Ga r a g e B a n d f o r B e g i n n e r s Prepared for: Creative Connections ESF CPD Written by: Jane Engelmann Date: 30th Sept 2011
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A. Starting a new music project
Click on the guitar icon usually on the bottom bar
This page will appear. You will see that ‘piano’ and new project are automatically selected. Click on ‘Choose” (Bottom right of screen)
You can now type in your own title for your project and then click “Create”
The piano track will automatically appear. But as we don’t need that, go to the task bar, select track and from the drop down menu, click delete track
Now we are ready to add some loops. The loops are categorised into different sections on the right hand side (in GB ’09) To choose a loop, select any category and then a list of loops will appear below. Click on them to listen. Click again to stop. To get back to loops or to change the category either un check the loop or press reset. Have some time exploring and listening to loops. What happens if you click on two categories without un-‐checking the first one?
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To use a loop, simply click on it, drag it to the track space and drop it. Make sure when you add subsequent loops you drop below the other tracks otherwise you will overwrite existing tracks
Let’s get started on creating your own rock piece! First choose some beats to get the rhythm started. Drag and drop your chosen beats to the first track. Now you can extend the loops by dragging them along. But first you have to position your curser over the top right hand corner of your loop until it changes from a pointer into a circular pointer, Then click and drag along. Each time you see a break or cut in your loop. This signifies when the musical phrase starts again. Deselect “beats” when you’re done”
Now add a bass line. Select and drag your new loop on the track below. Don’t start it at the same time as your beats. Perhaps after 4 or so bars of the beats. Drop your bass line to coincide with the cut/break of the previous loop to ensure that they both start at a beginning of a phrase. Extend your loop if necessary (Uncheck bass when you’re done)
Now select guitars and choose a third track. Repeat the same process as for tracks one and two and stagger the start so it comes in third, again at a phrase beginning. You can extend is it’s only a short loop. Now just for fun, choose the FX loop buttons. Perhaps you could add a siren at the beginning of the piece and some crazy sounds throughout. You can move the other tracks along accordingly
Listen to your amazing creation!
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B. Starting a new PODCAST project Podcasting -‐ What is it? A podcast is a method of publishing recorded talk, music and sometimes text, images or movies via the Internet, in a way that shares your content automatically and on a regular basis with your listeners. A Podcast can be made up of many episodes within a single project.
Open Garageband. Click on the podcast icon and select “Choose”
Give your Podcast a title and click create
Select the eye icon on the bottom left hand corner, which will reveal your loops/stingers/effects etc.
GarageBand ’11 has a loop icon instead
Click on male or female voice
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Click on Male or Female Voice (click on the silhouette of the head) You can also change your voice for special effects by double clicking on the silhouette You can then select vocals or podcasting from the list that appears on the right. Your voice will now playback in any of these options. After you have recorded your voice, you can click on any of the options from the vocals and podcasting lists and hear your voice played back in all the different ways. Sometimes it even helps an average singing voice sound amazing!
Now record a short announcement or news report. Click on the red record button, and after a few seconds begin to speak. When you have finished recording, click on the red button again to stop
recording. Press the playback button to get back to the beginning. This will also bring your playback bar (red line back to the start Note; you can move your playback bar along to the position you want to start recording at.
You can also drag your track to move it along so that it starts to play later, or after the music has started etc.
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Now add some background music.
Click on the Loop icon (or eye in earlier versions) You can select jingles to find some music to match your broadcast. Select a genre (i.e. orchestral, urban) and then a list of loops will appear below.
If you want more options, click on the musical notes icon on the top right hand corner of the page and it will open many more many more loops. If you want to keep it simple, just stick to the podcast icon and select jingles
When you have chosen your sound loop. Click and drag it to the track entitled “Jingles” If you want to make it longer, just hovers your pointer over the top right hand corner of the loop until the pointer changes into a circular shape. The just click, hold and drag along
Remember you can fade out your music at the end. The program automatically fades the music when your voice comes in but sometimes you may need to manually bring the level of the music down a bit to get the required balance.
Now you have finished you need to export the file. From the Share menu choose Send podcast to iTunes or it can be uploaded onto a WIKI
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HANDY HINTS ECHO on recording (if no headphones) If you want to overlap your introduction recording with the Jingle then remember to click the Speaker icon on the Jingle Timeline to disable it temporarily (grey colour), otherwise this will play as you record your voice and you end up with an “echo” of the Jingle. Click the Speaker icon on the Jingle Timeline to re-‐enable it (blue colour) Adding Images You can add images to illustrate your podcasts. For future reference read on below Click on the media browser button> a window will appear the right hand side Click the Photos tab and choose the album of images you have chosen to work with. Drag the images onto the Podcast track making sure that you listen to the voice recording and line up the best place for the images to illustrate the item being covered. Deleting and adding tracks. To delete a track you can just click on the track you wish to remove and press delete on your keyboard. You can also go to the task bar, choose edit/undo or go to task bar, choose track and select delete track To add a new track, go to the task bar, select track /new track
Repeating.
If you click on this by mistake, this
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will appear at the top of your tracks and then your tracks will just repeat and repeat. So I
suggest you don’t click on this by mistake, or if you do just click on it again to undo! There is also a way you can cut out parts of a track, say if you’ve got extra noise at beginning or a cough at the end. Select this icon which will reveal your sound files and sound envelopes. You can identify where there are extra sounds by the shape and height of the sound envelopes (The sound wave patterns)
Then click on the lower part of the area you wish to remove by moving your curser down to the bottom of the track until it changes into a cross. Click and highlight the section you wish to remove and simply click delete.