Garage bands built in instruments. Let's now have a look at overview our virtual instruments. Garage Band comes with a wide range of virtual instruments like pianos, drums, symps, guitars, bass, and more. These instruments can be played and manipulated using MIDI data. Using the library. In garage band, you can access a wide range of virtual instruments to use in your project. Here's how to browse, preview, and select instruments. Click the library icon in the top left corner to open the instrument browser or press Y on your keyboard. You can see different categories such as keyboards, guitars, drums, and more. Scroll through the available instruments within each category. For example, under keyboards, you might find options for electric pianos, symppads or organs. And there's many other ones as well. Click on the instrument known to preview it sound. You can play it using a mini Controller, which we'll talk about in a moment or Garage bands musical typing feature, which you can access by pressing Command K to open the onscreen keyboard. So you can click on these keys here or you can type the corresponding letters on your computer's keyboard. For example, now I'm going to press A, D, G, and K. After selecting your instrument, press B to open the smart controls, or you can press as icon uppear. These are the adjustable parameters unique to each instruments. For this example, I can modify the tone, delay, and reverb. By exploring different instruments and using smart controls, you can customize sounds to fit your project. Lets you choose another instrument sound now. And you'll notice if we make changes, this pop up will appear. This pop up says you've made changes to the current instrument or instrument setting, so you can save your changes by pressing Save As, or you can discard these changes by pressing Continue. For now, I'm going to discard this, so I'm going to press Continue. Okay, here's another virtual instrument, and you should notice it sounds very different. Again, we can change these controls down here if you wish. So for this example, I'm going to change the chorus, echo, and let's also change the drive. Okay, let's choose one more. Let's press Continue again. And hear this. So you can see down here we have this Xpipad so we can click and drag down here to change the sound. 9. Using and Setting up a MIDI Controller: Let's now talk about using a MIDI controller. So what is a MIDI Controller? A MIDI Controller is a type of electronic keyboard that sends MIDI data to music software or hardware. Unlike traditional keyboards that produce sound on their own, mini keyboards do not generate audio. Instead, they control virtual instruments or other midi compatible devices. Mi keyboards typically have a familiar piano layout, making it easier for beginners to understand and play music. But if you don't have a MIDI keyboard, it's okay. You can use musical typing or you can just add notes into the piano rom. But personally, I do think it's easier and more convenient to write music with a mini keyboard. Let's now talk about connecting a MIDI keyboard. Connecting an external midi keyboard to garage band allows you to play and control the virtual instruments more intuitively. Here's how to connect USB. Plug in the keyboard, using a USB cable to connect your Mi keyboard to your computer. Most modern Mi keyboards use a USBB connection, while your MAC may have a USBC or USB A port depending on the model. An adapter may be needed to connect your MIDI device to your MAC. Once connected, garage band should automatically recognize the MIDI device. Open garage band and create a new project or open an existing one. Then choose a software instrument from the library, and now you can play your instrument using your MIi keyboard. Okay, so right now, I do have a midi keyboard set up in front of me, and you'll be able to notice I can play a lot more on a mini keyboard than what I can do on musical typing. Okay, so that's ended this lesson. As I said, it's not essential that you use a midi keyboard, but it can be very helpful. In the next lesson, we'll explore how to record onto a software instrument track. I'll see you there. 10. Recording onto a Software Instrument Track: Okay, now let's look at recording onto a software instrument track. So once you've selected the instrument from the library and connected your midi keyboard, follow these steps to record your performance onto a software instrument track. Alternatively, if you don't have a midi keyboard, you can use musical typing. But as I have a midi keyboard in front of me, I'm going to close musical typing and record with my midi keyboard. I first of all, recommend playing a few notes on your midi keyboard to make sure you can hear it. If you don't have a drum track, I do recommend having the metronome enabled so you can hit a click drawing playback to keep you on time. I also recommend enabling the counting so it gives you a bar or four beats before you record so you can get a feel for the tempo and you know when to start playing. Then make sure the playhead ruler is in the right position, and then press a circle button up here to record or you can use a key command R. So when you press this record button, garage band will record what notes you play, their duration, and the velocity, which is how hard you press the keys. This allows for detailed editing later. Okay, let's record something in now. Press Spacebar to stop the recording, and your performance will now appear as a midi region on the timeline. The individual notes can be viewed and edited in a piano roll editor, which I'll explain shortly. Okay, so that's how to record onto a software instrument track. Next, we'll dive into the piano roll, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks for watching and I'll see you there. 11. Piano Roll and Pencil Tool: Okay, so now let's dive into some details of the piano roll. So you can show the piano roll by making sure our midi track is selected and then pressing the Editor button up here or by pressing the key command E. Let's make a bit more space by closing the library by pressing this button up here, or by using the key command Y. Okay, so now let's dive into some details of the piano roll. In the piano roll, each note is represented as a horizontal bar. The position of these bars along the vertical axis correspond to specific musical pitches. The visual representation helps you easily identify the notes being played and a relative pitch. This layer mimics the layout of a piano keyboard, where higher pitched notes are located towards the right. Just think of this as a piano keyboard flipped on its side. The higher a bar is positioned, the higher the pitch of the note. For example, I can change this first note, which is in the E three, make it lower, move it down to C free, or make it higher, move it up to C four. I'm going to do these changes now by pressing comandsE. So it's back to E three. The length of each horizontal bar in the piano roll indicates the duration of the note. This is crucial for defining how long each note is hell during playback. Short bars represent shorter note durations, such as 16th notes or eighth notes. Long bars indicate longer durations, such as quarter notes or whole notes. The length of the bar allows for clear visual differentiation between different note lamps. Let's just zoom in with this control here. And let's just play this back from the start. You notice we can't actually hear the first note because it's triggered before bar one. So up here is the bar numbers. So let's just click and move this so it starts on bar one. Let's hear this again. Now let's make this first note length longer by clicking and dragging to the right. Let's now talk about overlap of notes. You can see when notes overlap, they play simultaneously. This is particularly useful for playing chords or harmonies, as you can quickly assess how notes interact. Let's make this a bit more obvious. So we have both of these notes play at the same time. You'll notice now it's a chord because it's playing more than one note at the same time. Again, let's do this with Command zed. So it's really easy to move and drag notes in the piano or Editor. Right? You can literally just click and drag notes and move them where you want. You can drag notes up or down to change the pitch and stretch or shorten them to modify the duration. This flexibility is key for refining melodies and harmonies. Now let's talk about editing capabilities in the piano roll. The piano roll and garage band offers robust editing capabilities that enable precise control over mini performances. Here are some key features that we haven't looked at yet. You can copy and paste notes by selecting the note, pressing Command C, and then moving the playhead roller to where you want to paste, and then pressing Command V. You can also select a note and then hold down option and click and drag to copy as well. Let's hear this back now. Duplicating like this is useful for quickly layering sounds or creating variations. Again, we can duplicate like this if we want to create chords. Again, let's do this with Commands. I also recommend snapping notes to the grid. By making sure your notes start and end on the grid, you can create more structured and tighter performances. So you can see in the piano roll, we do have a grid. If the notes aren't on the grid, they may not be perfectly on time. For some styles of music like jazz, you may not want it to be perfectly in time, but for a lot of electronic music, you will want the notes perfectly on the grid so it's perfectly in time. We can also write in parts in the piano roll. We can do this with the pencil tool. The pencil tool and garage bands piano roll offers a powerful alternative to live recording, allowing you to manually input musical notes and create compositions with precision. Here's how it works and why it's often preferred for writing music. To activate the pencil tool, hold command and your cursor will change to a pencil. This tool allows you to draw notes directly onto the grid. Click on the grid where you want to place a note. Each click will create a note of predetermined length and pitch based on its vertical position. You can also click while holding command to change the note length. You can draw multiple notes in to build melodies or chords. After placing a note, you can edit the position or length as mentioned. Click and drag the note up or down to adjust its pitches needed, making it easier to experiment with different melodies. And of course, we can trim the note length as well. Okay, let's now hit back. And if you made a mistake or if you want to go back, you can always press Command ed. So the pencil tool enables precise note placement, making it ideal for composing intricate parts without the constraints of live performance. You can quickly correct mistakes by deleting or adjusting notes without worrying about timing errors that can happen during live recording. This method allows you to easily rearrange or modify sections of your composition without the need to re record. Many musicians and producers prefer using the pencil tool for composing because it offers a greater level of detail and flexibility. Whether you're crafting complex arrangements or simple melodies, the ability to visualize and manipulate notes directly in the piano roll can make the writing process more effective and creative. The best musicians and producers, though, will use a combination of midi programming and live performance in their productions. Okay, so that's the end of this video where we've explored the piano roll and Pencil tool. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 12. How to Set Up a Microphone in GarageBand: There and welcome to this lesson, or you'll learn how to record audio and garage band, including setting up microphones and instruments and configuring audio tracks. By the end of the lesson, you'll be able to set up a recording session and understand how to monitor, edit, and improve your audio recordings. Okay, so let's get started. To record audio and garage band, you'll need to connect a microphone to your Mac. Here are the three main ways to do this depending on the type of microphone you're using. The first way is using an audio interface. Connect your microphone to an audio interface using an ELA cable. An audio interface converts the analog signal from the microphone into a digital signal that your Mac can read. Connect your audio interface to your Mac via USB or Thunderbolt. Make sure your audio interface is powered on. In GarageBand, select your audio interface as the input source. You can do this by going to GarageBand in the top left and then go to settings. And now under the audio Midi tab, you can select your input device. So for this example, I'm going to select my audio interface, which is this one here, Claret for pre USB. Next is using a USB microphone. If you use a USB microphone, connect this to your Mac via USB cable. Many USB mics are plug and play, meaning they don't require an audio interface. So if you plug in your USB mic, you should be able to find it here in input devices. And next is using your MAX built in microphone. If you don't have an external microphone, you can use your MAX built in microphone. While it may not offer the highest quality, it can still work well for recording demo ideas. You should also be able to find your built in Mac in the input devices. You can see here for me, it says MacBook Pro Microphone. But as I have a microphone plugged into an audio interface, I'm going to make sure I have my audio interface selected here. Instrument setup for recording electric guitars, bass or keyboards, you can connect your instrument directly to an audio interface using a quarter inch cable, also known as an instrument cable. Signal chain overview. Regardless of the setup, this is the basic signal chain. So it goes from microphone or instrument into audio interface if applicable, then into Mac, then into GarageBand. This signal flow ensures that the audio from your microphone is recorded accurately into GarageBand for editing, mixing, and processing. Configuring your track input settings. Now, GarageBand knows which device to record from. However, lots of recording devices have multiple inputs for recording multiple sources at the same time. We now need to tell the track you're recording onto, which input on your device to record from. First of all, create a new track. We can do this by pressing the plus button op here or by using the key command option command N. For this example, let's select MCO line. And now make sure the Smart Controls area down here is opened. If it's not, you can press this button up here to open this or use a key Command B. Under the track tab, go to input and select the input channel that corresponds to your connected microphone or instrument. So for this example, I have my microphone plugged into Input two. The amount of input options here will depend on how many inputs you have available on your interface. And now you can see the level here when I talk. Your track is now ready to record from the correct input. Monitoring yourself. Software monitoring allows you to hear yourself or your instrument through your speakers or headphones while recording. This is useful for ensuring your performance sounds how you want it in real time, how to turn on input monitoring. First of all, select the track you want to record on. So for this example, I'm going to select audio one. Now make sure the smart control area is open, and now look for the input monitoring icon. This is a small dart with two curved lines beneath it located in the track header of the Smart Control panel. Clicking this icon to enable monitoring, allowing you to hear your audio while playing or recording. This icon is also available on each track. If it isn't right click on the track, go to Configure Track header and make sure input monitoring is checked. Avoiding feedback issues. If you're using speakers instead of headphones, the microphone can pick up the sound from the speaker causing an audio loop known as feedback. To prevent this, use headphones while recording to isolate the sound and avoid looping audio. I also recommend keeping the monitoring volume at a comfortable level to reduce the chance of feedback. Turning on input monitoring helps you stay on pitch or in sync, but always be cautious with speaker use to avoid unpleasant noise issues. Recording settings, adjusting input settings. Input gain or gain is a level of a signal coming into an audio device. Volume or output is a level of a signal coming out of an audio device. When recording, you can adjust the input gain from your interface. This will normally be a knob or dial on your audio interface that you can adjust to increase or decrease the gain level. Proper input gain ensures your recordings are clean and free from distortion or clipping, which occurs when the signal is too loud and exceeds the capacity of the recording system. How to adjust input gain. Most audio interfaces have a gain knob for each input. While playing your instrument or singing into the mic, turn the knob while watching the signal meter on your track and garage band. Aim to keep the level in the green zone. If it reaches the red zone, your signal is too loud and may clip. Here's what to do if your interface doesn't have a gain knob or you're using a built in mic or USB mic. Select your track, press B to open the smart controls and adjust the recording level in a track tab. Watch the input meter and keep the signal from peeking into the red. So let me just show this now. Let me just change from my audio interface into the built in microphone. So let's go to GarageBand in the top left and then go to settings, and under the audio Midi tab, I'm going to change the input device to my MacBook Pro microphone. So you can see now we can adjust this recording level dial. Let me just click on the input here and change this to input one. As this MacBook built in microphone only has one input. Now let's enable monitoring, and let's increase this, and I'm going to swap over now to this built in microphone. And you should be able to notice it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as external microphone I was using previously. So I've just unchecked monitoring there. So this built in mic might be okay for demo ideas, but ideally, it is better to use an external microphone. Okay, let me just swap back to my external microphone. So let's go back to garage band settings, and then I need to select my audio interface. So to input devices, I'm going to choose my audio interface, which is collect for pre USB. And then under input, I'm going to choose Input two, which is this microphone I'm speaking into right now. The level here is a bit high, so I'm going to put this down to zero DB to ensure it doesn't go into the red or clip. This volume slide here won't adjust the recording level, just what we play back. Okay, so that brings us to the end of this lesson. We covered setting up a microphone. Next, let's look at recording audio, which we'll look at in the next lesson. So thanks for watching and I'll see you there. 