In the last GarageBand tutorial we looked at how to get our MIDI instruments and audio interface working. Now we need to create instrument tracks in the GarageBand project window. When a new songwriting project opens, the main GarageBand interface looks like this:
The GarageBand interface and project window. Note the playhead (red line with pointer at the top) is at the far left of the grey track area.
In the left hand column is a list of the tracks on your project, along with basic mixing controls. When you open a new project, there should by default just be one track - grand piano:
GarageBand track header - instrument on left, mixing controls to the right. Note the red record on/off button. This has to be on for the track to record. To its right is the mute button.
This is a software instrument, meaning that the samples needed to create the complete sound of a grand piano are stored on your Mac.
Click the track so that it’s live. If you have a MIDI keyboard interfaced to your Mac, press a few keys - you should hear the piano software instrument playing. Remember to:
1. Ensure that your audio output is working properly. If you’re using your Mac’s internal audio with headphones (recommended), ensure that the volume control at the top right of the Finder is turned up.
2. Turn down the volume control on your MIDI keyboard, so the sound from any onboard instruments doesn’t mix with the sound from GarageBand.
Recording a basic track
If you’re only set up to record live instruments (i.e., you don’t have a MIDI keyboard) you can skip this section and move on to the next GarageBand tutorial - recording real instruments and vocals.
If you do have a MIDI keyboard, let’s record a basic track to check everything is working OK. Follow these steps:
1. Ensure the grand piano track is ready to record - the red button immediately under the ‘r’ of ‘Grand’ should be switched on, and the track should be live (you’ll see a halo of light around the instrument icon).
2. Check the GarageBand playhead is at the far left of the track window. The playhead marks the point you’re at in the track or song, whether you’re recording or playing back.
3. Decide whether you want the metronome (click track) to play as you record. You can control the tempo of the GarageBand metronome by selecting the project settings in the lower display:
Selecting the 'project' setting... in the GarageBand project settings...
...and adjusting the tempo control. This governs the 'click' of the metronome (if it's switched on) and the speed of any drum/instrument loops.
If you don’t want the metronome, go to Control > Metronome or press Apple-U to toggle it on and off.
4. Press the big red ‘record’ button in the lower display:
The big red record button is on the left.
The playhead will begin to move rightwards. As you press keys on your MIDI keyboard, GarageBand will pick them up and record them in a ‘piano roll’:
The green area is a GarageBand piano roll, indicating data has been recorded
You’ll see that it can pick up both single and combined note depressions, meaning you can play chords as well as single-note melodies.
5. When you’ve finished recording your test track, click the record button again or hit the space bar - either will stop the recording.
6. You’ll notice that the piano roll only started when you played the first note, or at the start of the bar/measure (indicated by the top horizontal scale when you have the ‘measures’ setting selected in the lower display) in which the first note occurred. If there are several seconds delay between the left-hand edge of the track window and the start of your track, you can click and drag the piano roll leftwards. This is useful for when you complete a project and bounce it to MP3, as it prevents ‘dead’ space at the beginning of your song.
TIP: Although you need to press the record button to start recording, as we have seen you can use the space bar to stop it. When you’re not recording, the space bar will start and stop playback - very handy when you’re editing very short sections of your song.
Adding a new software instrument track
To add a new software instrument track to GarageBand’s project window:
1. Press the ‘+’ button in the bottom left hand corner of the interface.
2. A dialogue box will appear. Select ’software instrument track’ and press the ‘create’ button.
3. The track info pane will slide out of the right hand side of the project window (you can open and close it whenever you like by press Apple-I or by going to Track > Show/Hide Track Info.
The GarageBand info pane
4. Choose the software instrument you want and press Apple-I to close the track info pane.
Multiple software instrument tracks
Although you can record a software instrument and a real instrument at the same time, you can’t record two software instruments together. One MIDI input = one recordable software track.
Now you have two software tracks, you can experiment with multitracking:
1. Record some playing on your original grand piano track, then press the small red record button on your new instrument - that track will light up and the grand piano will dim.
2. Drag the playhead back to the start, and record something on that track.
3. You’ll notice that as the playhead moves over the piano roll from the original track, it plays the notes you previous recorded. If you don’t want this to happen, you can mute that track by pressing the small mute button with a speaker icon under the ‘d’ of ‘grand piano’ on that original track.
4. When you’ve done recording on the second track, drag the playhead back to the start, ensure you’ve taken the mute off the grand piano track (if you had it on) and press the spacebar. The two tracks will play together.
Two tracks together. The first plays as the second is recorded, unless it is muted.
5. If the two tracks are slightly out of time, remember you can click and drag their piano rolls backwards and forwards to get them properly aligned.
By the way, if you’re looking for a MIDI/keyboard digital piano so you can put the tips in this tutorial into practice, read about the M-Audio Sono 61, which has a USB-compatible audio interface with mic capabilities built in.
In the next GarageBand tutorial we’ll be looking at how to record live instruments.
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I was trying to use the “Songwriting” feature on Garageband, but I was having problem writing the notes on the staff. I was pressing the “command” key and would allow me to drop a note, but it was very strange. I would truly appreciate your respond. Thank you for the help and dedication that you have put to make this cast possible, very helpful.
Not quite sure the exact problem you’re having, but here are couple of points you might find useful:
1. GarageBand only allows you to drop notes on the staff in regions of a track that are already recorded. If you want to drop notes in from scratch, let the instrument you’ve selected record “silently” over a region.
2. I find that the staff control is really only useful for making small adjustments, and it doesn’t have any really powerful features - e.g., you can’t import from true scoring software such as Sibelius and Finale. In general, I tend to use the graphic view to make small edits to a track.
Bear in mind, too, that I’m using GarageBand ‘08 right now - if you’re on ‘09 I don’t have the same set of songwriting features that you do, so I may be missing your point!
Isn’t there any way to layer 2 software instruments together either with a hardware keyboard w/layer function or to hack garageband 3 ,2 midi channels/inputs = 2 simultaneous instruments mixed together/layered?
Hi Matt:
I’ve never tried either. However, given that GB can only handle one lot of MIDI instrument data per track/channel, I can’t imagine layering would be that easy. The way I’d instinctively do this is create a separate AIFF with layered tracks within it, then import the AIFF into its own track in the main GB project. Even using multiple MIDI channels, you’d need a separate track for each channel.
All this comes with the caveat that I haven’t got my hands on GB 09 yet - not sure if the functionality is included there or not.
Thanks for answering Bill. I’ve actually done what you suggest and then saved such files as loops. It works great, but his other thing with the layering is something I miss from hardware keyboards I’ve had in the past.
Hey Bill,
I just noticed the track volume meters for my Real Instrument input show one signal even though I’ve Y-corded my stereo output into my audio/midi-USB converter.Any thoughts as to why a stereo display is’t showing and does it matter. Thanks,Matt
Hi Matt:
I would guess because GB is seeing one USB data stream and is therefore treating it as one channel (i.e., mono) rather than two (i.e., stereo). I wouldn’t have thought it would be a big deal, unless you wanted to alter the relative volumes of the channels, which you can in effect do anyway using the pan control.
If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll ask Graeme - he’s Mr. Technical Guru round here…
I guess that means the original signal from the mixer output is deficient.I’ll have another look ,thanks.