- Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tuner
- Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tabs
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- Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Backing Tracks
- Bass Guitar Garageband Mac
- Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tab
Using a compressor on a bass guitar in Garageband is quite simple. Assuming that you’re new to mixing instruments in a DAW, I’m going to run through a simple process for getting it done within seconds, and then we’ll explore a more sophisticated method after that will best serve your needs in the future after you’re ready to move on from pre-sets. Intro to Bass Amp Designer in GarageBand on Mac Bass Amp Designer emulates the sound of famous bass guitar amplifiers and the speaker cabinets used with them. Each model combines an amp and cabinet that re-create a well-known bass guitar amplifier sound. Amp models include integrated compression and EQ to customize the tone.
Cutting and editing music in Garageband is as simple as using the (Command + T) option on your keyboard.
For instance, you line up the “Ruler,” to the point you want to isolate, and then use the (Command + T) function. You can do this in two separate areas of your workspace, in the “Piano Roll Grid,” or in the regular workspace.
One can also edit the music using the Marquee line within the “Piano Roll Grid.” For example, when you zoom in on the audio file, you can highlight the part of it you want to eliminate down to the tiniest detail.
You simply highlight it by hovering the ‘+’ sign over the Audio Region, clicking and dragging over the part you want to delete and then hit the “delete” button your keyboard. This comes in handy for audio rather than MIDI recordings.
However, you have to make sure that you’re isolating just one track, whether it be a sample, an audio recording, or a software instrument track, etc. You can’t cut and edit more than one piece of music at once. It has to be just one.
How To Undo the Previous Command (Command + Z)
In case you make a mistake, you can always hit the (Command + Z) function to go back to where you were before.
One of the great things about Garageband is that all of the commands used for day-to-day use on the computer are transferable to the software. It’s all fairly intuitive.
Many of the commands that you’ve grown accustomed to as a Mac user are all the same functions for Garageband.
How To Zoom In And Out (Command + Left and Right Arrow Key)
You can zoom in and out on your MIDI region to see the audio file in more detail by separating your fingers or moving them closer together.
This is especially useful for when you’re trying to edit minute details, that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to see and thus, isolate.
You can also zoom in and out through the (Command – Left or Right arrow key).
Merging Tracks Together (Command + J)
Another incredibly useful editing tool in Garageband is the (Command + J) function, which allows the user to essentially combine or merge the tracks together.
This stops the user from having to copy and paste every little individual track. Instead, one can just merge all of the music together as one track, and then put it on a loop.
To do this, just select the two or more regions you want to combine and hit the (Command + J) function and it will all come together.
It’s a great way of saving time and energy during the editing process.
Using The Cycle Area For Editing
The cycle area on top of the workspace in Garageband is used for repeating the same bar of a recording over and over again. There are a few purposes for this, including practicing a part just before recording, multiple takes, and editing.
For instance, a user can loop the same part repeatedly to judge whether the proper changes have been made during editing.
In other words, if you’ve recorded vocals, and forgot the lyrics during one part and said “um,” or something like that, you can loop the same part over and over again, and figure out what needs to be eliminated down to the last millisecond, without having to press “Play” repeatedly.
You know that Cycle Mode is on when it’s displayed as a yellow trip in the top portion of the ruler. When it’s turned off, it’s no longer yellow.
There are two ways of turning it on and off:
You can press the Cycle button within the control bar, or simply press ‘C’ on your keyboard.
Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tuner
Changing at what point Cycle Mode starts and stops:
Select the top part of the ruler, then drag your cursor to the desired starting and stopping part of the recording.
How to Edit Using The Re-Size Pointer (Trimming)
Another way of editing the music is through the “Resize Pointer,” which is at the end of every piece of the “event,” as Garageband’s “Quick Help” section calls it.
Take the cursor and grab your recording, moving it from side to side, left to right. Using the “Snap To Grid” setting/function allows for the music to literally “snap” back to the line, and thus, stays more in time.
Snap to Grid Function (Command + G)
It’s a lot easier to edit music in Garageband when you have this option selected within the “Edit” menu on the toolbar on top. You can turn this function on and off, by hitting the (Command + G) function.
Essentially, as I mentioned above, what this does is it literally “snaps” the music right back to the lines on the grid, that way whenever you edit a piece of music, it falls back exactly on the beat.
If you want, you can turn this function off and see how difficult it is to edit music in Garageband. It becomes super annoying, however, there are moments where it’s worth your while to turn it off.
How To Copy and Paste in Garageband (Command + C and Command + V)
Once you’ve isolated the part you want, hit the (Command + C) function to copy it, and then the (Command + V) function to paste as many copies of it that you want.
Usually, after I’ve created a melody with the Steinway Grand Piano, I’ll open up a new “Software Instrument” track, and then copy and paste the music into a different instrument track.
This function allows you to fill out your mix, without coming up with an entirely different musical section. In many cases, you can create an entirely different piece of music, just by copy/pasting it onto a new Instrument track.