13. Basic Audio Recording Workflow: There and welcome to this video where we're going to look at recording audio. Let's now go over the basic recording workflow. First of all, set up the audio track with the correct input and then enable record for the track. If this is not visible, then you can right click on the track and then go to Configure Track header and then check record enable. Now we can press this so it lights up, which means it's record enabled. Then press the record button up here or hit R on the keyboard. This is a test. Then press space bar to stop the recording. And then we can listen back to the recording. This is a test. Let's now talk about multitrack recording. Multitrack recording in garage band allows you to record multiple parts separately or at the same time, such as vocals and instruments. Each instrument or vocal part is recorded into its own track, giving you more control over editing and mixing. To record parts separately, simply add a new track for each instrument or vocal and record them one at a time. For simultaneous recordings, connect multiple microphones or instruments to an audio interface of multiple inputs and record each on a separate track. Ensure you record and enable each track individually before recording. Although specific tracks won't record. So say, for example, you want to sing and play the guitar, recording the guitar and vocal separately allows you to adjust each track individually for a cleaner mix and more polished final mix. However, you still may get guitar sound picking up on the microphone, so it is often better to record each track separately. However, I'll show you how to record multiple audio tracks now. So I'm just going to click on this example region here and delete this. And now let's add another track. So let's hit the plus button up here. And then add another audio track. For this, I'm going to connect my electric piano to my audio interface. I'm going to add this as a line input. So I'm going to select the Michael line and then press Create. Now where it says Audio two, I'm going to double click on this and type in keys and press Enter, so I know the tracks are different. For this, I have my electric piano plugged into input one. And if you want to hear yourself back, make sure you enable input monitoring. And if I press record now, you'll notice it's only going to record audio one, not the key track because we haven't clicked Record Enable. So let me just show you now. If I press record, you'll notice it's just going to record Audio one. Let me just delete this by pressing the delete button. And now let's press record enable for the keys part as well. Let's move the playhead ruler back to the start or we can use a key command Enter to go to the start. And now I'm going to record this and play some chords on my electric keyboard. Before record, I'm going to make sure the gain level is set correctly for electric piano. That seems about right. It's not going into the red or clipping, and we still have a good amount of gain. Okay, I'll play this back. I'll just speak on the microphone. I won't be singing for this example, but I'll play some chords on my electric piano at the same time. So let's hit this record button here, or use a kikmanR and then it'll give me 1 bar counting, and it will also have the metro or click during recording to keep me in time. Okay, let's do this now. This is an example of me talking. Okay, let's press Ender to go to the start, let's hear this back. This is an example of me talking. Okay, so that's how you can record multiple tracks at the same time. So this track here is just the microphone. So let's just solo this. This is an example of me talking. This electric piano does have speakers, so it is picking up on this microphone. However, if we solo the keys part, you'll notice we can't hit the microphone just the keys part. Okay, so that's the end of this video we've looked at recording audio. I hope you found this video useful, and I'll see you in the next one. 14. How to Use Punch-In Recording: Okay, let's now talk about punching in and out. Punch and recording in garage band lets you fix mistakes by re recording only a specific section of the track rather than having to redo the entire take. This feature is especially useful when you've performed most of the track well, but you want to correct a small error. Let me show you how to do this now. So I did play chords three and four quite loud, so let's actually re record these and I'll play them a bit softer. So first of all, set the playhead to the section you want to fix. So if I press record now, we will get accounting of 1 bar, and then we can record just these 2 bars here. I'm just going to mute Audio one as this was just an example of me talking, and let's deselect record enable by clicking on it again so it's not lit up. Okay, so now when we press record, it will just record in the keys part from bar free. After I play this new part, I'm going to stop playback by pressing the Space bar. Let's do this now. I remember to press Space Bar to stop the recording. So let's just zoom in now and have a look at this. You can see it's not perfect because previously we did play a little bit early. We will look at quantizing later on. But an easy fix for this is to just drag this first region back and a second region over. Okay, let's hear this now. Okay, great. They're now at a more similar level. Punch and recording and garage band can also be done with the cycle region tool, which lets you re record just a specific section of a track. Okay, here's how to do it. So first of all, we need to enable cycle region. At the top of the garage band window, click this grado area here in the region to enable cycling, or you can press the cycle button up here to enable this. You can also use the key command C to enable and disable the cycle region. So this allows you to set a region that will repeat during playback or recording. So just for this example, let's actually repeat bars three to four. You can adjust the start and end points of the cycle region by dragging the edges of the yellow bar. Now you can use the cycle as a punch and guide. With the cycle region set, press R to record, and garage band will only record over the highlighted section. So for this example, I'm going to re record the microphone, and this time, I'm going to use an egg shaker. So let's unmute this. Let's record enable Audio one, and let's turn off record nable for the keys part. Let's actually delete the audio region we had previously, because that was just an example of me talking. So now with the cycle region, I compress R to record, and garage band will only record over the highlighted section. So the cycle feature ensures the recording starts and stops at the exact points you've selected, making it easier to correct mistakes without affecting the rest of the track. Also, once the playhead has reached the end of the cycle, it will record another take over the same section, allowing you to record multiple takes without having to reset the recording parameters. So you can enable input monitoring if you wish, but this egg shaker is quite loud, so I'm not going to enable this. Okay, let's now press record and I'll record in a few different takes. 15. Comping Takes: Now let's talk about comping takes. So comping is a production term which involves recording multiple takes of a performance and choosing the best parts from each take to create a final version. It's perfect for refining or recording, especially when certain sections of a performance are better in one take than another. So how does comping work in garage band? So when you have the cycle region enabled and you record over the same sections multiple times, garage band automatically stores each performance as a separate take in a take folder. After recording, you'll notice a number of takes appears in the top of the region. So for this example, we have four. You can now click on this number to open the T folder. So here you can see a drop down list with all the different takes. So I can now click on each take individually to hear the different takes. Let's do this now. So this was tape one. This was Tape two. Take three. And Tape four. To create a final version, you can select the best sections from each take. We can do this by splitting the region and choosing each take from the split regions. You can split regions by moving the playhead to the point you want to split and pressing Command So let's just split from bar four. And now let's press Command T to split. And now let's change the second region to take one. So now bar three, we'll play the first half of Tape four and bar four we'll play the second half of Te one. Let's hear this now. If that certain take doesn't work, you can always try another one. Let's try Take two for this example. So it can take some trial and error, but comping allows you to use the best from each take. 16. Importing and Reversing Audio: Okay, let's now talk about importing audio. Garage Band allows you to easily input audio files to your project. This could be a pre recorded track, a sample or a sound effect. Here's how to import audio to Garage Band. First of all, open your finder and locate the audio file you want to import. Garage Band supports formats like NB free, WAF, and AIFF. So for this example, I have an audio sample on my desktop. Then simply drag the file from the finder into the tracks area of garage band. You can drag it directly onto an audio track, or you can drag the audio file below the tracks, and garage band will automatically create a new track for the imported audio. This is quite loud, so let's just turn the volume down for this. And now let's turn of the cycle region by clicking on the yellow bar or by using the key command C or by pressing the cycle region button here. Let's hit this back now, and you should be able to hear the audio sample I just dragged in. Once imported, you can treat the audio like any track and garage band, so you can cut, trim, loop, or apply ex. This feature is particularly useful for incorporated pre made loops, external recordings or samples into your project. Just for this example, I'm going to trim this audio file so it's 4 bars long, and I'm going to duplicate this by holding down option and dragging. Now let's place this on bar five. And I actually want to reverse this sample. So let's double click on this region to open up the editor. Now in the region tab, let's select reverse playback. So I'm going to move this audio region, so it starts at bar one, and let's have this other audio region start at bar five, so we can click and drag these around like this. So now it builds up and then crashes down. So let's hear this now from bar three. So we've reversed this region here, so it rises up, and then the second region crashes down. Okay, so that's just a quick example of importing audiophiles into garage band. So if you do have any samples from any third party sites such as Splice, you can input these into garage band, if you wish. Okay, so that's ended this video. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 17. Quantizing MIDI: There, and welcome to this video where we're going to look at quantizing MIDI. I did touch on this briefly earlier. In this video, we're going to go into a lot more detail. Quantization is a process using all doors that snaps midi notes to the nearest grid, helping correct timing issues by aligning notes with the song's rhythm. This feature is especially helpful for cleaning up performances and making your music sound tighter and more cohesive. Here are the steps to apply quantizing to MIDI and the piano roll. First of all, open the piano roll by double clicking on the MIDI region you want to edit, or you can just click on this once if you already have the editor open. He can see the individual notes in your grid which represent the timing of your performance. Let's just close a library by pressing Y, so we have a bit more space. Next, you need to select the notes you want to quantize. You can do this by clicking and dragging an empty space to select the notes you want to quantize or by clicking one individual note and holding Shift to select more. Or you can select all the notes in the region by pressing Command A. Under the region settings, you'll find the quantizing menu. That's this area here. Then choose a quantizing value that suits the rhythm of your piece. Eighth notes will snap notes to the nearest eighth notes on the grid, ideal for steady slower patterns. 16th notes are great for faster rhythms with more notes, such as drum fills or intricate melodies. And you can choose quarter notes if you just have a note every beat. So every four of these is a quarter note. Every two of them is an eighth note, and every one of these is a 16th note. So if we look for our pattern here, this should be fine quantizing to an eighth note. So let's select this. You can see straight away some of the notes have moved, and now they're perfectly on the grid. And this is the same for all of these notes. If I press Command E, you can see the notes move. And if I press redo by pressing Shift Command ed, you can see them snap back to the grid. I'll zoom out again and do this one more time. You'll notice in the time quantizing options as well, we do have triplet and swing options. Most of the time, you want to choose one of the straight values in a first box here, but there are more options for triplets and swing grooves that have different rhythmic fields. So now I've quantizing this and I've snapped a note to the nearest eighth note. The performance should sound tighter and have a cleaner rhythm. Okay, let's now hit back. I'll just undo this so we can hear this what it was like before. So it wasn't really out of time before, but now as it's quantizing, it is tighter and does sound cleaner. Because quantizing snaps the notes to the nearest value selected, the process may not be perfect depending on how accurate the piece was performed and which quantizing value you choose. So you may need to manually go through and correct some of these notes. Let's say, for example, I played this a bit out of time, and it was actually closer to this eighth note. So GarageBand will snap it to this eighth note, even though I want it here. So you may need to manually go through and change some of these notes if it hasn't snapped to the place you want. But for this part, it was played in time quite well, so the notes have snapped to where I want them. But it is important to always play the quantizing notes to check if it's correct. And then, as I said, you can make manual changes from there. By the way, the selected notes should change to the time quantizing setting you have selected here. But if it doesn't seem to change, you can press this C quantizing button here. Okay, so that's how you can quantizing Midi GarageBand. Next, we're going to look at quantizing audio, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks for watching and I'll see you there. 18. Quantizing Audio and Using Flex Time: Okay, let's now have a look at flextime and quantizing audio. Quantizing audio is a much harder process than quantizing MIDI. This is a powerful feature in GarageBand that lets you adjust the timing of recorded audio without needing to cut and manually move sections. FlexT is the tool that garage band uses to do this to audio files. Instead of editing by cutting, flextime enables you to stretch or compress specific parts within the audio region, allowing for precise timing issues directly on the track. Okay, let me now show you how to use FlexTi. First of all, open the audio file editor by double clicking on the audio file you want to quantize. Or if you already have the editor open, you can just click on the audio file. Now let's turn on flex time. We can do this by clicking on the flex icon at the top left of the file editor. It looks like an hourglass on its side. This activates flex for the selected track. Once flex time is enabled, you can choose whether to quantizing manually or automatically. To automatically quantize, the process is similar to quantizing a mini file. Go to the quantizing drop down in the file editor and select the value you want to quantize too. So right now we're just playing a chord, every bar. So you can change the time quantizing amount to 1/1 note, which will quantize it to every bar. Now if we move the playhead ruler here and zoom in, we can see the audio starts on the bar. This hasn't adjusted this region here as we don't have this one selected. But let's quantize this region manually. So let's now select this region here, and you can see time quantizing is set to off. So to quantizing manually, you can click on the dash lines that mark the transience of the waveform to create flex markers. These flex markers serve as the point which will move in time with a project grid. Adjust timing by dragging these markers left or right to correct the timing issues of notes or beats within the audio region. So let's just move the playhead ruler to bar four. And we can see here this chord isn't played perfectly in time, but we can click and drag this to the right, and now it's perfectly in time. Let's do the same for the chord on bar free. So we can snap this so it's perfectly in time. Okay, let's now play this piano part back, and you should notice now the chords play perfectly on each bar. Okay, let's actually do the same for the shaker part as well. So again, let's turn on flex time by pressing this button here. And now let's zoom in and have a look at these audio peaks or transients. For this first region, let's try changing this to eighth notes. Okay, let's play this back. We can always manually go in and change some of these if you wish. Okay, let's head now. You can even make some creative changes with this, as well. So it's not just about correcting issues. You can change the rhythm of the part as well, if you wish. So you can hear that. I move that part forward. And we can double click to remove a transient marker and click to draw one. Let's just do this, though, by pressing Command Z. For this, I don't actually want this last transient. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to zoom in in the region and just trim this back slightly. And now you can see we've removed this. Okay, let's hit this back. Now let's do the same for this next region. So let's sell out this. Make sure we have flex time enabled, and let's change the time quantizing amount to 16th notes, as the second region has a shakeup playing a lot faster. Okay, let's hear this now. So it's not perfect, so I am going to manually go in and quantize this myself. So let's change the time quantizing amount back to off. You don't have to quantize everything. For example, some audio can be played without quantizing, but there could just be a few parts in the audio that need tightening up. So let's just solo this part here by pressing the solo icon. And let's just listen to this back with a click. So for this, it sounds like the part was played in time, but there is a slight bit of recording delay. You shouldn't experience this, but this is because I was recording the video at the same time, and it does add a bit of latency or delay to the audio recording. However, I'll show quickly now how to fix this. So let's just zoom in on the region in the arrangement, and let's just drag this back slightly. And now what I want is I want this first transient to start on bar four. Let's zoom in even more and just drag it slightly back. Okay, about that. And now let's just split this audio file here by pressing Command and T. And now let's delete this audio file here. Okay, now if we listen back to this with a click, it should be more in time. Let's say this one more time. So you can see that the transients match up with the beat a bit closer. However, I'm going to manually go through and correct some of this as well. So let's just move these now. Okay, let's hear this back now. For this part, I like the first half, but not the second half. So what we can actually do is trim this back and then just loop this, so it's just the first half. Okay, let's hear this now. Okay, that sounds better to me now. So if you are getting any latency or recording delay, you can just move the audio file back to compensate for this. With audio, just like MIDI, we can trim and loop sections as well. Okay, so that's flex time and quantizing audio. You don't have to quantize all of the audio. Sometimes a bit of imperfection can sound nice in your track. Okay, let's just unsolo this track now, and let's now have a lesson back to the song we have so far. Okay, so we're starting to build a bit more of a song now. Remember, you don't have to quantize everything. Some genres of music like jazz and blues, may not wish to have all the parts quantized. However, for a lot of electronic music, you may wish to quantize your parts. Okay, so that's send you this video. I hope you found it useful, and I'll see you in the next one. 19. The Pitch Correction Tool: Okay, now let's have a look at GarageBand pitch correction tool. This is a quick and effective way to adjust off pitch notes automatically, making it especially useful for vocal tracks. This feature helps smooth out any pitch inconsistencies and can enhance the overall sound of a vocal performance. So for this example, I'm going to add a vocal loop to this song. So let's open up the Apple Loops by pressing this button here or by using the key command, Oh. I know the name of the loop I want to use and it's called Byron Lyric one. So in the search, I'm going to type in Byron lyric. There's this one here, Byron Lyric one. So let's click and drag this beneath our tracks, and this will create a new track. I'm also going to loop this, so it's 4 bars and length. Let's also turn on the cycle region by clicking up here or by using the key command C. And let's drag this to the left, so it's 4 bars and length. Okay, let's now close the Apple Loops by pressing O, and let's hear the vocals back with this beat. Come on. Come on. Come. Come, come on. Okay, let's now have a look at how to use the pitch correction tool. First of all, select the track you want to correct, and then open up the editor by pressing this button here or by using the key command E. In a file Editor panel, select the track tab. And you can see down here we have this pitch correction slider. We can adjust the slider to control the strength of pitch correction with higher values, giving a stronger effect. Subtle adjustments can retain a natural sound, while higher settings can create a more polished pitch perfect output. This brings the pitch of the note closer to the closest note it detects, but this is not necessarily the correct note. So say, for example, you sing really out of tune and you adjust as pitch control, it may actually move to a note that isn't the correct note because the vocals were so out of tune. Okay, so let's solo the track by pressing this icon here. And now let's play this back. And drawing playback, I'll adjust as pitch correction slider so you can hear a difference. I'll also turn off the metronome by pressing K so we don't hear a click sound. Come, mark the marlin. Come mark them, Mom on. Come mark the marlin. Come mark m mom on. Come mark the marlin. Come mark m monk on. Come mark and marlin. So at 100, I did think the effect was a bit too strong, so I moved this down to 36. You can also take the limit to keybox to only move the notes to those which are in the key that's selected in the transport window. In music theory, a key refers to the tonal foundation of a piece defined by a specific scale of notes, for example, C major or A minor. The key determines which notes and chords sound harmonious together. In vocal pitch correction, the key serves as a guide to adjust off pitch notes so they align with the scale, ensuring the corrective vocals match the intended harmonic structure of the song. Using the wrong key and pitch correction can make the vocal sound unnatural or out of tune with the music. So let's play this back again and this time you have limited key checked, and I'll adjust as pitch correction slider again. Come mock marlin. Come, mon, come on. Come mock marlin. Come, mon, come on. Come mock marlin. Come, mon, come on. Come mock marlin. Come, mon, come on. Come mock marlin. Come, mon, come on. Again, when it was at 100, it didn't sound very natural, and the notes were fluctuating quite a lot. So for this example, again, I think around 36 sounds most suitable. This tool is quite basic, but it can be useful for vocalists, looking for clean recording and can be a great way to add polish to any vocal take. Okay, so that's the end of this video. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. 