In the last GarageBand tutorial, we looked at how to set up the GarageBand project window with all the tracks we need to record a basic song. I’ve now got a GarageBand project open with four tracks: grand piano, bass, vocals and drums. The drum track is already filled with a loop, meaning I’ve been able to turn the annoying metronome off.
These are the stages I’m going to go through to get the rest of the track down. If any of the controls don’t make sense, run through my early GarageBand tutorials for screenshots and explanations.
1. Record the piano part. I move the play head to the start of the track window, and ensure the red ‘record’ button is pressed down on the grand piano track, and the track selected (instrument icon glowing).
2. I hit the main record button at the bottom of the GarageBand project pane. I let the drums run for a couple of bars for a count in (I can delete the count-in bars later), then start playing.
3. I record the full piano part, then press space to stop. If I’ve made any mistakes I can reply the sections again at the end of the recorded track as separate ‘gobbets’, then cut and paste them in. Alternatively, I can use the MIDI data editor to edit the piano roll in detail (scissors icon at the bottom of the GarageBand project window - I’ll go through MIDI editing in an advanved GarageBand tutorial at a later date).
4. The piano part is now recorded, so I hit File > Save or Apple-S to make sure the whole project is safe.
5. I move the play head back to the beginning of the song repeat the exact same process with the bass part - it’s just a software instrument like the piano, so I there’s nothing different except that I’m playing single, low notes on the keyboard rather than a ‘normal’ piano part as I did when I was recording the piano track. Remember, unless I mute them the parts that have already been recorded (piano and drums) will play as the play head moves over them when I’m recording the bass.
6. Now it’s time to record the vocals. I’ve got a mic set up (with a pop shield) and the track is live: I’ve gone through the process described in tutorial 5 to record live instruments. The monitor is on, and my vocalist and I are both listening through headphones, divided by a simple headphone splitter. We lay down the track.
NOTE: Before I record the vocals (or any live instrument) I do a soundcheck: I run through the vocal once, adjusting the levels so that the signal in the level meter on the track mixer doesn’t go much above half or three-quarters. I certainly don’t want it jumping into the red at any point.
7. Once the vocal track is down, I used the editing tool (scissors icon, bottom left of the GarageBand project screen) to ‘top and tail’ it - cutting out the extraneous noise that you typically get at the start and end of a vocal track.
The scissors icon toggles the GarageBand editing pane
The GarageBand editing pane - a section of track selected
TIP: If you’re not sure you like a particular take on one track, you don’t have to delete it to try again. Just mute it, and create an identical track by selecting Track > Duplicate Track or by pressing Apple-D. You can record the new track with the old one muted, then compare the two. Using this technique in GarageBand you can even record several takes of the same part and listen to them in turn, either choosing the best one or editing the best bits of each one to make a final version.
And there we are - all the tracks are recorded into GarageBand and saved, with any retakes done as necessary.
But we can’t just let our song go out like this - it sounds ‘dead’ and lacks depth and character. We need to sort out the effects and the overall mix - techniques we’ll deal with in the next tutorial.