Another Way Of Copying And Pasting an Instrument Track
1) Select the Audio file you want to copy.
2) Hold down the “Option” key.
3) Drag the cursor to the left or right
4) While holding down the “Option” key, release the mouse and voila, you’ve just copied and pasted a new MIDI region.
Important Things To Note When Chopping Music
Whenever you want to isolate an audio recording, it’s worth noting that it may be helpful to understand at what beats-per-minute the song is, that way you can trim music at a specific beat.
This is especially important whencreating music with samples (link here)
For instance, in a track that I made using the theme song written by Bear McCreary for The Walking Dead, I had to figure out the BPM of the track, that way I could make a different drum track for it.
If you don’t have the proper BPM set up, it’ll be almost impossible to make drums for the song, because nothing will line up, and will sound unsynchronized.
Then, when you try and add other melodies through software instruments and so on, synchronization will be almost impossible. So knowing the Beats Per Minute is essential.
The best way of doing this is just counting along to the song by hitting the table with your hand or bobbing your head along to the beat.
Then, grab a metronome – or use one online, on your phone, or in your DAW – and match the tempo of the song with how fast you were slapping the table.
I’d recommend using a real metronome because they’re better to use, you can read about the one I recommend here.
There are other ways of figuring out the BPM of a song, of course, but this is how I do it.
(Every person knows how to count the BPM intuitively because whenever you’re jamming along to a song by bobbing your head, you move along to the beat. I’ll write a more in-depth article on this topic later).
Moreover, you can check whether you’ve calculated it properly or not through the way the MIDI Region lines up in your DAW.
*There are other options available online, including songbpm.com, and beatsperminuteonline.com. The latter is superior for calculating the beats-per-minute because it’s manual and can be used for the most obscure of music. However, the former is more for commercially available songs.
Using the Score Editor to Fix Your Music (For People Who Can Read Music)
I imagine this topic will be too much for the average DAW user, because frankly, most music producers, especially nowadays, don’t know how to read music. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just the way it is.
1) You can access the Score Editor simply by double-clicking on your music or “Midi Region.”
Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tabs
2) And then go down into the Smart Controls, and click on the button that says “Score.”
In this section, you can edit the music through standard notation. I actually use this every once in a while, because I learned how to read music when I was a kid (although, I’m not nearly as good as I was as a kid).
I usually use it for creating bass lines. Sometimes, it’s harder to hear if your bass line is off-key, so you can either push it up a few octaves so you can hear it or, you can look at the standard notation to figure out if the music is off-key or not.
Naming Your Tracks
If you want to name your track, use the “Secondary Click” function (“right-click,” and that’ll bring up your options where you can see where it says, “Rename Track.”
You can do the very same thing to the actual MIDI Region.
This seems like an obvious one because it is. If you’re going to be making music in a DAW, naming each track region will save you a ton of time, running through each one, trying to figure out which one is the kick and which one is the snare.
Reordering Tracks Through Drag and Drop
By clicking on and dragging the “Track Headers,” Garageband users can actually easily move each software instrument track to and from wherever they want.
For instance, grouping the guitars together, or the kick and bassline. You don’t have to manually move the MIDI Region either; it will move with the Track Header.
Time Quantizing
Rather than dragging and dropping each note so it falls exactly on the grid-lines in the Piano Roll, which is normally what I would do, you can use the Time Quantize function down in the DAW’s Smart Controls.
For instance, if you’ve recorded music with a MIDI Keyboard, and some of the notes are offbeat, using the Time Quantizing function will bring each note to where it needs to be, rather than doing it all manually.
1) First things first, in the Software Instrument track, choose the option “Region,” rather than “Notes,” in the Smart Controls.
2) In your Smart Controls, underneath the setting, “Time Quantize,” select 1/8 Note, and keep your Quantizing strength at around ’75 to 100.’ This should suck in all of the notes accordingly.
Obviously, there are more Timing settings one can use, but this is as far as I’ve ever used the quantizing function.
Some people argue against the use of Time Quantizing, accusing the practice of robbing the music of its “soul.” The argument goes that there are idiosyncrasies and personality traits eliminated from the music through the quantization practice.
For instance, when playing a guitar riff, if something is slightly off-key or not in proper time, the inaccuracy and “incorrectness” of the note may precisely be, the exact thing that gives it its unique flavor.
The Blues Scale, probably one of the most used scales in guitar playing, is the epitome of this. The Blues Scale isn’t classically “correct,” due to its flattened fifth in relation to the minor pentatonic scale, or flattened third in relation to the major pentatonic.
How to Select and De-Select Options Way Faster
This is another one that I just came across. Rather than manually selecting, say, for example, the “Mute” button on a bunch of tracks, and having to go through each one individually, there is a way of hitting all of them at once.
For instance, if I want to hit the “Mute” button on 10 of my 20 Software Instrument tracks, I’ll hover my cursor over the “Mute” button, and then click the track-pad and hold it while I drag the cursor down the screen. This will hit every “Mute” button on the way down.