20. How to Add a Drummer Track: Okay, so now let's have a look at the drummer track. So let's first of all, create a new track by pressing this plus button here. And now let's select drummer and press Create. So what is the drumer track? GarageBand drummer track is a built in virtual drummer that can automatically play along with your project, creating realistic drum patterns and grooves that match the style of the music you're working on. The drummer track is designed to add dynamic professional sounding drums to your song without needing to program each beat manually. So let's just unslo the vocal track we looked at previously, and he can see it's created a drummer region. So let's just play this back so we can hear what the default drums sound like. Come on. Come on, come, come on, come, come on. Come on, come on, come on. So straight away, you can hear that sounds pretty good. So you can see here it's open up the library. And at the top here, we have a list of different gramres including rock, alternative, songwriter, R&B, electronic hip hop, and also percussion. So for each genre, you have different styles or drummers. Each virtual drummer has unique characteristics and drum sounds, allowing you to pick one that best complements your project. This makes the drummer track a valuable tool for quickly building the backbone of your song with a realistic drum performance that adapts to your project style and tempo. Let's now choose a different drama and drummer, and I'll play this back again so we can hit a difference. So for this, let's choose hip hop, and let's choose modern hip hop. Okay, let's hit this back now. Come on. Come on. So you can hear that uses an electronic drum kit. Let's try another one. Let's try R&B, and let's try modern Motown. Come on, come. Come, come on, come on, come on. Come. For now, let's actually mute the Shaker audio track so we can hear the drums a bit clearer. Okay, let's try alternative, and let's try Indie disco. Okay, let's hear this back. Come. Come on. Come on. Come, come on. So you can hear that different dramas and drummers do create a very different sound. But for this example, let's go back to the first one, which was rock and pop rock. Come, come on. So we can use these drummer styles, but we can choose different drum kits, if you wish. For example, this one is using the Soul kl drum kit, but let's actually change this to another drum kit. Let's change this to the Manchester drum kit. So you can see now we can't see our drummer controls. But if we double click on the region, we can get this back. Okay, let's now hear the star with the Manchester drum kit. America, come on, come Marcom America on Marco. And drawing play back there, I swapped to a few other drum kits so you can hear a difference. But I do think the default one we had before works well with this track. Okay, let's double click on this region again to bring about this drummer editor, and let's talk about these different controls here. So first of all, we have these beat presets on the left here, and this will adjust these controls here on the right. So let's play this back and I'll go through a few of these different beat presets. Okay. Come Come on. Come Come on. Come on, come on, come. However, we can manually adjust this, so we don't have to rely on the presets. And let's now have a look at this XY pad here. If we click and drag over this yellow circle and we move up, the beat will be louder. And if we drag down, the beat will be softer. Let's play this back, and I'll adjust this now. Come, and more. Come on, come, come on, come on, and more. Come on. So when we adjust this, it will actually trigger other samples. So you could hear that when they move it down to soft, we're getting more rim taps. So this is where the drummer taps the rim and doesn't sound as loud as hitting the snare fully. And if we move it to the left, we would get a simpler pattern, and if we move it to the right, we would get a more complex pattern. So, for example, if we move this to the top left, we would get a simple and loud pattern. Come, M. Come and on. And if we move it to the bottom right, we would get a soft and complex pattern. Come, M and M. Come and on. And top right, we would get a loud and complex pattern. Come, M and Come on. And bottom left, we would get a soft and simple pattern. Come and. Come back and hot on. And anywhere in between. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Okay, let's now talk about customizing individual drum elements. On the right of the drummer here, you'll see icons for different drum pieces, such as kick, snare, toms, high hat, cymbal, and percussion. We can click on these to toggle them on or off. And you'll notice we can only choose one percussion instrument. We can choose to have both the kick and snare on, either of them on or both of them off. We can also only choose to have the Toms, hi hat or cymbals. We can't have all of them on. We can only toggle on one of these drum elements. So once an element is selected, you can choose between a number of grooves, each offering a slight different feel. So, for example, here we have eight different grooves for the kick and snare. Let's actually solo this track so we can hit this a bit clearer. And let's play this back and draw and playback. I'll move between these different kick and snare grooves so you can hit a difference. We also have this follow button here. So for this, we can have the kick and snare follow another track. Right now, we don't have a bass part, but if you had a bass part, you could have the kick and snare follow the bass. This might be useful as often you will have the drums follow the bass part. But for this example, let's have the drums follow the keys part. So you may remember the keys played in every bar. So I've just soloed the keys as well, and let's play this back, and you should be able to hear the kick and snare follow the keys part. So this works for audio tracks and mini tracks. For now, let's uncheck follow and let's uncheck solo for the keys part. As I said, this might be useful for a bass part, but for now, I'm going to use one of the kick and snare patterns that garage band provides us. We also have different patterns for the high hat. Again, let's play this back, and I'll move between these different patterns so you can hit a difference. So you can hear the pattern four is very different. We can also see the region update when we move between these different patterns. Let's now swap over to Tom's. And for this, we have three different patterns. Again, let's play this back and I'll swap between these different patterns. Now let's swap over to symbols. So this is the ride and crash symbols. One important thing to mention when you're adjusting your drum part, it is important to listen to this in the mix. So I don't recommend solo in this track all the time. It is important to hit with the other instruments. So let's unsolo this and hear this with the other tracks. Come on, come. Come on, come, come on, come, come on. Come on, come, come on. Come, come. Come back, come, come on. So drawing playback, I swapped over to the high hat, as I did think that sound is more appropriate than the cymbals. Then we have three different patterns for the percussion. We can choose tambourine, shaker or clap. I'm just going to solo this so we can hit a bit clearer. And I'll play this back and swap between the different percussion instruments and the different patterns so you can hear a difference. Okay, let's start with the tambourine. So the one I like there was the Shaker on pattern number two. But let's hear this with the rest of the tracks to see if it works. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. But this was a bit too busy for what I want. I'm actually going to tunnel percussion, so we're just using the high hat, kick and snare. Okay, let's now have a look at the fills and swing control over here on the right. Let's start with the fills. Fills are short drum transitions that add variety and excitement, typically at the end of a phrase. We can use the fills doll to control how often intense the fills are. Lower settings make the fills minimal or no fills at all, creating a more consistent groove. Higher settings make the fills more frequent and elaborate for added engy. Okay, so let's play this back in our justice fills doll, so you can hear a difference. Co them. Come on the ball. C of them. Come on, on the ball. Co them. Come on, on the ball. Co them. Come on, on the ball. Come on, on the ball. C them. Come, come on, come, come on. Come on, come, come on, come on, come on. Come on, come, come on. So for this pattern, I do like having some fills. But when this will set height, there were too many fills for my likening, so I put this down to around 20% or 8:00. Let's now talk about the swing dial here. Swing adds a groove to the rhythm by slightly delaying certain beats, creating a relaxed human feel. It's commonly used in dramas like jazz, funk, and hip hop. If we set this to 66%, this will create a perfect swing. We also have two different settings. We can choose eighth note swings or 16th note swings. Generally, eighth notes have a slower swing feel, while 16th notes offer a tighter, faster swing. Okay, let's just play this back and I'll swap between eighth note and 16th note swing so you can hear a difference. Come Come on, come, come on. Come. Come on, come, come on. Come. Come on, come, come on. Come. Come on, come, come on. But for this song, I don't want to have any swing, so let's turn this off, pun it down to 50%. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. We also have these padlock icons here, and this will lock the setting so we can't accidentally make any changes. So if you're happy with your fills and swing settings, you can lock them here with these padlock icons. Let's now talk about practical tips for using the drummer track. The drummer track and garage band is a great tool for quickly creating drum patterns without manually programming midi drums. It's perfect for sketching ideas or building a rhythmic foundation. You can adjust the field to suit different sections, such as a simple group of verses and a more dynamic pattern for choruses. Controls like fills and swing add variety and movement to your track. While the drummer is excellent for setting a vibe, it doesn't offer the precision of programming your own mini drums. If you need full control, consider recreating the drummers groove in the piano roll. But for many projects, the drummer is an easy and effective option. If we hover over to the right of the drummer region, you can see this yellow plus button the piers. If we click on this, then this will make a new drummer region. This will actually be a unique region. So you can adjust these settings, and it won't adjust the other region. So for this second region, I'm going to turn off the hi hats. So the first region here has high hats, and the second region doesn't example, the first section could be a chorus section where you want the high hats in to add a bit more energy, and the second section could be a verse section that has no high hats, so it will feel like it has less energy, which may be more suitable for a verse section. Okay, let's play this back so you can hear a difference between these two regions. Come on, come. Come on, come, come on. Okay, so that is a drummer track and garage band. I recommend testing this out with the different drumers and adjust the setting so you can hear a difference. So thanks for watching this video, and I'll see in the next one. 21. Recording a MIDI Bass Part: Okay, so now let's continue building the song. And let's now add a bass part. So right now we have this synth part. So that's kind of a lead block part. We have the Shaker part, which is currently muted. We have this keys part playing four different chords. We have this effect sweep. We have this vocal sample. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. And we have this trumpet. Let's hear it all together. Come on. Come on, come on. So, in my opinion, what this really lacks now is a bass part. So let's now create a bass part. So let's first of all, add a new track. So let's press a plus Buttnop here. And for this, let's add a midi track. If you have an electric bass, you can always choose guitar or bass and record in the bass part. But for this, I'm going to record in a midi part on my midi keyboard. So let's make sure we have midi selected and press Create. So I have my midi keyboard in front of me here. And you can hear we have this default sound of a classic electric piano. So we have a bass category here which has different virtual bases. And we also have different synth bass. We can access the SNF bases by clicking on synthesizer and then base. For this example, though, I want to use a virtual electric base. So let's click on Base and the one I want to use, it's called Stinger base. So when coming up with bass parts, I think it's a good idea to play about the groove and try and get a feel for the bass part. I also imagine I'm playing an electric bass and also listen to the drums and especially the kick drum and try and come up with something that's rhythmical, but also follows the chords. These chords here are A minor, C, G and F. So I'm just going to play the root notes for this, which is A, C, G, and F. If you're new to writing music and music theory, I recommend just keeping it as simple as possible and just use the root notes. So these are the lowest notes of the chord. So, for example, in a C major chord, we have the notes C, E and G. The root note is the C. Okay, so I'm going to turn on the psycho region by clicking up here or by using the key command C. And I'm just going to play this back a few times before a record to try and come up with a groove that matches the drums and follows the chords. Come. Come back, come on. Come. Come on. Come back, come on. Come on. Come back, come on, come. Come back, come on. Come back, come on, come. Come, come on. Okay, I think I've got an idea now. So let's now make sure our track is recorded enabled by pressing this button here. And let's now record by pressing this button or by using the key command. And because we have the count enabled, we will have a counting of 1 bar. And for now, I don't think we need a metronome enabled as we have the drum track, which is giving us the rhythm. Okay, so let's record this in. Come, come, come on, come come, come on, come on. Okay, I think I play that in quite well. Let's double click on a region to open immediate Editor, and we can see now the timing of the notes. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Let's now quantize this. So let's select all the notes here by pressing Command and A. And now let's go over to quantize. And let's change just the eighth notes. As I don't think I played anything faster than the eighth note. Okay, so you can see that all the notes are snapped to the grid. And let's now play this back. Come on, come on. Come back, come on, come on, come on. Come back, come, come on, come on. Come back, come on, come on, come on. Come back, come on, come on. Okay, I think that sounds fine. If you don't have a middy keyboard or you're not comfortable recording, you can always type notes in in the piano roll editor. Remember if you hold down command, the pencil icon will appear, and you can click on the grid where you want to place a note. And, of course, you can change the length and the pitch and the piano editor, as well. Mmm As I said, I do think it's a lot quicker if you can just record it in on immediate keyboard. But as I said, you can write the notes in if you prefer. Okay, let's now make a bit more space in the project. So let's close the library by pressing Y, and let's close the Editor by pressing E. So now we have the core fundamentals of our song. We have a lead part, we have a bass part. We have keys. We have effects, vocals, and a drum part. Next, we're going to look at arranging this into more of a song. So I hope you found this video useful, and you can apply this to creating your own parts. 22. Arrangement Markers: Hi there, and welcome to this video where we're going to look at ranging our tracks. This includes track organization and structure. Okay, so let's begin. So a song structure is the way its sections are arranged, giving it a flow that listeners can follow. Common sections include an intro, so this sets the mood and leads into the song. First, this tells the story or develops the main idea. Chorus, the main often repeated part of the song with the catchiest melody. Bridge, a contrasting section offers variety, outtro. This is the closing part wrapping up the song. A well structured song helps engage listeners by providing a sense of direction and momentum. It keeps the song cohesive and prevents it from feeling repetitive or disjointed. Organizing your tracks into clear sections helps convey your musical ideas effectively and gives a listener something familiar to return to, like the Huk in the chorus. Arranging your song. You can divide your project into sections using garage bands arrangement markers to activate the arrangement tab, go to track, show arrangement track, or use the key command Shift Command A. To add a new section, click the plus button above the tracks. So if you hover over where it says Intro, these arrow buttons will appear. And if we click on this, we can choose a different name. For example, verse, chorus or bridge, and we can also rename this if you wish. For this example, though, let's leave this on intro. Let's now add another marker, so let's press the plus button again. And for this, let's leave this on verse. Now the intro, it's 4 bars, and a verse is 8 bars. Let's now add the chorus. So let's press the plus button again and you can see there automatically says chorus, but let's actually make this 4 bars long. So let's click and resize this. Let's click the plus button again and add another verse. You can see that it says bridge, but let's click on this arrow button here and change this to verse. Actually want to change this, so it says verse two. So let's click on this again and go to rename and rename this verse two. Okay, then I want to have another chorus, let's click on the plus button again. This time, let's make it 4 bars again. And again, I want to rename this, and let's change this to chorus. Okay, let's click the button again. Now I want to have a bridge. Let's leave this as 8 bars, and then I want to have one more chorus. And this time, I want to have a double chorus. So the chorus is going to be 8 bars in length rather than 4 bars. So let's click on this arrow button here, rename this. Let's call this chorus free. And then at the end, I want to add an Outro. So let's click on this plus button here. And you can see that it says Otro, but let's have the outtro 4 bars long. Okay, so we haven't arranged the song yet, but have a structure in mind. So we have two verses and three choruses, but I do recommend adding variety between these different sections, as this will help keep the song interesting. Generally speaking, the song will build up more towards the end, but that's not always the case. 23. Labelling and Organising Your Project: Before we start to arrange our song, let's actually organize this a bit more because if the tracks aren't properly named and organized, it can get quite messy. Let's start with labeling track names. Labeling your tracks correctly ensures you can quickly identify and manage them. Clear names prevent confusion, especially when you're working with similar sounds or effects. I know sometimes that when you create music, you just want to be creative and you don't want to organize or label stuff, but it can really help, especially when you're arranging your song. So to label your track, double click on the track name in the track header and type in a new name that clearly describes a track's role. Avoid generic names like track one or audio two, which make it harder to navigate. So if there's first part here, let's change this to Syplet. We can also rename the regions, if you wish. Let's now do the same for the bass part. Let's rename this to bass. Audio one here, you may remember this was the Shaker part. So let's rename this to Shaker. Then we have the keys part. Let's leave this as it is. Then we have effects Sweet. Let's rename this to Effects Noise. Then we have the vocals. Let's rename this to vocals, and then we have the drums. We can also click and drag on the tracks to rearrange these. You can rearrange them how you want, but generally, I like to have the type of instruments together. So I'll normally have the symps together, then the basses together, and the percussion or drums together. So for this example, let's put the vocals at the top. Then I'm going to have the syn lead, then I'm going to have the keys. Then go to have the bass, then the drums, then the shaker, and then the noise. You can arrange this how you wish, but this is normally how I like to have it. I have the more lead part at the top, going down to the simps then the keys, then the bass, then drums, percussion, and sound effects. Right now we're not using the shaker part, so I'd either move this track down to the bottom of the project in case I want to go back to it, or if I'm sure I don't want to use it in my song, I would delete this. So for this example, let's actually delete this track. We can do this by selecting the track and clicking backspace or delete. If we press delete once, it'll delete the regions, and if we press it again, it'll delete the track. 