Sound Production:
This page is dedicated to the use of GarageBand which is a product of Apple. This was quite a fun task and was very informative. I downloaded a sound from www.SoundDogs.com and dragged them into Garage Band onto the Piano tab.
GarageBand Tutorial:
1. Open up GarageBand and also iTunes
2. Prepare GarageBand New Project
- File --> New (command and N)
- Name and save this project
- Modify Settings: Delete the on-screen keyboard, and the default track. Then re-size the window so that iTunes is visible.
3. Move an iTunes file into GarageBand then locate your desired song
- Drag and drop it into the garage band interface/timeline
- Play track
4. Editing the track
- Select Region
- Left Click region to highlight
- Click on track header to select all regions on a track
- Drag mouse over adjacent regions
- Left click on each non-adjacent regions
- Move Region: Drag sideways within track, drag vertically to new track (File --> New Basic Track) Note: Active tracks / regions will be a brighter colour than an inactive tracks/regions.
- Place Cursor: Click above region at desired location or drag cursor. If you cannot get it in the exact spot:
- Deselect snap to grid: Controls --> Snap to Grid. Snapping to grid can be a good thing if you're trying to sync loops but if you're doing some picky editing, your in/out points will likely fall between grid lines.
- Adjust zoom slider.
- Split Track: Edit --> Split, this will divide the region into separate regions at the point that the cursor is placed.
- Delete: Edit --> Delete if you would no longer like to keep that specific region
- Cut: Edit --> Cut if you want to take the region out but use it somewhere else.
- Copy: Edit --> Cut
- Paste: Edit --> Paste region will be pasted where that the cursor is placed. Paste into same track, or click different track to paste there.
- Undo: Edit --> Undo to go back in the history to a previous step.
- Redo: Edit --> Redo/Repeat to repeat a step or to go forward
- Repeat /loop region: Place cursor at upper right corner of the region and drag for desired duration.
1. Open up GarageBand and also iTunes
2. Prepare GarageBand New Project
- File --> New (command and N)
- Name and save this project
- Modify Settings: Delete the on-screen keyboard, and the default track. Then re-size the window so that iTunes is visible.
3. Move an iTunes file into GarageBand then locate your desired song
- Drag and drop it into the garage band interface/timeline
- Play track
4. Editing the track
- Select Region
- Left Click region to highlight
- Click on track header to select all regions on a track
- Drag mouse over adjacent regions
- Left click on each non-adjacent regions
- Move Region: Drag sideways within track, drag vertically to new track (File --> New Basic Track) Note: Active tracks / regions will be a brighter colour than an inactive tracks/regions.
- Place Cursor: Click above region at desired location or drag cursor. If you cannot get it in the exact spot:
- Deselect snap to grid: Controls --> Snap to Grid. Snapping to grid can be a good thing if you're trying to sync loops but if you're doing some picky editing, your in/out points will likely fall between grid lines.
- Adjust zoom slider.
- Split Track: Edit --> Split, this will divide the region into separate regions at the point that the cursor is placed.
- Delete: Edit --> Delete if you would no longer like to keep that specific region
- Cut: Edit --> Cut if you want to take the region out but use it somewhere else.
- Copy: Edit --> Cut
- Paste: Edit --> Paste region will be pasted where that the cursor is placed. Paste into same track, or click different track to paste there.
- Undo: Edit --> Undo to go back in the history to a previous step.
- Redo: Edit --> Redo/Repeat to repeat a step or to go forward
- Repeat /loop region: Place cursor at upper right corner of the region and drag for desired duration.
On this image I simply dragged in my chosen Sound from www.sounddogs.com.
I went onto this website, found a sound then saved it the desktop so it was easy to find when loading up GarageBand. Then I dragged this into GarageBand into a new song tab.
I went onto this website, found a sound then saved it the desktop so it was easy to find when loading up GarageBand. Then I dragged this into GarageBand into a new song tab.
Here to split a desired track you would simply go to Edit in GarageBand then press Split.
On this image I split my track from sounddogs.com and made the middle of the song a little longer than the first and last pieces in this new track/song. On your region bar you can see a small triangle, when you click that it brings up the track volume bar underneath your new track, as shown here. The blue lines show the volume of this track, I made the beginning fade in.
This image I did the same, I split my track into short and long pieces then made the middle section a little longer by just clicking the the end of the middle track and dragging it for as far as I would like. I made the beginning fade and by using the triangle on the region bar and using the little dots as show below as this is a better view of how to do this. Then near the end of the middle section I gradually faded it out, then on the third section faded it back in.
On this image, I brought up the Master Volume Tab. To bring up your song's Master Volume by choosing Show Master Track from the tracks menu. Now for the fade. Scroll along to the end of your song, and about 30 seconds before it finishes, click the purple volume line on the Master Track at the 0db level. A purple dot should appear, this is a volume control point.
Here I did the same as the above but went to 'Track' then found Fade Out at the bottom.
Here I kept the image before hand the same, however I added in a 'Club Dance Beat 005'. To get these little sounds in you would go to the Audio Library on the right hand side. I went to All Instruments --> All Drums --> Beats, then found an interesting, sounding beat and dropped it in. Underneath, you can see a blue line again here I faded this beat in so it would blend in well with the my first chosen track.
For this image I did the exact same, but changed effect used. I went again to the Audio Library on the left hand side, went to All Instruments --> All Drums --> Acoustic. For my chosen effect, I used Effected Drum Kit 02. I also faded this in, to make sure that it would blend in well with my first track.
This image is the same as the above, however here, has a big orange bar whereas, the above has a blue one. The reason for this is because of the winder at the top of this image. I went to Control --> Hide Loop Browser,
Here this is the same image as the above, whereas this has the Loop Browser hidden, to bring it back you would simply click Show Loop Browser,
Here I made another new track with my first downloaded sound from SoundDogs. I did some fading in and at the end I faded it out. Underneath however, I went to Rock / Blues then scrolled down and found a drum kit called Natural Drum Kit 03. I added this in and created a few more fading in and fading out parts to make this track sound more professional, and clean.
This one was my last track created with my first download from SoundDogs. On this particular image / track I split my downloaded track (orange bar) and made the first part longer and the middle quite short, to give it a bit of a mix around and to see what it would sound like. Underneath this I made the drum kit again which was the Natural Drum Kit 03 and underneath that I put in an Electric bass which was again, under the rock / blues tab on the Audio Library and was called Rock Bass 03. I used to triangle again on each of these regions to create good fading out and fading effects.
This one was my first attempt at a different sound produced by someone from SoundDogs, I dragged this track from my desktop onto my GarageBand song tab. I then went onto the Audio Library again to find a space/alien kind of sound and to my luck there was. This one was called Spacey Club, underneath the heading Electronic. As you see by my image above, there was quite a lot of fading in and out on this one particular track. I quite liked the finished outcome of this one track as it had an alien like quality to it which I thought was rather impressive. Overall, I was pretty happy with how I worked with GarageBand, it is a pretty easy program to use which I would highly recommend to anyone working in a music/animation based field.
This image was all the tracks which I created in a space of around an hour or two, however five of these have no audio qualities whatsoever, and I unfortunately had no idea how to delete them.