A Workshop in the Garage

Aug 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus

           
 

FIG. 1: GarageBand supplies 32 effects for you can apply to Software Instrument or Real Instrument tracks, ranging from Amp Simulation to a Vocal Transformer.

Apple Computer's GarageBand is revolutionary. Never has it been easier or less expensive to record, mix, and master studio-quality audio. Though GarageBand is an entry-level application, it has features that compare favorably with those of programs five times as expensive and ten times as complicated. GarageBand is almost certainly the easiest way to create multitrack recordings on a Mac, but it offers much more than meets the eye. For this article I will assume that you already know the basics, so let's jump right into some of the less intuitively obvious tips, tricks, and techniques.

Get More from Presets

GarageBand ships with hundreds of presets for Software Instruments, Real Instruments, and audio effects. Apple went to great lengths to make the presets sound great, and most of them do. A novice might be satisfied with so many presets, but experienced musicians want to tweak every parameter of every instrument and effect. Thank heaven for the Track Info pane!

GarageBand provides three ways to open the Track Info pane, and you should memorize at least one of them. First, click on a track to select it. Then, either double-click on its icon in the Tracks list, use its keyboard shortcut (Command + I), or click on the Track Info button (the little encircled i to the right of the time display).

Notice that the Track Info pane has a small Details triangle that expands and contracts the pane's Details section. If you don't see a bunch of effects checkboxes, sliders, and pop-up menus in the Track Info pane's lower half, click on the Details triangle to reveal them.

Five effects for Real Instruments are always available: Gate, Compressor, Equalizer, Echo, and Reverb. For Software Instruments, the always-included effects are the same except for an instrument generator, which takes the place of the Gate effect.

FIG. 2: Clicking on the pencil icon opens a window for setting Multiband Compressor parameters.

Software Instruments and Real Instruments furnish two pop-up menus that let you choose from GarageBand's 16 included effects and another 16 AU effects that come with Mac OS X 10.4 (see Fig. 1). Most effects have presets of their own in the pop-up menu to the right of the menu for selecting the effects type. If none of the included effects presets is just what you need, or if a preset is close to what you're looking for, you can modify the effect by clicking on the pencil icon just to the right of its presets menu (see Fig. 2).

If you've created settings for an effect and think you'll want to reuse them in the future, save them as a new preset by choosing Make Preset from the presets menu. GarageBand will ask you to name your new preset; do so, click on Save, and voilà — you have a custom preset.

Now let's say you've tweaked a track's settings for several effects and want to save them all for reuse. You could save a preset for each individual effect, but there's an easier way: click on the Save Instrument button at the bottom of the Track Info pane, name your new instrument, and click on Save, and you have a custom instrument with all its effects presets just the way you like them.

One last thing about presets: if you modify a preset or an instrument, GarageBand will ask if you want to save your changes if you select a different preset or instrument. If you find this behavior as annoying as I do, you can turn it off in the General pane of GarageBand's Preferences. But be careful — after you do, any modifications you make to presets or instruments are blown away unless you expressly choose Make Preset or click on Save Instrument before you switch to a different preset or instrument.

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