Featured Music Tutorials
Record any Instrument into Your Mac 3:58 
Arranging Your Song 1:17 
Creating a Podcast 2:25 
Using Software Instruments 2:43 
Multitake Recording 2:11 
Mixing Your Song 2:21 Feedback
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Browse all video tutorials
Turning Your Mac into a Recording Studio
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Record any Instrument into Your Mac
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Using Software Instruments
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Multitake Recording
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Kick Start Your Song with Magic GarageBand
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Create Songs with a Virtual Onstage Band
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Virtual Onstage Band
Don’t know how to play an instrument? Magic GarageBand offers a Virtual Onstage Band to do the playing for you.
Compose a Great Song
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Arranging Your Song
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Arranging Songs
With GarageBand, anybody can make a song, even if you’ve never played an instrument.
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Mixing Your Song
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Working with Key & Tempo
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Automating Effects
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Creating Your Own Loops
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Recording, Editing and Printing Music Notation
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Share Your Song
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Exporting Your Songs to iTunes
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Creating a Podcast
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Browse all text tutorials
Creating Music
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Setting Preferences for iTunes
Setting Preferences for iTunes
To prepare a song to export to iTunes, the first step is to set your song and playlist information in the Export pane of the GarageBand preferences.
- Choose GarageBand > Preferences to open the Preferences window.
- Click the My Info button to open the My Info Preferences pane. Name your iTunes Playlist, composer, and album.
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Setting Output Volume
Setting Output Volume for iTunes
To make your songs sound great, you’ll want to adjust the Output Volume correctly.
- Press the spacebar to begin playing your song. As the song plays, watch the Master Output Volume meters, located at the bottom of the viewing pane, for signs of clipping (red bars).
- If you see any clipping, stop playback.
- To lower output volume, drag the Master Output Volume slider to to the left.
- Play the song again from the beginning and check the new levels. Ideally, your levels should peak between the highest green and yellow portions of the meter.
- Choose Track > Fade Out. The master track appears and an Automation Curve is added to the track with a gentle fade. You can modify this curve as needed to control the fade out on your song.
- Save your project.
Recording a Podcast
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Adding Episode Info
Adding Episode Info
The last step needed to complete your podcast episode is to add the episode information, which includes the title, artist information, a description of the episode, and a parental advisory. The episode information is available when you work on the podcast in iWeb and when you view the podcast in iTunes.
- Select the Podcast Track in the Timeline.
- Show the Track Info pane, if it’s not already showing.
- Click the Description area and type in your podcast description. The description can be more in-depth if you’d like. You might include the names of the band members, list the songs included in the podcast, and provide other information.
- From the Parental Advisory menu, choose Clean.
- Customise the Artist name.
- Customise the Title field.
- Save your project.
Scoring an iMovie
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Preparing to Score an iMovie
Preparing to Score an iMovie
GarageBand makes it easy to add your own original audio score to your iMovie projects. You can add songs, Apple Loops, and voiceover audio tracks while watching your iMovie from within GarageBand.
- Open GarageBand and create a new Music Project.
- Save the project to your GarageBand projects. Use the default options for tempo, signature, and key.
- Click Create. The GarageBand project opens, but it needs to be customised to show the elements necessary to create a musical score.
- Choose Control > Show Loop Browser. You’ll use Apple Loops as the primary building block for your score. Apple Loops, prerecorded music files, can be used to add drum beats, rhythm elements, and other repeating patterns to a project.
- Open the iLife Media Browser, choose Control > Show Media Browser. The Media Browser contains buttons for audio, photos, and movies. It’s an easy way to find the media files you want to use.
- Choose Track > Show Movie Track to add the track that will let you see the movie you’re scoring.
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Importing a Video File into GarageBand
Importing a Video File into GarageBand
You can import any iMovie project or QuickTime-compatible video file from the Media Browser and add it to a track in your GarageBand project. This allows you to view the movie while your GarageBand project plays.
To import a video file using the Media Browser:
- In the Media Browser, click the Movies button.
- Select the movie you’d like to score.
- If available, double-click the movie file thumbnail image to preview the movie in the Media Browser.
- To stop the movie preview, press the spacebar.
- Drag the thumbnail image into the Movie Track in your GarageBand project. GarageBand generates thumbnails for the track to represent the video clips. It also adds a track called Movie Sound, and creates a new AIFF file that contains the soundtrack of the movie. The original movie file remains unchanged.
- Select the Movie Track to see its info in the Track Info pane. Then select the Movie Sound track to see its information.
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Using a Software Instrument Loop
Using a Software Instrument Loop
You can use Apple Loops to create an original song as a score for your movie. This process will take some experimentation to get right, but it allows you to set the exact tone and mood you want.
- With your GarageBand project open and Video Preview viewable, press Command-L to open the Loop Browser. When the Loop Browser opens, the Track Info pane automatically closes.
- To narrow the number of Apple Loops available, try typing “Guitars” into the search field.
- Click some of the items in the results list in the right column.
- Try selecting the loop “Acoustic Picking 06” and drag it to an empty area of the Timeline. Be sure to drag it all the way to the left so the loop starts at the beginning of the video. The loop is added to the Timeline and lasts for 8 seconds.
- To make the “Acoustic Picking 06” loop longer or shorter, movie your cursor over the upper-right of the loop region. Your cursor becomes a loop pointer, a curved arrow, and now you can drag the upper-left corner of the loop and extend or shorten it.
It may take time for you to find to find the Apple Loops you want to use in your movie and to determine the right length for those loops. Play around. Have fun. You’ll get the hang of it.