24. Arranging a Song in GarageBand: Okay, so now let's start to arrange this song. Let's start with the vocals. So for this example, I only want to have the vocals in the chorus. So let's click and drag this and move this only to the chorus. Remember, we can hold down option and click and drag to duplicate. Remember chorus free is a double chorus, so let's make this loop longer. So let's hover over to the top right of the region and click and drag to make this 8 bars long. Okay, then we have the symp lead. Then I want to add it to the second half of the verse to add some momentum. Then I also want to have this for the chorus and verse two, and also chorus two. Then for the bridge, I only want to have this play in the last 2 bars. So let's duplicate this part and trim this back, so it's just the last 2 bars. And then for the chorus, I want to have this part again. So again, let's click, hold down Alt and drag, and then drop this in for the chorus. Again, this is a double chorus, so let's loop this. And I also want to have this for the outtro. So let's loop this again. Then we have the keys part. I'm just going to trim this back, so it's exactly 8 bars in length. And for this, I want to have this play throughout the song. So let's loop this all the way to the end of the song. The bass part I don't want to have for the intro, I want to have the start of the verse. I want to have the song Build up in momentum, so let's not have too much for the intro. I'm going to loop this all the way up to the bridge. And then let's have 4 bars of silence and have the bass enter on bar 33. So let's duplicate this again. And then I want to have this for the chorus, all the way to the end. So let's just drag this loop all the way back. Then we have the effects. I want to have this buildup in the verse, and then this region here play when the chorus starts. So let's drag this over. So this region starts on the chorus. Let's hold down option and do this for chorus two. And also for chorus free. Then we have the drums. Arranging the drums can be very important for your song. So you may remember here we have this drum part. This is our chorus drum part, so let's click and drag this over to the chorus. Let's just turn of the cycle region by present C, and let's have a listen to the verse drums. So what we want to do there is actually have the first half of the verse more sparse than the second half. So let's right click on this region and click on split at playhead. Now let's double click on this first region. And I'm actually going to remove the kick drum. So let's tap on the kick here so we only have the snare play. Okay, let's hear this now. So the intro has no drums. The first half of the verse has just the snare. The second half of the verse has the kick and the snare, and then the chorus has the kick snare, and high hat. Come on. Come on, come on, come on, on. Come on, come on. Okay, great. We could even try just having a kick in the first half of the verse. So let's toggle off the snare and toggle on the kick. Let's hear this now. Okay, I think that's more suitable. So when arranging, you may need to experiment with different ideas and test things out as it may not be perfect straightaway. Let's just close this editor here by pressing E so we have a bit more space, and let's continue working on the drums. Okay, let's now copy of the drums for Verse two. So let's hold down option and click and drag. Now for Verse two, let's add a bit more movement. This time, let's add a tambourine. So let's toggle on the tambourine and play this back and hit this with the tambourine pattern. Okay, great. So the second Tamburne pattern was a bit more simple than the third tambourin pattern. So let's just remember that. Now let's hold down option and click and drag over this. And now let's open this and change the second half of Verse two to TamburnePattern number three. So it builds up a bit more momentum. Now we have the chorus strums. Let's hold down Alt and click and drag over this. And again, let's add the Tamburin on Pattern free. So first two will have the snare kick and the Tamburne pattern with pattern number two for the first half, the second half pattern number three. And for the chorus, it will have pattern number three, and it will have the high heat added. Okay, let's now hear this from the start so you can hear it slowly build up. Come. Come on, come, come on, come, come on. Come on, come, w, come on. Oh. Come on, come on, on, come on. Okay, we're starting to get somewhere. So a few things I'm going to change now. I actually want to have percussion two for the second half of the verse, I'm going to add the high hats. So this will add a bit more movement. Then when the chorus enters, it will change to pattern free and should add some more momentum, but will be a bit more subtle. I also think the first half of the verse is a bit bare without the synth part. So let's click and drag over this to loop this and actually want to remove the base part here. Unfortunately, we can't drag from the left to remove this part here, but we can make the loop two bar shorter and then drag this back. Okay, then we have the bridge section for the bridge, I want it to start off being very sparse and then build up. So let's hold down option and drag over our drum parts, but just have this enter on bar 31. So the first 2 bars here have no drums. Let's also make this region just 1 bar and length. And let's look on this and make this more simple. So for this, I just want to have the kick. And now let's hold on option, copy this over. And now let's have the kick. We have the high hat. Now let's copy this over again. And now let's have the kick, high hat and snare. Okay, let's now hear this bridge. Okay, then we have the final chorus. Let's actually zoom in a bit here, and I want to have a small bit of silence before the final chorus enters. So let's just trim the drums back one beat. And let's hear this now. Okay, so having that small amount of space in the drums there can make the chorus punch a lot more when it enters. Let's now add the drums for the chorus. Let's hold down option and drag over the drums we had before. And let's actually change this to make this a bit different. So let's actually change the hight pattern for this. So let's loop this section here and have a listen to the high part to find something of a bit more energy. Come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Okay, so pattern number four seems to have a bit more energy. Let's hear this solo. Previously, it was this. Okay, great. So let's use pattern number four. Let's just unsolo this, and let's just loop this over. Then we have the Otro, where are we going to have no drums? Okay, let's now hear this from the bridge to the end of the song. Come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come. Come back, come on, come. Come back, come on, come. Come back, come on. Okay, great. I actually don't want to have the bass for the outtro, so let's just trim this loupe back. And I also want to have these effects at the end of the chorus going into the Outro. So let's copy these over as well. Okay, so that is a really quick arrangement of this song. There's a lot more we can do. But let's have a listen to this from start to finish. Come on, come on, come on. Come on Come on, come on. Come on, come, come on, come. Come on, come, come on. Come on, bottom of. Come, boom. Come on, and, bottom on. Come on, and, bottom of. Come o. Come on, bottom on. Okay, so for a really quick arrangement, I don't think that sounds too bad. 25. Coloring Tracks: Let's now talk about color coding tracks. Color coding allows you to quickly identify different instruments, sections, or vocal tracks at a glance. This is especially useful when you use a large amount of tracks in the project. To color your track, right click on a track in a track header and select a sine track color. So let's do this for the vocals first. Let's right click on this, and then go to assign track color. For this example, let's change this to this pink color. I recommend choosing different colors for each instrument group. For example, all the drums in blue, vocals in pink, and guitars in red. This visual organization helps you stay focused and easily separate specific elements drawing editing. So you notice here the bass and the Senth for the same colors. So let's change the color of the Senth part. So let's right click on a track header and then go to assign track color. For this, let's choose a color we haven't already used. Let's choose red, but this is quite similar to the pink. So let's choose this darker red brown color. Then we have the keys and the effects noise is the same color. For this example, let's change the effects noise color. So let's right click on this, go to assign track color, and let's choose another color we haven't used. Let's try this dark purple. Okay, so now you can see each track has a different color. When it's a small project like this, you may not necessarily need to do this, but for large projects, it will definitely help. Okay, so that's the end of this video where we've looked at track, organization, structure, and tidying up your project. I hope this video is useful, and I'll see you in the next one. 26. Balancing Volume Levels and Panning: Hi there, and welcome to this video, where we're going to look at Foy Methads and panning. Let's first start off with a voume fader. The fader is essential for controlling the volume level of each track, helping you balance sounds within a mix. By adjusting voume faders, you can ensure that key elements like vocals or lead instruments, stand out while supporting background elements like background harmonies or rhythmic layers complement rather than overpower. Balancing your track using faders is one of the most powerful tools for creating a professional and polished production. A well balanced track allows each instrument to sit clearly in its own space, enhancing clarity and making the song easier and more enjoyable to listen to. Proper use of faders can also influence a track's dynamics and overall energy, helping create emphasis, mood, and flow across sections of a song. The volume fader for each track can be seen in the tracks area and the main window over here. So when setting the volume for the different instruments, I recommend dragging all these faders down to the left. Donna recommend cycling the area where everything plays. For example, let's loop these 8 bars here for chorus free. Donna recommends setting the volume for the most powerful instruments first. So these will be the drums and the bass. These normally form the foundation of most tracks, especially in dramas like rock, pop, or electronic music. So let's do this now. Let's start off with the drums. So let's increase this volume slider. We also want to have some space here. We don't want it too loud or it can clip and can ruin the song. Okay, let's now add the bass. So I think there's about suitable. Then I recommend moving onto harmonic elements. So this could be the sep guitar or keyboard parts. So let's next add the keys part. I think there's about right. Now let's add the Sen fled. Let's now add the effects. Now, let's add the vocals. The vocals are often the vocal part of the song, and they normally sit on top of the mix. But we also want to make sure they blend naturally with the other instruments. Come on, come on. Come on. Come, come on, come, come on. Come, come on. Then we need to continue listening and make any minor adjustments to make a balanced mix. So I do recommend using the meters here to make sure we avoid any clipping. I also recommend keeping an eye on the master fader to make sure the mix isn't clipping. So if this is getting into the red, then this may clip and distort the song. And if it is, I recommend turning down the volume of the tracks. Come on, come on, come, come on. On. Come on, come on, come on. You can see there we have plenty of space and it's nowhere near clipping. For now, I think the void faders are about in the right place. You can always go through and make minor adjustments when needed. Okay, now let's talk about panning. Panning is a process of placing elements of the track across the stereomage of your track. The stereo image refers to the width from left to right. You can pan tracks hard left, central, hard right, or anywhere in between. So for this example, let's just solo the synth lead part and I'll play this back and adjust this pan Dal here so you should be able to hear it going into left channel, right channel, and anywhere in between. Let's start with it in the center, though. So when it's on zero, it's in the center. So you should hear this now in your left headphone or left speaker, and then right headphone or right speaker. And let's place this somewhere in between. There are a few reasons why you might want to plan an element for your song, and let's now look at a few. Panning for an effect. Panning can add a creative immersive effect. Imagine a sinful vocal swirling from the left to right, creating a sense of movement. Using panning creatively can add depth and interest, making individual elements feel more dynamic and engaging with your music. This can be done with automation, which we'll look at shortly. Panning for width. Panning also creates width in your track, making it sound and expansive rather than narrow and flat. By panning supporting instruments like guitars, percussion or backing vocals away from the center, you open up the stereo field and allow your mix to fill fuller. The spatial placement enhances the sense of dimension and makes a mix sound balanced across the speakers. Panning for separation. Panning helps achieve clarity and separation by giving each instrument its own space. For instance, panning the guitar slightly left or right, while keeping the bass and vocal centered prevents elements from competing for the same space in your mix. By strategically planning different sounds, you create a cleaner, more defined mix, while each instrument or vocal can be heard without masking others, ensuring every part of the song stands out as intended. So for this song example, let's plan some of the instruments now. Let's try panning the simp slightly to the left. Let's also pan the noise to the right. So this should add a bit more width to the mix. Let's hear this now. Come. Come ba. Come, come. Come ba, come on, come, come back. Come ba come, come. Come ba, come on. After we pan, we may also need to adjust the volume of each track. So for this imp, I'm going to make this a bit louder. Come, come, come on, come on, come, come on. Come on, come on, come on. This song is quite limited now, but if we had more tracks or instruments, then I was considering panning a lot more. Generally speaking, the lower pitched instruments like the kick drum and the bass, you would leave in the center and you wouldn't pan, and the higher pitched instruments like synthesizers or some effects, you could pan. Okay, so that is balancing the levels and panning. I hope you found this video useful, and I'll see the next one. 27. MIDI Velocity: There, and welcome to this lesson where we're going to talk about velocity. MIDI velocity is used across all doors and refers to how hard or soft a note is played on a midi keyboard. Velocity doesn't directly control the pitch of the note, but it affects the dynamics and expression of the sound. For example, if you hit a note hard, it will sound louder and more intense. If you press softly, it will sound quieter and gentler. Though velocity primarily changes the volume, it's important to understand that velocity impacts the input signal, meaning it determines how hard the note is triggered when played. On the other hand, volume controls the output signal, which defines how loud the sound is played through speakers or headphones. Some virtual instruments in garage band respond to velocity, not just by changing the volume, but by triggering different tonal characteristics. For example, hitting a piano key harder might produce a brighter, more forceful sound, while a softer touch can make the same note more delicate. This gives you more depth from realism by varying the intensity of each note. So let's now have a look at how to adjust velocity. For this example, let's adjust the velocity for the bass part. So to adjust the velocity of midi notes in garage band, open the piano or Editor by double clicking on the midi region. So for this example, let's double click on this first base region. Let's now scroll over to bar nine so we can see this first region. If we click on a note, we can see this velocity slide appear here. You'll notice with low velocity amounts, we have a smaller line here. And with larger velocity amounts, we have a larger line here. You can also hear how the note sounds different with high velocity compared to low velocity. We can also click and drag over multiple notes and adjust the velocity of all of these. If we show the automation by pressing this button here or by using the key command A, you'll notice we can see these velocity bars under the notes, so we can click and drag on these bars here to adjust the velocity as well. We can also click and drag over multiple notes to adjust the velocity. So just for this example, let's have the velocity increase for this first bar. So let's just turn off the cycle region by pressing C, and let's put the playhead rule at a bar nine and let's solo the bass part so we can hear this. So you should have heard that sounder softer then got louder up here. Let's make something a bit more extreme so it's easier to hear. Again, let's go from bar nine. So you can hear high velocity amounts. It sounds a lot punchier. So for this example, I want to have all the notes around 80. So let's click and draw a line, and it should be around a similar amount. Okay, let's hear this now. And if we wish, we can drag all these down. Or we can drag them up. And the mid velocity goes from one all the way to 127. So if there bass part, I do think it sounds a bit too punchy with high velocities, so I'm just going to drag it down. And this time, let's try it around 60. And then with the second bass region here, you'll notice we have high velocity amounts. However, I'm okay with high velocity amounts for the second region, as I do want the song to build up, so let's leave this as it is. Okay, let's now talk about creative uses of velocity. Velocity is a tool that can be used for four primary reasons. Number one, dynamic expression. Velocity is essential for adding natural dynamics to mini performances. By adjusting how hard or soft each note is played, you can mimic the subtle changes found in live instruments. For example, playing certain notes louder with high velocity and other softer creates a more expressive and emotionally engaging performance. It's especially important for instruments like pianos, drums, or strings where dynamics are key to their natural sound. So for this example here, let's adjust the velocity for a few of these notes. Mm hmm. And let's also have the first note of each bar, have a slightly high velocity. Okay, let's listen to this. Now, this will be very subtle, but it should sound more like a live instrument. Let's now talk about the second primary reason that velocity can be useful, and that is accents and emphasis. So for the bass bar here, I wanted to emphasize every bar, which is why I increase the velocity for the first note of each bar. Let's now talk about the third reason, and that is creating realistic performances. In real world performances, musicians don't play every note at the exact intensity. Uniform velocity in midi sounds robotic and lifeless. By varying the velocity of each note even slightly, you can create a more human and natural performance. For example, if you're programming a drum fill or a piano riff, adjusting the velocity of each note slightly will make it sound more like a real person played it, adding authenticity and richness to the music. And let's now talk about the fourth reason, which is groove and feel. In more rhythmic instruments like drum patterns or percussion, adjusting the velocity of individual hits can create a more dynamic groove. By subtly varying the velocity of certain hits, you can change the feel and emotive response of the groove. For example, in a high hat pattern, alternating softer and louder strikes can make the listener want to dance or feel more driven depending on where you accent the hits. So right now we are using the drummer instrument for our drums. And with this, we can't adjust the velocity, but the virtual drum patterns do actually include a lot of different velocity variation, which makes it sound like a real drummer. Okay, so now let's actually adjust the velocity for the intro and the first half of the verse of the symphony part. So this is from bar one to bar nine. So let's scroll over to bar one, or remember only goes to bar five, and then it's looped. So let's click and drag it over all of these notes. And let's just use this velocity slider here to bring all of them down. So this should sound softer, and from bar nine, it should sound a bit punchier. So let's just solo this and play this from bar five so you can hear a difference. Let's unsolo this and hear this in the mix with the rest of the instruments. It is quite subtle, but hopefully you can hear the difference. So when the snare enters on bar nine and the drums start to kick in, we have the high velocity amount for the symp lead, which helps add energy to the song. Okay, so that's the end of this video where we've looked at Midi velocity. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 28. Introduction to Mixing and Effects: Welcome to the next section where you'll learn the fundamentals of mixing in garage band, focusing on using effects like EQ, compression, reverb and delay to enhance your tracks. You also learn how to balance and Pan track, ensuring that the mix is clear, dynamic, and engaging. Let's now talk about creative use of plug in effects and garage band. Using plug in effects and GarageBand can add unique textures and creative energy to your music. Effects such as reverb, delay, distortion, and modulation can transform the tone, space, or even the character of an instrument or vocal. For example, reverb can make a vocal sound like it's in a large hall, adding depth and atmosphere. Delay can add echo parts to the melody, creating rhythmic or spacious effects. Distortion can add grit and intensity to a guitar or synth. When using effects creatively, the goal is often to experiment and enhance the emotional impact of the song, not necessarily to refine the sound for clarity or balance. Let's now talk about the purpose of mixing and music production. Mixing is the process of blending all elements of a song so that it sound cohesive, balanced, and polished. When mixing, plug in effects are used more for functional purposes. For example, ECU or equalization adjusts frequencies to ensure each instrument has its space. Compression helps control the dynamics, balance in loud and soft parts for a more even sound. Reverb and delay are used subtly to add space and depth without overwhelming the mix. We're also going to be looking at these effects in detail in the next few videos. While there is some overlap, creative effects help shape the artistic feel while mixing focuses on clarity, balance, and creating a professional sound, so each part works well together in the overall track. Before reaching for a plug in, when mixing, panning and balancing faders are foundational tools that help create a clear, well defined mix. These are essential steps to complete before adding effects. Panning distributes the sound across the stereo field, creating width and separation. By placing instruments left, center, or right, you prevent them from competing for space and help listeners distinguish each sound. For example, panning guitars to one side while keeping vocal center makes each part more distinct. Balance and faders adjust the volume levels of each track, setting a good foundation for the mix. Lowering or raising the faders ensures that each sound is audible without overpowering others. This step brings cohesion to the mix, giving it a balanced, polished sound. Together, panning and fader balance create a solid mixed structure. They're the key to achieving clarity and depth before reaching for effects, we should enhance not replace these core elements. So in this course, so far, we've already looked at adjusting the volume level and panning, and next we're going to look at how to add effects, and then we're going to look at some key effects such as EQ, compression, reverb and delay, which we'll cover in the next few videos. 