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It’s the same practice for turning them off.
Conclusion
That’s all for now. I hope this helped you out. Be a trooper and share it on social media.
That riff you just wrote sounds awesome! Oh, man, those melodies! So tasteful. But, honestly, how is the world going to know how talented you are if you don’t have the ability to show as many people as possible?
Luckily for all of us, there’s a super easy way to show off your skills by recording in GarageBand.
GarageBand is a beginner recording software that comes with every MacBook and Mac Desktop computer and is user friendly enough for even your grandmother to become your studio engineer if you so desire.
Look at the bottom of your screen for the application sporting a Sunburst Gibson ES345, that’s GarageBand. When you open it up, it will ask you what you want to record. If you would like to start with one of the many guitar amp simulators that Apple has included, click on Amp Collection! It will open a number of tracks with different tones for you to play around with.
Before you get to jam, you’ll need a couple things: do you have an interface? An interface is something that plugs into your computer via USB and allows you to plug in your guitar with a standard quarter-inch jack. Just like anything else, interfaces vary in quality depending on how much cash you’re willing to part with.
The Apollo by Universal Audio can run you up between $800 and $2000 depending on specs, but The Scarlett Solo by Focusrite will do everything you ask of it for $110.
If this is your first time using GarageBand, you need to make sure the program knows what you want to record through. In your top left corner of the Menu Bar, click GarageBand, click Preferences, and then click the Audio/Midi button. This lets you choose your input/output. For input, select the interface you’re using so the sound doesn’t go in through the built-in microphone. Then, for output, choose which speakers you want your sound to come from.
Once you’re plugged in, GarageBand gives you multiple preset amp simulators that are optimized for the genre you play or the tone you’re going for. If none of the tracks open are giving you your ideal tone, click on the filing cabinet icon to open the tone library and experiment with all of the 65+ amps GarageBand has to offer. Each amp gives you the ability to mess with the volume, gain, drive, presence, and any effects that are built in. Hover your cursor over the knob you want to manipulate, and “scroll” up or down to dial it in to your liking.
Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Backing Tracks
If you don’t want to go direct into the interface, you can also use a microphone to pick up the tone from your own amp. I understand; you’ve spent thousands of dollars on an amp and pedals to get that perfect tone, and maybe you’d like to use that tone for your project on GarageBand. No problem at all! A great mic to use for your amp is the Shure SM57. It’s a directional mic that is used by both beginners and pros. Locate the speaker on your amp (if there are two speakers, just choose one) and direct your mic near the middle of the speaker.
To record through a microphone, click the + in the top left corner of your track list to create a new track. Even though you’re recording guitar, click the microphone icon to open an empty audio track, and check the box that says, “I want to hear my instrument as I play and record”.
This turns the “monitor” on. By doing this, you can move the mic around in front of your speaker to find a sound you prefer, and you can test the sound by listening to the difference in mic position through a pair of headphones in your project. Some artists prefer to have the mic really close for a tight sound—if you’re a metal player, you’ll utilize this method for chugging or djenting. An example of the mic sounding like it’s very distant from the amp is in John Mayer’s solo for his song Something Like Olivia. It creates the sound of a genuine room reverb and can add a more human aspect to your playing. Find what works for you and get creative!
When recording with a mic, be sure to turn your amp volume down low enough where the signal (the sound going into the project) doesn’t clip. Clipping is the term for when your instrument is too loud and the bar on your track goes from green to yellow to orange/red. If your instrument makes the bar turn red, back off the volume on either your amp or the track. Don’t get carried away!
Bass Guitar Garageband Mac
This photo shows where you can enter the tempo and the key you’re playing in. This step is optional, and can often just take up time if you only plan to get the basics of an idea down. If you really want to commit to this project, you can enter this information to make your project easier to work within. If you don’t know the tempo, there are websites where you can “tap out” your tempo. Tap the spacebar in the groove of your idea and the website will identify your tempo for you. To the right, you can turn the “count-in” feature on or off, which gives you a one bar count-in so you can get in the groove. You can also click the metronome icon to turn your click on or off.
Garageband Mac Bass Guitar Tab
Now that you’re ready to record, you can either click the Record button at the top of the page or hit the “r” key. To stop recording, you can hit the spacebar. GarageBand allows you to create as many new tracks as your computer can handle, and once you hit a certain point your computer will become frustrated with you and try to give up. Don’t overload your CPU, and don’t forget to save everything.
Although GarageBand is user friendly, there’s still a lot to know! The possibilities are virtually endless for a beginner, but once you know the basics, it becomes easier and easier to learn as you go. GarageBand has the reputation of being too basic, meaning that professionals don’t respect the program for what it is. Well, of course it’s basic, but nowhere in the rules does it say that music production has to be difficult for it to be high quality! Ultimately, the artist determines the quality of the music, not the program.
Now that you can navigate through GarageBand, go make some quality music!
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