In the last tutorial we found out about loops. Now that we know how to create both software and real instrument tracks, we can record a song in GarageBand. In this tutorial we’re going to go through setting up the recording environment for a song. In the next one we’ll deal with actually laying down the tracks, and in the one after that we’ll do the mixing.
These are the steps I’m going to take for setting up the project:
1. I launch Garageband and start a new song (or ’songwriting’) project. The initial preferences window asks me to enter a key, time signature and tempo. I ignore these for now, leaving them on the defaults of C major, 4/4 and 120bpm - I’ll change them later, from within the project window.
2. A new project window opens with one track - grand piano. That’s useful, as I’m going to use it in the song. I’ve got my audio preferences (GarageBand > Preferences > Audio/MIDI) set up so that GarageBand is taking MIDI signals through my audio interface, but outputting through my Mac’s internal audio. I select the grand piano (so th e instrument icon is glowing), put my headphones on, plug them into the jack in my Mac, and play some random keys on my digital piano. Sure enough, the instrument is live and I can hear it playing back to me.
3. Next up is another software an instrument - a bass guitar that I’ll also control with my keyboard. I create a new software instrument track (by pushing the ‘+’ button in the bottom left hand corner of the GarageBand project window) and assign it to Bass > Fingerstyle Electric Bass in the track info pane, which has popped out of the right hand side of the GarageBand project window.
4. Vocals next: I create a new track, but this time select a ‘real instrument’ in the dialogue box. In the track info pane I assign it to Vocals > Female Basic.
WARNING: Before you start testing and recording vocals, double check the signal really is coming through your audio interface mic. If it isn’t, your Mac will default to the internal mic - so you’ll still get a recording, and you may mistake it for your real mic. That is, until you listen carefully and realise it sounds tinny and terrible. If you’re using a MacBook or MacBook Pro you can check that your internal mic is off just by running your fingers around the top edge of the screen surround - if you can hear a loud scratching and rumbling in your headphones, the internal mic is switched on and taking precedence over the audio interface mic. Head to GarageBand > Preferences > Audio/MIDI to sort out the problem.
5. Finally, I want to add the drum track. Because I dislike the GarageBand metronome, I’ve disabled it (Control > Metronome or Apple-U to toggle on and off). Instead, I’m going to use the drum loop to set the beat.
6. I press the ‘eye’ button in the bottom left of the GarageBand project window and from the loops menu select ’70s Ballad Drums’. I drag and drop it into the empty area below the other tracks in the track pane, and a new track - ‘kits’ - is created, with the MIDI data for the loop in a piano roll gobbet.
7. I want the drums to run through the whole song, so I extend the loop (using the process described in the GarageBand loops tutorial) to give me a good long drum track. It’s longer than I need, but I don’t want to run out of drums halfway through recording one of the other parts, and I can easily trim any excess when all the recording is done.
8. I also need the drums to play at the right tempo. Selected the ‘project’ options in the bottom pane of the GarageBand project window, I used the slider to select 90 beats per minute (bpm).
So now I’ve got all the four tracks I need, and one of them - the drum loop - is full of sound. My GarageBand project window looks a bit like this:
GarageBand ready to record a project, with piano, vocals, bass and drums
In the next GarageBand tutorial we’ll look at how I go about recording the other tracks.
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