29. Accessing Effects Plugins: Okay, so now let's have a look at access and effects. Effects and garage band are applied to each track individually. Let's now have a look at how we can add effects to the tracks. First of all, select the track you want to add the effect or edit the effect. For this example, let's choose the base track, and now we need to open the smart controls by pressing this button here or by using the key command B. Some general parameters that are easy to grab in the controls tab in the middle of the window. For all plugins on the track, go to the plugins drop down on the left. This shows you a list of plugins in order of processing from top to bottom. This is known as the effects chain. If the plugin is grayed out like this, it means it's bypassed. And if you click on the left, you can turn this on. Click on the middle to open the plug in parameter where you can make changes and click on the right side to change the plugin. You can see here we have all these different categories of plugins. So just for an example, let's change this to another plug in. But we're not going to use it for now, so let's bypass this. Okay, so that's how you can access the plugins. Next, we're going to look at some essential plugins, starting with EQ or equalization, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks for watching, and I'll see you there. 30. Using EQ in GarageBand: Okay, now let's talk about equalization or EQ. This is a tool used to adjust the balance of frequencies within a sound. EQ allows you to boost or cut specific frequency ranges, shaping the tonal characteristics of individual tracks or the overall mix. You'll notice in the smart controls in the track tab, we have this EQ tab here. So this is the EQ plugin effect. EQ divides the audible spectrum into frequency bands, ranging from base or low frequencies to treble or high frequencies. So the frequencies on the left are lower frequencies, and the frequencies on the right are the higher frequencies. Each band represents a specific range of frequencies, for example, base, mid, and treble. So this here is a parametric equalizer. If we go back to our Control tab here, you can see now we've added a channel EQ. So if we click on this, we can see this plug in in more detail. We also have this view area here so we can actually make this plugin larger if you wish. For this example, let's put this back to 100%, and let's talk about the controls on this parametric equalizer. In GarageBand, this is called a channel EQ, but this is a parametric EQ. EQ divides the audible spectrum into frequency bands, ranging from base or low frequencies to treble or high frequencies. The lower bands are on the left and the higher bands are on the right. We also have this shape here, which is called a shelf, and this shape here, which is called a filter. We have this for the higher and lower frequencies. In GarageBand, EQ has three main controls, which are frequency, gain, and Q. Let me explain these now. Let's first talk about gain. This adjusts the level of the selective frequency band allow you to boost or cut the volume of frequencies within that range. So if you hover over to this ball here, which corresponds to this frequency band, we can drag this up to increase the gain or drag it down to decrease the gain. Let me just solo the base part and cycling area and play this back so you can hear a difference. So drawing playback, I'm going to adjust this gain amount. So with low values, you should be able to hear this frequency scooped out and with higher values, you should be able to hear this frequency louder. Let's now talk about frequency. This selects the center frequency of the selected band determining which frequencies are affected by the EQ adjustment. If we drag this to the right, the band will affect high frequencies. And if we drag it to the left, the band will affect lower frequencies. So I'm going to play this back again and sweep this frequency control so you can hear a difference. So when it's towards the left, you will notice it will boost lower frequencies, and when it's towards the right, you'll notice it will boost higher frequencies. Let's now decrease the gain so it'll cut the frequencies. We also have the spectrum analyzer down here. So you would have noticed when I adjusted the frequencies around this area, it wasn't really changing much because the base isn't playing frequencies that high. However, if we adjust the gain control and instruments with higher frequencies like the piano, you will be able to hit the difference. Okay, let's now have a look at the Q control. The Q or bandwidth control controls the width for the frequency band affected by the EQ adjustment. A high Q value narrows the bandwidth, focusing the ECU effect on a smaller range of frequencies. We can drag it inwards to get a tighter queue. This will focus on a narrower range of frequencies, or we can drag it out to get a wider queue, which will affect a broader range of frequencies. Again, let's play this back in our justice control. And we can turn on and off the plugin by pressing this button here. Okay, let's now have a look at common EQ techniques, and let's demonstrate this on the vocal track. So let's select the vocal track on the left here. And now under plugins, let's select channel EQ. If the channel EQ doesn't appear, we can click on EQ here. And now if we go back to the Control tab, a channel EQ plugin will appear, or we can add one by clicking on the empty space below and then going to EQ Channel EQ. But for this example, let's open this EQ here. Okay, the first common EQ technique is frequency balancing. EQ is commonly used to balance the frequency spectrum of individual tracks or the overall mix. For example, boosting the base frequencies of a kick drum can add weight and impact, while cutting the low frequencies of a vocal track can reduce muddiness and improve clarity. So let's just solo this vocal track now and play this back, and let's reduce some of the low frequencies to reduce muddiness. By the way, we have three different shapes in this parametric EQ. We have four bands that allow you to reduce specific bands of frequencies. Then we have two shelves, one for the higher frequencies, and one for the lower frequencies. We can also turn all of these on and off, if you wish. Let's just turn on the low frequency shelf here. So you can see it's not a band. I will go up to a specific frequency, and it will continue for the low frequencies. We can control the slope here, and then the frequency will continue to cut or boost depending on the gain amount. So for the low shelf, it will boost or cut the low frequencies, and for the high shelf, it will boost or cut the high frequencies. Then we have the filters. So this low cut filter here, also known as a high pass filter, as this allows the high frequencies to pass and cuts low frequencies. And with high Q settings, this will create a boost before the frequency cutoff point. And the same for the high cut filter. This is also known as a low pass filter, as this allows low frequencies to pass and cuts the high frequencies. A game of high Q amounts will create a boost just before the filter cutoff points. This vocal track, let's actually filter out some of the low frequencies to reduce muddiness and improve clarity. Come mark and man. Come, come on. Come, come on. Let's also turn on the analyzer here so we can see the frequencies which can help us EQ. Come mark mal. Come Mr come on. Come on come on, come on. Come mock mal. Come, monk, come on. Come mock marlin. Come, M, mon come on. Come mock mal. Come, come on. I actually added the boost there before the filter cutoff point, and let's now talk about the next common iku technique. And that is creative sound sculpting. EKU can be used creatively to shape the character and texture of sounds. Experiment of extreme IQ settings such as boosting or cutting specific frequency ranges to create unique sonic textures and effects. Let's also turn on this frequency band here, and let's try boosting some of the high mid frequencies, and let's hear what it sounds like. Come mock on. Come, come on. Come mock on. Come, come, come on. Come mock on. Come mom come on. I recommend starting with extreme setting, so you can clearly hear the difference, and then darling it down to something more realistic. Let's now hear this in the mix. And M come on. Come. Mm on. Okay, the next common EQ technique is creative sound sculpting. EQ can be used creatively to shape the character and texture of sounds. Experiment with extreme EQ settings such as boosting or cutting specific frequency ranges to create unique sonic textures and effects. The telephone effect is often used on vocals, for example, and uses EQ to remove the high and low frequencies while also boost in the mid range. So let's actually keep what we've created here. So let's bypass this EQ plugin. And now let's add another EQ plugin. So let's click on this slot here and then go to EQ Channel EQ. So just for this example, let's create a telephone effect. Let's solo the vocals for now, let's turn on the filter and drag this all the way down. And let's make the slope a bit steeper, and let's also create a boost just before the filter cutoff point. Okay, let's hear this now. Come on, come on. Come on, come Come on. If we want to make this a bit more extreme, we can also create boots for these filter bands here. Come on, come on. But for this example, let's remove this plugin. So let's click on the plugin and go to no plugin. And let's enable the EQ that we're using before. So you don't have to put an EQ effect on every single track. But if you feel like any of the frequencies can be boosted or cut, then I recommend adding a EQ plugin and adjusting some of the frequencies to try and improve the sound. Okay, so that's EQ. Next, we're going to look at compression, which we'll look at in the next video. 31. Compression Basics: Okay, so now let's have a look at compression. Compression is a dynamic audio processing tool used to control the dynamic range of audio signals. It reduces the volume of louder parts of the signal while leaving quieter parts unaffected, resulting in a more consistent and balanced sound. In general, audio tracks require more compression because of their natural dynamic range and volume variations. Virtual instruments or mini instruments are typically more consistent in volume and dynamics, and these generally need less compression compared to real instruments. So for this example, let's add a compressor onto our keyboard track while I recorded the audio from my electric piano. So let's select the keys track here, and then the track, let's add a compressor. You can see in the plugins here, we already have a compressor, but let's just add another one now, so you can see where to find the compressor plugin. So let's click on this arrow button on the right so we can change the plugin. Then we can find the compressor on the dynamics. You can see now it's bypass, but if we activate this, you can see it lights up here. Okay, let's now click on the middle of the plug in to open this. This compressor is quite basic compared to other compressors you may find in other digital audio workstations like LodgerP. However, it still has the essential controls, which I'll talk about now. Let's first talk about Compressor threshold. Threshold determines the level at which compression begins to act. Only the signal above -14 dB will be compressed. But if we put this down to say -50 dB, any signal above 50 dB will be compressed. So this will basically compress all of the audio but a -14 dB, it will only compress the louder parts of the signal. Let's just solo the key track and play this back. So right now it's just compressing the signal that's above -14 dB. But let's bring it down all the way to -50 dB, and it's compressing much more of the signal. And you can see this light up in the controls here. So this is the gain reduction. This is how much is being compressed. And if we increase this, you can see it doesn't light up as much because it's not being compressed as much. But for now, let's put this to a round -30 dB, and let's have a look at the next setting which is ratio. Ratio sets the amount of compression applied to the signal. For example, a ratio of four to one means that every four dB the input signal goes over the threshold, the output level will only increase by one dB. So basically, the compressor reduces the volume above the threshold by a factor of four, which makes the signal more consistent and controlled. So for more compression, you can increase this. Let's just play this back and I'll use some extreme threshold and ratio settings so you can clearly hit a difference. B When applying effects, it's important to bypass the plug in so you can hit a difference with the effect and without the effect. Sometimes when we're adding effects, we think it sounds better with the effect, but at times, it may be better without the effect. So I do recommend using the bypass button to hear what it sounds like with and without the effect. Okay, let's now talk about gain. This is also known as makeup gain. This compensates for the overall gain reduction caused by compression, allowing you to boost the level of the compressed signal to match the original level. So when you're adding compression, you are reducing the level, and we can increase the level with makeup gain. Be careful not to increase this too loud as it will clip or distort. Some compressors do have an auto gain function, but unfortunately in garage band, we have to set this manually. The reason you want to adjust the gain is when you bypass the plug in, you want it to be the same level because often if something sounds louder, it can sound better. So ideally, we want to level match with a plug in applied and bypassed. So let's just do this now. So for this, around two dB is correct. So you can always play this back and bypass and activate the plugin and adjust this control to match the gain. So the threshold ratio and gain are the most important controls in the compressor, but let's also talk about the attack setting. Attack controls how quickly compression is applied after the signal exceeds the threshold. A slow attack time generally provides more impact, which may be useful for drums. While a fast attack will soften the beginning of a sound. So this control is a bit more subtle than the other settings, but they recommend playing this back and adjusting this control so you can hear a difference. Many compressors also have a release control, and this determines how quickly compression stops once a signal falls below the threshold. So a faster release time results in a more responsive, aggressive sounding compressor, while a slower release time provides a smoother, more transparent compression effect. However, for this compressor, we don't have a release setting, but if you use a compressor in another door like Logic Pro, then this will have a release setting. Okay, so that's a compressor effect. Let's now actually adjust this for the drummer. So if we click on the drummer track, we can see by default, we already have this compressor effect. So let's solo this and play this back and draw and playback. I'll adjust these compression controls here. So I have quite extreme settings like that, it does sound very unrealistic. So for this example, I would choose something a bit more natural. So I think these settings sound quite good for this part, and adding compression to drums evens out the volume level, enhances the punch, and creates a more cohesive sound. It reduces the volume of some of the louder hits and helps drums sound more consistent in the mix. Let's now unslo the drums and play this with the rest of the tracks and then bypass and enable the compression plug in so you can hear the difference. Come Come, come, come on. Come Come, come, come on, come, come. Come, come, come on. Come, talk, and bar Come come on, come, come. Come, come, come on. Come back, and bar. Come, come, come on. So adding compression to the drums really helps them sit in the mix better and enhances the punch. Okay, so that's compression. Next we're going to look at the reverb effect, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks for watching and I'll see you there. 32. Using Reverb: Okay, so now let's talk about reverb. Reverb is a crucial effect used to simulate the natural reverberation of acoustic spaces. Adds depth, dimension, and realism to audio recordings by emulating the reflections and decay of sounds in different environments. Reverb is created by the reflections of sound waves off surfaces and acoustic spaces such as walls, floors and ceilings. These reflections combined with the original sound to create a complex pattern of echos and reverberations. In digital audio production, reverb is generated using algorithms that simulate the behavior of acoustic spaces. These algorithms model parameters such as room size, shape, and surface material to recreate the desired reverb characteristics. In GarageBand, there are four reverb plugins, each offering different textures and characteristics. Experiment with different reverb plugins to find what best suits your music. Different reverb plugins may have slightly different parameters, but here are some general ones you should expect and most reverb plugins. For this next example, let's add reverb to the vocal track. So let's select the vocals track header. And now the track, let's add a reverb effect. We do have this master reverb control here, but for this example, let's add a reverb effect onto this track. So let's click on an empty plugin slot and let's go to reverb. So you can see here we have four different reverbs, verb, platinum verb, silver verb, and space designer. Enverb and garage band lets you control how quickly the reverb starts and how long it stays, great for making gated or artificial reverb effects. Platinum verb provides detailed settings for early reflections and reverb te, making it useful for a creative, realistic room and hall sounds. Silver verb is a straightforward reverb that adds a natural echo and sense of space to tracks. And then space designer uses recorded samples of real spaces to create realistic reverb effects, perfect for making sounds feel like they're in real rooms or environments. For this example, let's use silver verb. This is quite a basic reverb, but still sounds great. Different reverb plugins may have different settings, but I'm going to go over these essential ones for silver verb now. First of all, we have room size. This determines the perceived size of the virtual space in which a reverb occurs. Larger room sizes result in longer decay times and more spacious reverberation. So let's just solo the vocals now and hear this back. Come Ma marlin. Come, come, come on. Come moo main. Come, come, come on. Let's now try a smaller room size. Come moo main. Come, mo, come, come on. Come moo main. Come, M, come, mome on. Let's try this somewhere in between. Come mou maling. Come M comem come on. Come mo main. Come, come, M come on. Come let's now talk about density and time. The density and time control on silver verb adjust the texture and duration of the reverb tail. Density influences how compact or diffused the echoes are impacting the smoothness of the reverb, and time sets the length of the reverb decay. This controls how long the sound persists after the source ends. So adjusting this helps shape the overall ambience and space of the reverb effect. High decay time settings make the reverb sound smoother and last longer, while lower settings produce a more grainy texture with a shorter decay, so it'll fade away faster. Let's play this back again and drawing playback. I'll adjust this decay time slider so you can hear a difference. Come Mom. Come motor motumO. Come Mom. Come motor motumO. Come Mom. Come motor motumO. Come moo on. Come motor motumO. Come motor on. Come motor motumO. Come Mom. Come motor motumO. Let's now talk about the dry and wet controls here. With dry, we can set the amount of the original signal, and wet allows us to set the amount of the reverb effect. So with a high dry amount and low wet amount, we will have more of the original signal and less of the reverb. And with a low dry amount and a high wet amount, we will have less of the original signal and more of the reverb. And we're going to play this back again and adjust these settings to try and get something suitable for this part. Drawing playback, as well, I'm going to bypass and activate this plug in, and I'm going to unsolo this so we can hear this with the rest of the song. Okay, let's do this now. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come on and on. Come on, come on, on. Monk and main. Come, come, mot them on. Come mock mall and. Come, come them on. Come mock mall and. Come, come mot them on. Come monk mall. Come, come on, on. Come on, come on. Come, m. Come on, come on. Come on, come up on. Come them. Come on, come on up on. Come more, come up on. Come of the bot. Come on, come on up on. Come more, come up on. Come of them. Come on, come up on. Come on them. Come more, come, ho up on. Come on them. Come on, come up on. Come more, come up on. Come of them. Come on, come up on. So adding reverb to this vocal track really adds a sense of space and depth to the part. I also made the track louder by adjusting the voume slider to maintain clarity and balance in the mix. You can also make it louder by using the dry and wet slider, but I find it quicker to adjust the tracks voume slider. In garage band, we do have the other free reverb effects that I recommend checking out, but that's how you can use silver verb. Okay, so that's the end of this video. We've looked at reverb. So you don't only have to add this to vocals. You can add this to many different types of instruments as well. For example, you might want to add reverb to a synth or snare to add space and depth to your part. Okay, so that's the end of this video. Next, we're going to continue looking at more effects. 33. Using Delay: Okay, so now let's have a look at the delay effect. Delay is an audio effect that produces distinct repetitions of the original sound, creating echos and rhythmic patterns. It works by capturing the input signal, delaying it by a specified amount of time, and then feeding it back into the mix. In GarageBand, there are five delay plugins, each offering different textures and characteristics. I recommend experimenting with these different plugins to find one that best suits your music. Delay parameters. Different delay plugins may have different parameters. So for this example, let's add a delay effect to the symplead part. So let's click on the Simple track, and now under track, let's add a delay plugin. So let's find an empty slot here. And now let's go on delay. So you can see here we have five different delay plugins. For this example, I'm going to demonstrate the echo effect, but I do recommend checking out the other delay plugins and test them out so you can see the difference. So different delay plugins may have slightly different parameters, but this echo effect has the essentials, which I'll cover now. Let's first talk about time or delay time. This determines the amount of time between each repetition of the delayed signal. Short delay times produce fast rhythmic echos, while long delay times create spacious ambient effects. Let's now solo this sent flu part and I'll play this back and drawing playback, I'll adjust the delay time so you can hit a difference. Let's start with one eighth notes. Come more, come the ball Cb the Come bore the come, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come, come on, come on. Come, come. And drawing playback unsolo this so we could hear this with the rest of the tracks. So when adding effects, you will need to hear your part in the mix, not just soloed. But for this example, I think the delay time of one 16th sounds fine. Let's now talk about repeats. This is also known as feedback. This setting controls a number of repetitions or echoes generated by the delay effect. Increasing this creates more repetitions, resulting in a denser, more pronounced delay effect. Again, let's play this back and adjust this control. Tender temples of Cubo of Cderto of come more, come. Okay, I think around 50% sounds good. Then we have the color control. This modifies the tonal quality of echo repeats, allowing you to make the echo sound brighter or darker. So higher values will make the echo sound brighter and lower values will make the echo sound darker. By the way, when you use more extreme settings for the color control, the volume does reduce quite a lot. So I won't put the level too high or too low, or it does reduce the volume significantly. Okay, let's just play this back and during playback. I'm also going to decrease the dry amount, as it is quite hard to hit a difference when the dry amount is blended with a wet amount. And I'm going to use more extreme settings now, and you notice the volume decreases quite a lot. So I don't really recommend dropping this below -70 or above around 70, or it can be quite hard to hit. Let's now blend in the dry amount. Okay, then we have the dry and wet amounts. So with these controls, we can adjust the balance between the original dry signal and the delayed wet signal. A higher wet amount emphasizes the delay effect, while the low wet amount maintains more of the original signal. Let's just play this back and I'll adjust as wet control so we can hear a difference. Come bottom up all come. Come bottom up all the come the bo come on, come on, come, come on. Come on, come on, come on. So I think around here sounds good. I don't want to have too much of the delay signal, but enough that we can still hear it. Some delay plugins offer filtering options to shape the tone of the delayed signal. High pass and low pass filters can be used to remove unwanted frequencies or add warmth and texture to the delay effect. Let's now talk about some common delay techniques. Much like reverb, delay can be used to enhance the sense of space of audio recordings, creating a sense of depth and dimension in the mix. By panning delayed signals to different positions in the stereo field, you can add width for movement to your mix, making it sound more immersive and expansive. Delay can be used to create rhythmic patterns and interesting rhythms and music. By synchronizing the delay tempo to the tempo of your song, you can create rhythmic echoes that complement the groove and add interest to the rhythm section. Delay can be used to create lush, ambient textures, and soundscapes in music. By layering multiple delay signals with different delay times and feedback settings, you can build complex evolving textures that add depth and atmosphere to your compositions. Delay can also be used creatively to add character and interest to audio recordings. Experiment with unconventional delay settings such as extreme delay times, feedback settings, and modulation effects to create unique and unexpected sounds that add intrigue and excitement to your music. Okay, so that's the delay effect. I do recommend checking out the other delay effects as well. But for now, let's move on, and next we're going to look at modulation, which we're going to look at in the next video. So thanks for watching, and I'll see you there. 34. Chorus Effect Basics: Okay, so now let's talk about modulation effects. Modulation encompasses effects like Corus, tremolo and phaser, each offering distinct sonic transformations by altering audio signals over time. Here's a detailed exploration of these effects and their creative applications. Let's first talk about chorus. This next example, I'm going to add the modulation effects onto the keys part. So let's select the track here, and then in the smart control window under track, let's add a chorus effect. So let's click on an empty effect slot down here. And now let's go to modulation, and let's choose Corus. So chorus duplicates the input signal, slightly altering the pitch and timing of the duplicate, and then blends it with the original. This process creates a thick, richer sound, similar to multiple performers playing or singing together. Chorus is ideal for adding depth and warmth to vocals, guitars, and simps. Too much chorus, however, and things can start to sound out of tune. Let's just have a look at these controls for the chorus effect. First of all, we have the mixed control, and this allows us to adjust the balance between the original sound and the process modulated sound. So at 100%, we can just hear the chorus effect. Let's just solo the keys part and play this back. So if this is set to 100%, then only the fully processed, modulated sound is heard with no dry signal. However, if we move this down to 0%, we can only hear the dry signal and none of the chorus effect. Let's blend some of the chorus effect with the dry signal. Let's now talk about the intensity control. This control allows us to adjust the depth or strength for the detuning. Higher settings increases the depth of pitch modulation, making the sound more detuned, and creates a richer, more dramatic swirling effect. And lower settings produces a more natural sounding modulation of more subtle detuning. Then we have the rate control, and this changes how fast the pitch variations occur. Higher setting speeds up the pitch modulation, and this creates a faster, more vibrato like movement, while lower rate settings produce slower, more gradual pitch changes. Okay, so that is the chorus effect. Now let's have a look at the tremolo effect. 35. Using Tremolo: Let's have a look at another common modulation effect. So let's click on the right of the chorus plug in, and let's change this to tremolo. So what tremolo does is it modulates the volume of the audio signal at a regular rate, resulting in rhythmic fluctuations and amplitude. It produces a pulsating effect that adds movement and dynamics to the sound. Tremolo can inject energy and rhythm into instruments like guitars, keyboards and strings. It's often employed to create vintage vibes or to add a pulsating texture to simps and pads, enhancing the groove and atmosphere of a track. Okay, let's just play this back so you can hear the keys part with the tremolo effect before explain the settings. So you should hear the sound going from the left to the right channel. First of all, we have the depth control. With this, we can choose how intense we want the volume changes to be. With lower settings, we can make the effect sound more subtle or more pronounced of higher settings. Then we have the rate control. The rate allows us to adjust the speed of the pulsating effect, letting you choose how fast or slow the volume fluctuations are. So we can hit pulsating at one quarter notes. But if we increase this to one 16th notes, we can hear it go from the left to the right channel a lot quicker. And if we move this down to 1 bar, you'll notice the rate will be a lot slower. And if we move this over to the right, we can have a rat and Hertz. Rather the musical beat divisions that are sync to the tempo. Let's now talk about the stereo phase control. With this, we can change how the volume moves between the left and right speakers. If we have this at zero, then it will keep the effect centered without swirling or bouncing between left and right. And with higher settings, we'll have more swirling or bouncing between the left and right speakers. We can also use minus numbers, so it's completely out of phase, so it go to the other channel first. Okay, let's just play this back so you can hear the difference. Okay, so that is the tremolo effect. Let's now have a look at one more common modulation effect, and let's look at phaser. 36. Using Phaser: Phaser modulates the phaser relationship of the signal to create a swirling sweeping effect. Phaser is versatile and in depth of movement to guitars, simps and drums. It's favored for psychedelic effects or to infuse tracks with a sense of motion and space. Phaser can range from subtle coloration to dramatic swelling effects, depending on parameter adjustments and musical contexts. Okay, let's now play this back so we can hit the phaser effect on the keys part, and then I'll go through the different settings. Okay, let's first talk about the feedback control. This allows us to control how much of the process sound is fed back into the effect. Higher settings will sound more intense and resonant the higher it set, and lower settings will sound more subtle. Okay, let's play this back. Then we have the sweep ceiling. This lets us set the highest frequency that the sweeping effect reaches. So this we can control how high pitched or bright the swooshing sound gets. Again, let's play this back and Idjust this control. Lower settings makes the phaser effect sound more mellow, and high settings makes it sound brighter and sharper. Okay, then we have this sweep floor control. And this lets us set how low the phaser sound goes. Lower settings allows us to have a lower or basier sound and phaser effect, or high settings makes it sound less basy and less heavy. Okay, again, let's play this back and adjust this. So notice that the sweep ceiling must be above the sweep floor control. This is so we can create a range for the phaser to sweep through. Otherwise, there will be no movement at all. Okay, now let's look at stages. This lets us set how thick or thin the phaser sounds. More stages makes it sound fuller and fewer stages makes it sound simpler. By the way, we can also use these arrows here to adjust the setting or we can use a slider. Again, that's play us back so you can hear a difference. Then we have rate Elep one, this lets us set how fast the first low frequency oscillator moves. So basically, this lets us control how fast the sweeping sound moves up and down in pitch. Again, let's play this back and adjust this control so you can hear a difference. And then we have rate two LFO. This lets us control the speed of the second LFO. So having two LFOs lets you create more layered complex movements. By setting them at different speeds, you can create more interesting sounds, making the effect feel more alive and dynamic. So let's just play this back and adjust LFO two so you can hear a difference. Then we have the Elepho mix control here, which allows us to mix Efo one and ELFO two. Turning the Efo mix down, lets you hear more of LFO one, and turning it up, lets you hear more of Elefo two. Again, let's play this back and adjust this control so you can hear a difference. Okay, so that is the phaser. So thanks for watching this video, and I'll see in the next one. 37. Creative Modulation Techniques: Let's now talk about some creative modulation techniques. Experiment with automating modulation effect parameters over time to craft evolving textures and transitions. We will be looking at automation later on in this course. For the chorus, for example, dynamic adjustments to depth rate and feedback can create mesmerizing sonic journeys within your compositions. Combine multiple modulation effects to construct intricate soundscapes. For instance, blending chorus with tremolo can produce shimmering pulsating textures, or phaser paired with tremolo can evoke swirling rhythmic atmospheres. So we haven't looked at all the different modulation effects, but I do recommend you test these out so you can hear the difference. But for this keys part, let's add a chorus. So I'm going to play this bat now and adjust these chorus settings. Come on, come, come on, come, come on. Come on, come on, come on, come, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Okay, let's also add the tremolo. So on the modulation, let's add tremolo. Again, let's play this back in I adjust these settings. Come on, come on, come on. Come, come on. Come Come, come on. Come more, come on, come on, come, come on. Come more, come on, come on. Come, come on, come on, come, come on. Come more, come on, come on. Last now, here the introduction part, so we just have the keys and the synth part. Okay, so I think adding some modulation effects here makes this keys part a bit more interesting. If we want a more natural sounding piano sound, then we may not necessarily need these modulation effects, but for this part, I think it improves it. Okay, so that's modulation. Next, we're going to look at distortion, which we're going to look at in the next video. So thanks for watching and I'll see you there. 38. Distortion Overview: Okay, now let's talk about distortion. Distortion is an audio thet that intentionally alters the waveform of audio signal, introducing harmonics and saturation to create a gritty, edgy or aggressive sound. It's commonly associated with guitar amplifiers pushed to their limits, but it's also widely used in electronic music production to add character and texture to various sound sources. There are many different types of distortion, including overdrive, fuzz and saturation, each producing unique sonic characteristics. Overdrive produces a warm, smooth distortion by gently clipping the signal, while fuzz creates a more aggressive buzzy distortion by heavily clipping the waveform. Saturation adds subtle warmth and coloration to the signal. In garage band, there are six different types of distortion plug ins, each of their own sonic characteristics and parameters. For this next example, let's add a distortion effect to the syn flue part. So you notice here we have an echo effect. In most cases, it is better to put distortion before echo or delay in the signal chain. In most cases, it is better to put distortion before delay in a signal chain. This is so the echo stay clean. If you put distortion after delay, the echos will get distorted, which can make the repeat sound muddy and messy. So let's actually drag the echo effect down, and let's put the distortion effect before. So let's click to the right of this empty plug in slot, and let's go to distortion. As I said, there's six different distortion plugins and garage band. But for this example, let's just use the effect called distortion. While parameters may change in different distortion effects, most distortions will have a drive, tone, or output control. Let's first talk about the drive control. This may also be called input or gain. This controls the amount of signal sent into the distortion effect. Increasing this adds more intensity to the distortion, making it sound heavier or more aggressive. Let's just play this back and adjust this control so it can hit a difference. Then we have the tone control. This adjusts the brightness or darkness of the distorted sound. Higher tone settings emphasize higher frequencies for a sharper effect, while lower settings reduce high frequencies, giving a warmer more subdued tone. Again, let's play this back and adjust this setting so we can hear a difference. Then we have the output control here, and this allows us to adjust the overall volume after the sound is distorted. So this we can adjust the loudness without changing the tone. And drawing playback, I'm going to bypass and unbpass the plug in, and I'm also going to unsolo this so it can hit this in the mix. Okay, let's do this now. Mme Come Come Come, come, come, Come on, come on. Come on, come, come on. That's now hit this from the start. So the settings here are quite subtle, but it has added some grit and character to the part. Okay, now let's talk about some creative uses of distortiuon. Distortion can be used to add character and personality to audio recordings, making them stand out in the mix. It's particularly effective on instruments like guitars, basses, and simps where you can add grit edge, and bite to the sound. Distortion can be used to enhance the dynamics and punch of audio signals. By driving certain elements of a mix into distortion, you can make them cut through the mix more effectively, adding energy and intensity to the overall sound. Distortion can be used to create interesting textural effects in music production. By applying distortion to unconventional sound sources or using extreme settings, you can create unique and experimental textures that add depth and dimension to your compositions. Distortion can be used to shape the timbre and tone of audio signals, allowing you to sculpt the sound to fit the mood and style of your music. By adjusting parameters, you can tailor the distortion effect to achieve the desired sonic characteristics. So I do recommend checking out some of the other distortion effects here and see how the sound on some of your tracks. When it comes to effects processing, it's important to understand that how the sound is created is not as important as how it sounds. Experiment and be creative. 39. FX Presets: Let's no talk about effects presets. So you can manually change the settings for the effects, or you can use a preset. This is a saved setting for an effect that gives you a specific sound instantly. So let's have a look at a few of the effect presets now. So let's open up the distortion plug in again for the Synple part. If we click on this dropdown list here, you can see we have these different presets. Let's select the first one here called crunch distortion. So you can see there the settings have changed. Let's hit this back. And let's try a few of the other ones. Let's just loop the cycle region, and let's play this back and adjust these settings. Come, come, come on, come, come, come on, come, come on, come, come, come on, come, come, come on, come on. In. We can actually save our own presets as well. So if you're working on another song or for another track, you can recall your own presets. To do this, click on this drop down list here, and then go on Save As. I'm going to call this warm distortion. And you can see in our dropdown list here, we have the preset that we just named. We can still access the presets from before, though. They're going down to sets at presets. So there's many different presets you can explore. Note that presets are often a good starting point. We should tailor the effect setting to suit your music. Okay, so that's Cindy this video. We've looked at effect presets. