5 Tips to Make Your Garageband Recording Sound Excellent

Ok, so you're in the process of making your hit single on Garageband. Or, you just want to jam out and have a little fun. Maybe you're tired of your recordings lacking quality? Have no fear, we're going to give your tracks a facelift. Garageband has some fantastic tools to make your recording go from good to great. Here are some tokens of wisdom, in no particular order:

1. Instrument Volumes. A big part of a professional-sounding recording means that your track volumes and master volume is optimal- this way, the song won't sound distorted, uneven, or muddy. If you're recording something plugged directly into the computer with a cable (electric guitar, bass, etc), make sure the input volume is around 75%, or just so it's not hitting the red if you play hard. Too loud and it obviously distorts, if you’re too soft you’ll have a hard time getting everything boosted up to a good volume for your final mix. The input volume is different from track volume- this is found by hitting Apple + I when the track is selected, the window will slide open from the right side. Make sure the monitor is "on" so that you can hear what your instrument will sound like. The track volume, found on the main screen next to the pan knob, is what you'll want to use to mix the track. If you're using a MIDI keyboard and/or using a software instrument (for example, typing out drums or using the virtual keyboard), you can control the input volume by also hitting Apple + I, under the "Generator" section press the button with a pencil on it. The volume for a software instrument will vary because Garageband's bank of sounds varies wildly. Now you have all your individual tracks nice and loud but they should still not completely distort when played together. If they are peaking on the master track (found below next to the time display), go ahead and gently bring the master volume down until it stops. You'll want to keep the master track nice and loud so your song's volume is as close as possible to professional recordings in your iTunes.

2. Tune Your Instruments. It's a simple tip, most people probably know it, but for those of you who aren't tuning your real instruments when tracking, shame on you. When you're on your "real instrument" track, hit Apple + F and the clock will turn into a chromatic tuner (the other options are a grid mode and time mode). You may get better results with electronic instruments by selecting the pickup closest to the neck (rhythm). Tune after each take to save the headache of rerecording down the line!

3. Drums, Drums, Drums! Sorry drummers, you're the weak link in every recording. It's just the nature of the instrument, nothing personal. Your microphones bleed, we have to align your playing to the click track, and you hog all the inputs. However, if you're recording on your own and want to use the software drums (not the loops, but the samples on the keyboard), you can make great sounding drums come to life. Forget the loops that come with Garageband, they're cool but you can do much better on your own. It's best if you have a MIDI keyboard for this, otherwise, you'll be using the "musical typing" keyboard (Apple + Shift + K). MIDI keyboards can be more sensitive to playing dynamics, so you can type out softer parts with less attack and then really wail by pressing the keys harder. Whichever way you decide to use, you'll want to open a new software track, pick your drum kit (my favorite is the Indie Live Kit), and play. If you're OCD like me you'll want to record to the metronome (you change speeds down below next to the track time), and I often like to separate the drums for easy mixing. That is, record the drums on one track and the cymbals on another. You can even go further and play each drum separately. This will give you ultimate flexibility in how each drum sounds. For most of my demos I just prefer to record two drum tracks, "Drums", and "Cymbals". Unless you are a machine your drum parts are probably a little off from the metronome sometimes, but there's a handy trick to fix that. Select the drum track, hit the scissor button at the bottom left hand corner, and the region view will expand from the bottom. Move your cursor to where you need to fix the timing, select it, and hit the "Align to X/X" button. You can change the aligning by moving the scrollbar next to it, from 1/4 to 1/64. Ultimately this changes the sensitivity by which it is moved. I like to start around 1/16. If it completely messes it up, move it to the next one down (1/32), and try again. You can do this with real instruments too, using the the "Enhance Timing" slider under the same section, thought it's not as reliable. You may have a few errors, just manually move them, but your drum parts should now be perfectly aligned to the metronome. Who says drummers can't play in time?!

4. Conserve Processor Power. Your Mac is cool, your mom thinks your Mac is cool, but no matter how much power it has you should try and conserve it if you're gonna put your pants on and make gold records. Garageband files get big fast, and they’ll start to move slower. In the Track Info frame (again, Apple + I), uncheck any plug-ins you don't need. If the reverb is on but you don't really need it, uncheck it. Go through your tracks and see which effects you really need- each of them takes a little piece of your processing pie, and at the end with a full song you might be running extremely slow. There are lots of good effects to choose from in there so make sure you spend some time messing around and finding which ones you like best. If you're happy with one of your tracks and your song is getting pretty long, it's worth your time to consolidate it. When a computer looks at a lot of little pieces in one track, it has to find them all and play one after another. If you select all under one track and hit Join (Apple + J), you'll have one solid track and your computer will thank you. You can break this track up by simply putting your cursor where you need the split and hitting Split (Apple + T). Try locking your tracks when you're happy with them (the little lock button is on the track itself). This renders the track to the hard drive and frees up the CPU power. You can still mess with volume and panning when locked, and if you need to edit again, simply unlock it. Also under Garageband preferences (Apple + ,), you can change the program to optimize for more tracks or minimum recording delay. Since recording delay bugs me to no end, I usually keep that selected, but you can play with this to tailor to your needs.

5. Record and Mix it like the Pros. Find some of your favorite recordings and see how each individual instrument is laid out. If it's a hip-hop recording, try double tracking the vocals and panning them wide, so one is all the way left and one all the way right. Rock recordings usually have a double tracked rhythm guitar, so try playing your parts twice on a second track and pan wide. Don't just hit "Duplicate Track", you need a different performance. The subtle differences are what will make your instrument sound that much bigger. Tighten up parts with compression- if your vocals go from whisper soft to super loud, add some compression so that the volume stays relatively close. Try tuning your vocals with the "Enhance Tuning" slider, in the same area as the aligning (Apple + E). The "Enhance Timing" slider is spotty on reliability so if you really need to use it, suck it up and rerecord. You can even try messing with the final EQ and compression of the master track (Apple + B). Once the master track is open and selected, hit Track Info (Apple + I) and you'll find the options available.

Andrew Capra does not wake up in the morning and make gold records (yet), but he can definitely make the best Garageband recording you've heard. For questions on recording software, hardware, or musical stuff, drop him a line at acapra@uci.edu.