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Making Music on the Mac: the basics of GarageBand

Posted by Dennis Sellers May 9, 2008 at 5:48am

By Brian Parnell

Welcome back everyone. It’s been a few weeks since we last met. I’m getting ready for my Logic Pro Trainer re-certification at Apple’s NY headquarters. Fun City.

I also want to make a correction from my last article. In the fourth paragraph where we talked about Sample Rates I mistakenly labeled the value as Hz (Hertz) when it was clearly supposed to be KHz (Kilo Hertz). It’s a small mistake but a huge difference. Thanks to one of the readers who pointed it out to me.

Now, for this installment we’re going to discuss the basics of our favorite little audio editing program, Garageband. In my line of work I’ve talked to thousands of folks buying Macs and setting up studios of all sizes. Most of them overlook the power of this free application already built-in to their Mac. I suppose they think you have to pay extra for something if it’s to have any value. Strange.

There are many artists in different genres already using Garageband to produce some stellar work. One of my favorites is Bucky Barrett. He was Roy Orbison’s lead man and bandleader for many years. He recently put out a beautiful jazz guitar project using the Brian Moore iGuitar for all the synth work. Magnificent.

I don’t want to spend too much of your time sounding like a tutorial…unless that’s what you’re looking for, but if we make a basic song the program will reveal itself in a logical fashion that will stick with you. The recording and mixing capabilities are admittedly fairly simple and straightforward but as we go I think you’ll find all you need to put out some fantastic music. Let’s roll.

When you first open Garageband you are presented with a few options. I’m using the latest version found on all new Macs and available in iLife ’08. This version gives us the options to Start a new Project, Open an Existing Project, Create a Podcast Episode or use my favorite little band-in-a-box, Magic Garageband. For now let’s just Create a New Music Project by clicking on the top button.

At this point we see the standard hierarchy box we always see when we create something on the Mac. It always asks us “Whatcha gonna call it” and “Where ya gonna put it”. Garageband likes to call it “My Song”. Call it whatever you like and pick you desktop (for now) as the destination. This is OK for now as the program creates the project as a single piece. All audio chunks and MIDI data are stored in a single file so it’s easy to move it around, or as in our case, to trash it when we’re done.

In this initial dialogue box we also choose our Tempo, Key Signature and some other elements of our project. Let’s keep it simple and choose a Tempo of 108bpm by clicking and dragging the slider to the left until the value reads 108.

We’ll leave it in 4/4 time and since I’m a guitar player I’m going to change the Key to A by selecting it from the pop-up menu. Let’s leave it as A Major. Better for hair-band power chords at excessive volume. Always a crowd pleaser.

Now we see our main window and most likely a floating keyboard window. If not, Command-K will bring it up. Garageband starts off a default project with a standard Grand Piano software instrument on a single track.

We can click on the floating keyboard to select sounds but that’s not very musical. Instead, clicking Shift-Command-K (or clicking on the Keyboard selector)will give you the better keyboard. This floating window is called Musical Typing. Play a few keys on your computer keyboard and see the results on the screen. It’s a fairly cool way to put down ideas and even program drums. Of course an external MIDI keyboard is far more musical but US Airways ain’t gonna let you whip one out in coach.

We need something to jam along with so let’s close the keyboard window for now and click on the Loop Browser button (looks like a little eyeball in the lower left corner, beside the scissors) and it reveals the built in loops and jingles your version contains. Move your mouse to the right of the scissor tool, into the dark grey header area and it becomes a hand tool. Now grab the header and drag it up to reveal more loops and goodies. Use this to alter your screen area as needed.

Let’s find a basic drum loop to bring in to the project. By clicking on the button in the loop browser area labeled “All Drums” the browser displays drum loops on the right side of the window. You’ll notice some of the loops have a green icon of a musical note and some have a blue icon of a sound wave. The green ones are MIDI loops and the Blue ones are actual audio loops. MIDI loops are far more flexible and have a huge range of tones and effects, but the audio loops are generally preferred by old rockers like myself.

I’m going to narrow down the selection by clicking on the “Rock/Blues” button because that’s how I roll. Listen to a few of the available loops by clicking on them. Click again to stop or choose another loop. Since it’s all a matter of style I’m going to scroll all the way down and find the MIDI loop called “Funky Pop Drum 01”. Sweeeeet.

Preview this loop and if you like it, drag it into the big window (the Arrange Area) in the empty space just below the existing Piano track and let go. You’ll see Garageband create a new track with the loop you chose. Since this is an audio loop you’ll see a waveform in the loop itself. If it were a MIDI loop you’d see the individual notes. Also, it’s quite likely that your internal microphone might now be activated (by default) and the audio track you created is probably armed for recording. This means that if you hit the record button right now it could be major feedback. Word to the wise.

Now that we have a major groove happening let’s click on the Play button in the Transport Area or hit your spacebar and start the playback. The loop plays one time. Nice, but not nearly satisfying. Bring on da Funk. Leave the noise at home. Position your cursor over the upper right edge of your Drum loop and see that it changes to a circle, kinda. This is the Loop Tool. Grab the loop at this point and drag to the right. If you did it correctly you’ll see the loop extending across the track to wherever you release the mouse. All loops perform this way so it’s easy to get a drum or bass loop repeating and play along.

Now let’s find a Bass loop. Click on the “Reset” button in the loop browser (far left) and then select the “Bass” button. Again, narrow it down a bit by selecting the “Rock/Blues” button. It’s better to stay in the same genre for now but by all means mix it up. You’ll be amazed how well a Backroads Banjo mixes with Cellos. I selected the “Rock Bass 01” and dragged it into the Arrange Area (just like the Drum loop) to create a new track for my Bass. Let’s also loop it out to the same length as the drums by once again dragging it from the upper right corner.

What you notice already is that regardless of the genre or style of music loops, or even the key in which they were originally recorded, they all play in the same key and at the same tempo. If you mix Minor and Major key material you probably won’t like the result but it’ll still work.

Click on the original keyboard track to select it and bring back Musical Typing (Shift-Option-K) and jam with the groove you’ve created. Play around with different types of loops and instruments. You’ll be amazed at some of the results you can achieve.

When we get together again we’ll look at how we record real audio in Garageband and some of the other cool stuff it can do. As always I appreciate your feedback and corrections. Some times I type too fast.

See ya.

Brian is CEO of The MacGuy, located in Garden City, South Carolina.—Dennis Sellers

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