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 40. Using Automation: Okay, so now let's talk about automation. So what is automation? Automation in any door allows you to create dynamic changes within the mix over time, making your track feel expressive and engaging. With automation, you can adjust aspects like volume, panning or effects like reverb or delay to evolve gradually or change at specific points in the track. For example, you might increase the volume of a section to make it stand out or adjust panning to move an instrument from left to right for a more immersive experience. Automation is a powerful tool to help your mix feel more dynamic and polished by adding motion and variation to different elements. Let's now have a look at how to set up automation in garage band. To enable automation mode, go to mix in the menu bar and then show automation. Or you can use a key command A. This will reveal the automation lines in each track, allowing you to control various parameters over time. Let's now create an automation point. First, select which parameter you want to adjust on the track you want to automate. So for this example, let's automate the volume for the SyPh lead part. Click on the automation line to add a point. Add multiple points that serve as moments where the volume changes. For example, let's have an automation point on Br two and bar one. Next, drag the points up or down to increase or decrease the value at the moment in the track. So for this example, let's have the volume gradually increase at the start. Let's just turn off the cycle region by pressing C. Let's have a listen to this back. We can make this more extreme by dragging further down. So now the volume will be completely off, and then we gradually increase. But let's have somewhere in between, around about here. Okay, let's now hear this with other tracks. So let's unsold this part and play this back. A Note that once you've plotted automation points, you lose control over that parameter. For example, when we create volume automation, the volume fader will not control the level anymore as it will always read the automation curve. So for example, if I increase this volume here and play this from the start, you can see the fader jumps back down again. The same for the panning. If we automate the panning, the panning pots on the track will not control the panning anymore. So for this example, let's actually change the panning as well, so we can add another automation line. So let's click on this drop down list here. And now let's scroll up and then go to Pan. Above the center will be left, and below the center will be right. So just for this example, let's have the pan go from right to left. This will be more obvious to hit if you wearing headphones, but let's play this back. And when we move the playhead position, we can see this pan DL move. Okay, let's now add some more automation forgot this song. So for the drums in the bridge, I want this to gradually increase in volume. So let's just zoom in here and then make sure we have volume automation selected. And I want it to end up at the same level it's at now. So let's click to add a point here. And let's click to Add a point before because I don't want this to change the level of the drums previously. And now let's click and drag this down. And now the drums will gradually increase. Let's play this back from bar 31 so you can hear a difference. B Let's make this a bit more extreme, so it's easier to hear. Let's just increase this a bit more, so it's a bit more subtle. Often subtle changes may be more appropriate than more extreme ones. So it's not just the volume and panning that we can automate. We can also automate the effects. So let's actually automation the distortion effect on the SyPFled part. So you may remember we added a distortion effect previously, and now under the automation dropdown list, let's select distortion. And you can see it's here under plugins. For this, I want to automate the drive. So in the bridge, I want to increase the drive. So let's add an automation point here and one here as well, and let's drag up. And now you should hear the drive increase from bar 35 to 37. However, from bar 37 onwards, I want to decrease the drive. I just want to have it build up for that section. So again, let's add another point here and drag this down to around here. And let's now hit this back. Then for the second half of C chorus three, I want to increase the drive as well. So let's increase this here. So this gradually builds up. And then for the outtro, I want to have the distortion amount gradually decrease. Okay, let's hit back solo and then we'll listen to it back in the mix. I'm just going to decrease the drive even more for the outtro. And let's have it go even further down. Okay, about that. So this just adds a bit more movement and variation for the part. Let's now hear this with the rest of the tracks. More, come, come on. Come more, come on. Welcome, welcome. Okay, great. As we're adding more drive, we're making the part a bit louder. So let's go back to the volume automation, and I'm just going to drop this slightly from the bridge to the end of the song. As I said, it's not just volume and panning. There's many different things you can automate. So do you recommend testing this out and finding different things to automate to add a bit more variation and movement for your songs. You can also turn on and off the automation for each track by pressing this button here. And we can close the automation by pressing this button up here or by using the key command A. The automation will still happen. We just hide the automation so we have a bit more space in our project. So I'll play this back from the start, and even when we hide the automation here, you'll notice we have the volume increase for the SIP lead part. So once you've finished automating your parameters, you can always hide the automation here. Okay, so let's actually add one more example. So let's show the automation again by clicking this bottom or by pressing A. And now let's automation the reverb for the symp part. So the end here, I want to have a really big reverb sound, and you can see in our SEP here, we have this reverb dial. So let's automate this. So in the dropdown list again, let's go to where it says reverb. So you can see in the automation section here, we have reverb. But for this, I want to automate the reverb, that's in the smart controls. So in the Smart Controls dropdown list here, I'm going to select reverb. And let's add automation point at the end and from bar 47 to bar 49, let's increase the reverb. You can see when I move the playhead ruler here and increase this, the reverb now moves here. Let's start with some extreme setting so we can clearly hear the difference, and then I'll dal it down to something more suitable. Okay, nice, so the end of the song has a big reverberated sound. One thing I noticed at the end of the song is we had a bit of a click, I think that's from the keys part. So let's just solo this and play this back. So then I'm going to add some volume automation to hide the click and sound. So let's click on this and drag this down. And now let's play this back. And now let's hi this in the mix, and we shouldn't be able to hear the click and sound now. Okay, now let's talk about some good examples of where you might use automation in your track. The first one is volume automation for fade ins and fade outs. This smoothly increases the volume at the beginning of a track for a gradual fade in, or decreases it at the end for a fade out. This is a simple but powerful way to transition in and out of a song. Building intensity in the chorus. Increase the volume slightly on certain tracks like drums, bass or simps as you approach a chorus or peak section. This can create a sense of buildup and impact. Automating effects for dramatic moments. Use reverb or delay automation to add extra echo to a specific word or phrase in a vocal or increase reverb on a guitar solo to make it sound more spacious during certain parts. Panning automation for stereo movement. Gradually pan instruments like simps, sound effects or backing vocals from left to right to create movement across the stereo field, adding depth and width to the mix. Automating filter effects. Slowly open or close a filter on a symp track to make it sound like it's gradually opening up or becoming brighter. This can add energy and anticipation, especially leading into a drop or chorus. Duck other tracks for vocals. Lower the volume of backing instruments when vocals are present to ensure clarity and focus. You can automate the volume to slightly reduced verses or other vocal parts, allowing the vocals to stand out. Automation can add subtle enhancements or dramatic effects, and experimenting with it can help you build the best way to support the dynamics of your song. Automation can be used for both creative production techniques and in mixing. Okay, so that's automation. As I said, I recommend experimenting this with your tracks to add some variation and movement for your songs. So thanks for watching this video, and I'll see you in the next one. 41. Guitar Amp Designer Overview: There, and welcome to this video where we're going to be looking at guitar and bass Amp simulation. GarageBand provides guitar and base Amp simulators that let you record directly onto your guitar or bass into the software and then apply a variety of virtual amps, cabinets, and effects. This means that you don't need a physical amplifier or effec pedals to achieve different tones and styles. These amp simulators mimic the sound of classic and modern amps, offering controls for adjusting gain, tone, and other settings to shape your sound. You can also add effects like reverb, delay, and distortion, just as you would with physical gear. This feature allows you to experiment with different tones and textures, making it easy to explore new sounds or refine your unique style directly within garage band. Okay, so now let's add an amp designer. For this next example, I'm actually going to add an Apple loop. So I'm going to add Apple loop, have a clean guitar sound. If you have an electric guitar, this is the same process, but if you don't have an electric guitar, you can also add the Amp design onto loops and also virtual instruments. So for this example, I'm going to type in clean guitar. And I'm going to use this sample here called clean electric guitar. Let's just drag this below the end of our project, and you can see this loop has appeared. Now, let's close the Apple Loop library by pressing O, so we have a bit more space, and let's just circle this region here. Now in the smart controls, we can add the Amp design to plug in. As this compressor is grayed out, let's replace this. So let's click on arrows here, and then go to amps and pedals. So here you can see we have Amp designer, Bass Amp Designer, and pedal booard. For this example, let's use Amp Designer. With this, we can explore a wide range of settings to shape your guitar tone to fit your project. Let's first have a look at some of these presets. So if we click up here, we can choose another preset. So we have different presets for clean, crunch and distorted. Let's have a look at a few of the clean ones first. As you can see, we have many different presets. Let's just try this first one, clean country reverb. So you can see that it's adding reverb. And of course, we can adjust these settings here. For example, let's adjust the reverb and play this back. Let's try another one of these presets. Let's try one of the crunch sounds. Let's try fall combo. Some of these presets can be quite loud, so if they are, I recommend turning down the master control. Let's try another one. Let's try raw rhythm. I'm just going to adjust some of these settings drawing playback. Okay, let's try some of the distorted presets. Let's try glam Drive. Let's try another one. Let's try modern Rock free. Okay, now let's go back to one of the clean presets. Let's try this one called Cheap frills. And let's have a look at some of these controls down here. First of all, we have the Amp model. And you can see when we choose different ones, the actual Amp changes. So these emulate different amplifiers. So there so we can choose different Amp models, then we can choose the amplifier. And then we can choose the cabinet. So that is the speaker cabinet over here. Amp cabinets in the context of guitar amps are speakers and clothes that amplify and project the sound coming from the amphad. Different cabinet sizes, speaker types, and designs influence the tone, adding character to the sound. And virtual setups like garage band, choosing virtual cabinets lets you shape the fullness, warmth, and clarity of your guitar tone to suit different styles and genres. So you can see when we choose a different setting, we have a different cabinet. We can also click over here to change the placement of the microphone. Oh. Experiment with different cabinets to find one that complements your guitar amp model and desired sound, and we can even choose the type of microphone. Am designer lets you select a simulated microphone and adjust its placement relative to the cabinet. Choose between different mic types, each offering a unique sound. Some may be brighter, while others may be more base heavy. This one here is emulating the electro voice RE 20, which is the actual mic I'm talking into right now. Move the mic closer or further from the cabinet for different tonal and room emulation effects. A closer mic position captures more detail and intensity, while a further position adds more ambient sound. And then, of course, we have the output here. Make sure you don't have this too loud, or you may clip or distort your track. Each amp provides different tonal characteristics suited to various genres from warm and smooth tones to gritty and powerful sounds. 42. Bass Amp Designer Overview: Okay, now let's have a look at the base amplifier. So for this example, let's delete this loop and track. And now let's add a base guitar loop. The one I want to use here is called deep funk base Guitar. It's this one here. Again, let's click and drag this to the end of our project. And let's just loop this. It's 4 bars long. Again, in the smart controls, we can add a virtual Amp. So let's replace this plug in here and then go to amps and pedals. And now let's choose base Amp designer. So as you can see here, the set top is very similar to the guitar amplifier. So we have different presets. This time, they're not in categories, we just have one big list of presets. Let's just play through some of these now. And we can choose the different models, modern Amp, classic, flip top, and a rep box or DI box. For this, let's go back to modern, and then we can choose the amp and then the cabinets. You'll notice for most of these, the picture doesn't change, but the microphone will be moved to a different speaker. And then we can choose the microphone. And again, I'm going to play this back and adjust these settings here so you can hear a difference. We also have this slider here where we can move between a DI box and amplifier. So a DI box converts the base signal into a balanced output. This is for reducing noise and allows you to connect your base into an audio interface. So a DI box can give a cleaner sound without the coloration of a base amp, which can make it sound more direct and polished. So we can get a blend between the amp and the DI box, if you wish. And then again, let's hear the different mics. And, of course, we can adjust the settings on the Amp if you wish. Mmm. So I recommend testing this out, as well, especially if you play electric bass. 43. Creating a Virtual Guitar Part: Okay, again, let's just delete this. And let's close the loop library by pressing O, and let's turn off the cycle region by pressing C. So now I'm going to add a virtual guitar and add the Amp designer onto this. So let's now create a new track. So let's press the plus button up here, and I'm going to choose a MIDI or software instrument. Now let's choose an instrument in the library. So let's go to Guitar, and let's choose Roots Rock. Okay, let's hear this now. So let's loop the first chorus. And I'm going to play this back and play some chord arpeggios. So our peggios are where you play individual notes of the chord. So, for example, this first chord is an A minor chord, which is this. And our peggio just plays individual notes of the chord. For each chord, I'm going to play two notes. Okay, so let's record this in now. Let's make sure this track is record enabled by pressing this button here. And now let's record this in by pressing record. We're using the key command R. Okay, now let's open the piano roll by double clicking on this region. And now let's quantize this. So I didn't play anything quicker than a quarter note. So let's select all the notes by pressing Command A, and let's click on the quantizing drop down list here and change this to quarter note. Okay, great. That's perfectly in time now. Let's now hit us back. Come Now let's close the library by pressing Y, and let's open the smart controls by pressing this button up here or by using the key command B. So you can see here that this virtual instrument already has the Amp designer plugin. So let's click on this and adjust this now. Okay, so drawing playback. I'm going to choose a different preset sound and then adjust some of these settings. Let's do this now. Okay, I think this br set sounds suitable. Now let's adjust some of these settings down here so we can hear the difference. Come Come Come Come, come, come on. Come on. Come, come, come on. Come on. Okay, I think that sounds about suitable now in the mix. So I'm going to hold down option, and let's duplicate this so we have this for each chorus. And let's loop this for the last chorus. As the last chorus is double in length. Now we have another part for the chorus. We should give the chorus a bit more variation and energy. 44. Pedalboard Overview: Okay, now let's have a look at the pedalbard. These simulate a range of stump box effects like distortion, delay, chorus, and reverb that guitarists traditionally use to shape their sound. By adding effects to your pedal board, you can experiment with different tones, textures, and atmospheres to enhance your playing. In a typical guitar setup, pedalboard effects are placed before amplification in the signal chain. That means the effects process the sound before it reaches the amp, shaping the tone that the amp then amplifies and colors further. The same concept applies in garage band. You can place effects on the pedal board before the amp simulator to create a more natural authentic sound. This approach allows effects like distortion or delay to interact with the amp model, producing a result closer to what you get with a real guitar. Many of the guitar presets found in the library will have a pedal board in a plug in chain already. Let's now open this pedalbard effect by clicking on it here. From here, you can drag a range of pedals into the main window and experiment with a range of effects and tones for your guitar. Before we continue, I'm just going to turn off record nab for this guitar track. And now let's add a chorus effect. So we have two here, retrochorus and heavenly chorus. Let's try retro chorus. Okay, let's play this back and adjust these settings so you can hear a difference. Come back. Come back, come. Come back, come on. Come on. Okay, I think that sounds quite nice. Let's now add this one here called Phase Tripper. So this emulates a phaser effect. Come Come Come Come Come Come. Obviously, this isn't real guitar. It is a virtual guitar, but it does sound quite realistic now. Let's now play this back again and adjust this volume slider here so it fits better in the mix. Come oh, Come Come, come Come, come, come. Come back, come on. Let's now hear this song from the second half of the bridge to the last chorus. Come Come on, come. Come Come, come, come. I'm just going to add some automation now. I want to make the guitar part a little louder for the last chorus, so it adds a bit more energy as the song builds up. Come. Okay, so that's the amp designer and the pedal board. I recommend testing this out, especially if you have an electric guitar or electric bass they like to add to your songs. As I said, you can also use this for virtual instruments and loops. So we're now at the end of this video. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 45. MIDI Effects Arpeggiator: Okay, now let's talk about the arpeggiator midi effect. Midi effects and garage band are tools that process the midi data before it reaches a virtual instrument. This allows you to creatively modify the midi notes without altering the midi data in the piano roll itself. In music production, arpeggiator means playing the notes of a chord one after another in a set order instead of playing them together. This technique is commonly used in synthesis and electronic music to create movement and rhythmic interest within a chord. Our peggios can be played in various patterns such as ascending, descending or random and can span multiple octaves. This effect is widely used to create lively, rhythmic textures and dynamic patterns. Before I do this, I'm just going to write in a new part. So let's now create a new track by pressing a plus button up here, and let's choose a mid software instrument. And let's choose a synthesizer and a plug sound. For this example here, I want to use this one called Smooth anthem plug. Let's actually draw this in rather than record this in. So let's press the Comanche and then draw it in a new region. I'm going to make this 4 bars long, so let's click and drag to resize this. And let's double click on this to open up the piano roll. Now let's close the library by pressing Y, so we have a bit more space. So the chords we have for this song are A minor, C, G, and F. So let's draw this in now. Let's draw in the first note, which is an A. And the next one is a C. And next one is an E. Now for the next bar, let's draw in the C chord. I'm going to invert this next chord, which means changing the order of the notes. So I'm going to start with the G note here. Then the C, and then the E. If we have it in root position, which means we will start with the C, then the G will be all the way up here and it'll jump more between the chords. If we have this G and octave lower, it should sound smoother going between the chords. That's because there's less movement. Okay, let's continue. Let's now add the G chord, so we have the note G here again. Then we have a B. Then we have a D. And now let's add the F. For this example, I wanted to sound like it's going down, so let's actually have this lower F here. We could put the F up octave, but I like it down here. Okay, that's out called progression. Let's hear that's back now. Now, let's loop this for the whole song. Okay, now, let's apply the arpeggiator effect to this midi track. Let's first of all, make sure we have this track selected and then open up the Smart Controls by pressing this button here or by using the key command B. Now let's find the arpeggiator symbol, which is on the right side of the Smart Controls window. So we can click on this to turn on the arpeggiator. Now for plays back, you'll hear the pejation. Let's just turn this down as it is quite loud. So you should have heard there that it didn't play chords. I played individual notes as a pattern. Now let's have a look at changing the parameters for the arpeggiator. So if you click on this drop down list here, you can see here Audi Mason presets. But if you go down to app presets, we have all these different arpeggiator presets. But before we look at the presets, let's look at no order rate and octave range. Let's start with note order. This controls how the notes are played in relation to one another, whether they play up down on a more complex pattern like random. If we select up for the note order, then this we'll play the lowest note first, and then go up to the highest note and then we'll repeat. Let's select this and hit us back. Now let's look at down. For a down arpeggio pattern, the notes are played from the highest to the lowest and then repeats. Then we have updwnF up down, the notes will play from the lowest to the highest, and then back down to the lowest, and then we'll repeat. And then outside in, in the outside in arpeggio pattern, the notes start from the lowest and highest and move towards the middle and then repeat. Then we have random, which will play the notes in a random order. Then we have as played. With this, the notes repeat in the order you've played them or the order they're written. For this example, though, let's select up. Okay, then we have rate. This controls how fast or slow the notes are played. So here we can choose musical beat divisions. You can change this to create fast, frantic arpeggios, or slow atmospheric ones depending on the vibe you're going for. Right now it's on 16th notes. But if we change this to eighth notes, it'll be half the speed at what we just heard. Let's now choose 32nd, and the rate will be twice as fast as 16th notes. And we also have Tripler and dotted rhythms as well. Triplet plays three notes in the space of two, creating a syncopated rolling rhythm, while dotted plays each note 1.5 times longer, creating a bouncy offbeat feel. So let's try one 16th dotted, and they'll swap it to one 16th triplet so you can hear a difference. Well, let's swap this back to one 16th. Okay, then we have octave range. You can adjust the octave range to control how many octaves there are peggio spans. So right now it's playing within one octave, or we could select multiple octaves to add more width and depth to the sound. So again, I'll play this back and I'll choose different octave ranges so we can hear difference. Okay, now let's have a listen to some of the presets. So I'm going to play this back from the start and select some of these different presets so you can hear a difference. Okay, I think this one sounds pretty good. Groovy cycle too. We can always adjust to presets as well if you wish. For example, I'm just going to change this to one octave. Let's hear this now. But I did think it sounded better with two octaves, so let's change this back to two octaves. Okay, now let's play this back, and I'll adjust the volume level for this track. No. Come. Let's also try panning this to the right. The lead parts more towards the left, and now this arpeggiator be more towards the right. I do like the higher notes of this arpeggio pattern, but they do sound a little harsh. So I'm going to add EQ to this part now and then reduce the gain of some of the higher frequencies. So let's click on the plug in slot here, and then go to EQ and then channel EQ. Okay, now let's play this back and I'll EQ this part. So you can see here the frequencies. So around here, I just want to tip. So we're out. Okay, I think that sounds quite good, and that's how to use the arpeggiator. Before I finish this video, I'm just going to do some organization. So let's rename this to Synth for arpeggio. And let's rename the guitar part to guitar. Now let's change the color of these tracks to keep things organized, and at a glance, we'll quickly know which tracks they are. So let's right click on a guitar track header and go to a sign track color. And let's choose a different colour for this. Let's choose this orange color. And for the synth up, let's chose this purple color. Okay, so now our song starting to come together, and that's the arpeggiator, which can help you add some movement and rhythmic interest for your mini parts. So thanks for watching this video, and I'll see you in the next one. 46. Exporting Your Track: Okay, now let's have a look at exporting. So this lesson will cover the essential steps required to export your finished project. You'll learn how to mix down the tracks into a single audio file and explore various export formats. Okay, so let's begin. So what is a mixdown? A mixdown is the process of combining all individual tracks in a music project into a single stereople. The final mixdown serves as the foundation for mastering. Let's first discuss some audio formats that are commonly used in the music production world. MP three. This compressed format is ideal for online sharing and storage due to its small file size. However, the compression reduces audio quality, making it less suitable for professional applications. WAV or wave. As an uncompressed format, WAV offers the highest sound quality, capturing all of the details of your mix. It's perfect for professional use, but the large file size can make storage and sharing more challenging. AIFF. This is also uncompressed audio file format. AIFF was developed by Apple, and it provides high quality sound similar to Wb files. I recommend choosing Web for the widest platform support, but you could choose AIFF if you're working on Apple devices and you need metadata features like track titles and artwork. Then we have AAC. Commonly used by Apple devices, AAC is another compressed file format that offers better sound quality than MP three at similar file sizes. While widely compatible with Apple products, it may not work astheamossly with non Apple devices. So if this is your final mix, I would generally export as a WAV. But if you just want to send this online to show friends or family, I recommend exporting as an MP three, as it has a small file size. Okay, now let's export this project. To export your projects in GarageBand, follow these steps. First of all, access the Export option. Go to the share menu at the top of the screen and select Export Song to disk. This will then open the Export setting window. Then choose where you want to save your file. For this, I'm going to choose my desktop. Then choose your format. So you could choose Wave, AIFF, MP three, or AAC. For this example, let's choose wave. Then we can choose a quality level. Depending on the format you've chosen, you can adjust the quality level. Higher quality levels result in better sound, but have larger file sizes. So for this example, let's choose uncompressed 24 bit. So this will export the entire project. GarageBand will render the full audio including any reverb, delay or other time based effects, ensuring that natural decay is preserved. So at the end of the song, where we have this decay, it will preserve this. So it's not just going to stop at the end of the song here. I will give us a few more seconds so we can hear the audio gradually fade out. Now let's name our file. Proper file naming is essential for staying organized. You can label it how you like, but make sure there's a clear and consistent system in place for your labeling. A good example of a well labeled file might include a project name, version number, and date and the file name. For example, here, example 39, V one for version one, and then we have the date. We don't necessarily need a time here, but if you export multiple times in the day, the time may be useful. Okay, now let's click Export. This may take a few moments. Okay, now let's go over to our desktop, and let's have a listen to our export. More comableable. Come more compact. Come more compat. Come more compaable come more compat. Okay, great. So you can hear at the end. It doesn't cut off the instruments. It lets them to kay or gradually fade out. You can also use the cycle region to export. So for example, if I turn on the cycle region here and then go to share, export to disk, then it will just export the cycle region. So for this example, let's put this on our desktop. And let's just say we want to share this online, so we just want to show one of our friends a part of a song. So let's select MP free, and let's select the highest quality here. Then we need to make sure we check this box that says export cycle area or length of selected regions. So this means it will just export the cycle area. If this is not checked, then GarageBand will export the entire project. Now let's press Export. Now let's go to our desktop and listen to this back. Cable, and more contactable. Copacable more computable. So you can hear that it's just the chorus or the area that we looped. One thing to mention, if we look at the WOW file size is 27.6 megabytes. And if we look at the MP three we exported, it's much smaller. Of course, we did just export the chorus. But even if it's a full song, an MP free file will be around ten times smaller than a WAV. So I just wanted to mention that. So if you want to share your songs online via Instant Messenger or email, it may be too large as a WAV, but it should be fine as than P free. So I just wanted to show you the difference between MP free and WOW file sizes. Okay, so that's how to export and GarageBand. Next, we're going to look at mastering, which is the final stage of audio production, which we'll look at in the next video. So thanks watching, and I'll see you there. 47. Mastering Basics: Okay, now let's talk about mastering. Mastering is the final stage of audio production, where you polish the mixed track. So you can use processing like EQ, compression, and limiting to ensure it sounds balanced and ready to listen to on multiple devices. So we can create a new garage band project and mastering in there. But personally, I like to import the mix into the project I'm currently working on. That's because when I'm mastering, if I want to make a few changes to the mix, I can do it easily in the project here, export again, then import the final mixdown rather than having to open multiple garage band projects to make a few adjustments. Okay, so now let's import the mix down. We exported in the previous video. So you may remember I save this on my desktop, and it's this file here. So let's click and drag this below all of the tracks. And you can see here we have our export all mixed down. Now, let's solo this, and let's hear this back. Come on, come, come on. Come. Come on, come, come on. Now let's leave this chorus section cycled, and let's talk about adding some effects for the master. So in the Smart Controls, we have this master tab here. And by default, we have some mastering plugins setup here. So just so you can hear the difference, let's turn on all of these and play this back. Come on, come, come on. Come, come. Come on, come, come on. So you can hear instantly, it's much louder. Just to keep things simple, I'm just going to use EQ, compression, and limiter to master. So let's open up the EQ first. So for this, I'd like to scoop out some of the lower frequencies. So these are just frequencies that we're not using in the song. These frequencies are so low, it's more just noise rather than musical elements. And the same for a high filter here. I'm just going to scoop out a lot of the high frequencies. So again, this is just noise or hiss rather than any of the musical elements. Then we need to play this back and listen to the whole song so have a listen back and see if it needs any cuts or boost in the frequency spectrum. This can take some practice, and often a reference track can be useful. So this is where you have another track where you like the sound of the mix, and you listen to that song and try and master similar to that. But for this example, let's just listen back, and I'll make a few adjustments on the fly. Comp. Come compat, come. Come compable comp. Come compbb comp ab. So just for a quick example there, I've reduced the bass slightly, as I do think the bass part may be a little too loud and a boost the mid highs there just to make it sound a little brighter. We also do have some mastering presets that we can use as well. So if you click on the preset drop down list here, we can go to mastering and here we have a few different presets. So for this example, let's try final Mx Pop. And let's play this back. Come on come, come. I'm not sure if that was better than what we just had, but let's have a listen to another one. Let's try final Mix dance. C. Unless you're constantly pressing Save As, there is no back button, so we'll need to rebuild this EQ setting again. We can go to more and then go on recall default. And let's just build what we had previously. So I filtered out some of the highs and some of the lows. Then we had the boost for the mid highs around here. Then I cut some of the lows around here. Let's listen back and tweak this again. When mastering, you will need to listen to your track back many times just to make small adjustments. It will take practice and trial and error. Come on. Come on. Okay, I think about that sounds fine. Now let's look at the compressor. So, again, we have presets for the compressor, but not really any for mastering. So let's just start with some extreme settings and then tame it back to something more usable. Come on. Come on. I no comp C apart. Come go, come take a bob no flex C apart. Come go, come take a bob no comp C apart. Come go, come take a bob no flex C apart. Come go, come take a Come back up. Come and make up. Come back up. Come and make up. Come up. Come up. Come up. Come up. So when you're mastering, is really about subtle changes. So you don't want it to sound too extreme or have too much compression, or it can ruin a song. I think that sounds quite good, but I'm just going to reduce the ratio slightly. As a general rule for mastering, though, you want to have the ratio at around 1.5 to one to two to one. This will gently control the dynamics, aiming for around one to two dB of gain reduction, which will still preserve the tracks natural feel and punch. For the threshold, I recommend setting this, so it only compresses the louder peaks. With this compression garage bound, it is quite hard to see where the louder peaks are, but I recommend playing this back and using your ear and bypassing and enbing the plug in to hit a difference. So for this example, the settings around here should be about right. Make a make a make a come. But again, is quite subtle, but do recommend testing this out yourself. Okay, now let's have a look at the limiter. A limiter is an audio tool that controls the maximum volume of the track. So this allows you to make the song louder without clipping or distorting the track. So here we have the gain, so we can make the track louder, and then we have the output level. This is the maximum volume that a sound can reach, so we can make sure it never goes above zero DB with the slider here. For mastering, I recommend leaving this at -0.1 dB for maximum loudness while preventing clipping. If you want to ensure maximum playback compatibility across all devices, you could put this at minus one dB. But generally, -0.1 dB is fine. Unfortunately, GarageBand does not have a built in loudness meter. More advanced doors like Logic Pro do. But in GarageBand, you will have to use a third party plug in if you want a loudness meter. A loudness meter measures the perceived loudness of audio. This helps ensure we have the song at the right level. But in garage band, we have to just play it back and use our ears. So let's play this back now and increase again to have this more suitable level. So we do have a meter for the track, but this will be the level before the limits applied. So we will need to look at the master level up here. But as I said, we don't have a loudness meter, which isn't really ideal for mastering, but let's try and set this level anyway. Come, make a. Come on. C. C. A bub. Come on, come back a bub. C. Come go, come, take a bub. Come on, come back ab. Come go, come, take a bub. Come on, come back ab. Come go, come take a bub. Come on, come back a bob. C. C, come. Come, come. Come Come, come. So think about this correct. It didn't look like it was pushed too hard, but it was much louder. Let's now play this back and bypass the EKU compressor and limiter. Come on, come on. Come Come. Now, let's turn these on again so you can hear difference. Come come, home. Come, come. C. Come come a Drawing playback, I just reduce the gain of Limiter to 60 B. As we mastering, you will need to listen to the track many times and make small adjustments. Okay, now let's set the start and end points for the song. Let's first set the start point. So let's have a tiny bit of silence at the start before it comes in. For this, let's have around ten to 50 milliseconds. Starting instantly can sound a bit too sudden, but too much silence can be a bit distracting. So let's just drag this audio forward slightly. There we have a small amount of silence. Unfortunately, in GarageBand, we can't drag the cycle region back. In other doors like Logic Pro, we can. But to compensate for this, we can just move the track forward slightly. Okay, now let's set the endpoint. So at the end, we want to leave enough space for any reverb tales or fade outs, but we don't want to have too much silence. Normally around one to 2 seconds. So let's play back from the end and try and find a natural place for the song to end. So I think around here, let's have a lesson back again. So around there sounds good to me, so let's have it end there. And let's drag this to the start. Okay, now we're going to export our Master. So let's click on Share and then go to Export Song to disk. Okay, let's export this as a WAV. Let's have this as uncompressed 24 bit as this will be highest quality. And let's rename this master. And for this example, let's save this on our desktop. Let's make sure Export cycle area is checked, and let's press Export. Again, this will take a few moments. So there is more we can do for mastering, but that's just a quick way to master in GarageBand. Okay, now let's go over to our desktop and let's have a listen to our master. Come more compact. Come up. Come compa. Come more compact C. Come go, compat. I'm more compaable I'm more compaable I'm more compatable I'm more completable. Okay, so I think that sounds quite good. But if you do want to make any changes, you can always go back to GarageBand and make some changes in the master plugins here. Or if you want to go back and adjust the mix, you can delete this master track here and export again and import the new mix down and make some mastering changes to that. So I do recommend spending some time mastering. Have a listen to your master on different devices, including headphone, speakers, and on your phone, to make sure it sounds good across all devices. Okay, so thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you found it useful, and I'll see you in the next one. 48. Opening GarageBand Projects in Logic Pro: Okay, now let's talk about exporting your project to Logit Pro. GarageBand projects can be exported to Logic Pro for further editing, giving you access to advanced features not available on GarageBand. Logic Pro offers high track counts, more sophisticated effects, and professional grain mastering tools that can elevate your productions to the next level. So let me now show you how to export from GarageBand to Logic Pro. To do this, you will need to have Logic Pro, but the easiest way to do this is to right click on your GarageBand project and then go on open with and then select Logic Pro. For this example, let's just save this on a desktop and call this example Project. And now this will open up in Logic Pro. Let's just mute the mixdown and play this back so we can hear our song. As I said, Logic Pro is a lot more advanced. We do have this mixer here and we have many more effects plugins, but this is ready for another course. So all of your tracks, regions, and effects will transfer seamlessly, allowing you to continue building on your existing work without starting from scratch. This is especially useful if you're aiming for a polished professional quality mix or need features like surround sound mixing, advanced automation, or detailed mini editing. While garage band is free for MacOS users, upgrading to Logic Pro does come at a cost. Okay, so that's how you can export to Logic Pro. As I said, it does offer more features, but it's not a free application like GarageBand. Working with garage band is still fine, but Logic Pro is a lot more professional. Okay, so that's ended this video. Thanks for watching, and I'll see in the next one. 49. Class Project and Conclusion: Okay, so we now reached the end of this class. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you found it useful. For your class project, I want you to create your own song and garage band. Your song should be at least 1 minute long and should include at least one verse, one chorus, and a bridge. I also want you to include at least three different instruments. This could be maybe a drum part, bass part, keys part, or vocal or leap part, but feel free to choose any instrument that suits your style. I also want you to balance the levels of your track and apply some basic mixing effects to enhance your sound. Once you've completed your song, take a screenshot of your garage band project, and then write a short paragraph explaining how you made your song and the creative choices you made and why. Then post this as your class project, so you can see exactly what you did. So thanks again for watching this class, and I hopefully see you another class soon.