How To Build A Template In Garage Band

Thanks to Apple's miraculously free DAW GarageBand, writing a song from your bedchamber has never been easier!

This GarageBand tutorial is all nearly how to make a song on GarageBand, and y'all're going to learn pretty much the easiest way to get started and rock.

Hither are the steps you will larn today:

Setting Up Sessions and Tracks
Using Apple tree Loops
How to Use Garage Ring'south Drummer
Laying Down Some Bass
Recording Vocals and Song Hooks
Arranging Your Vocal
Including, effects, levels, layers, and plenty more tips as you swoop in.

Ready?

So open up upwardly a new project and let'southward get into information technology.

1 – Setting Up Your Session

When yous first open GarageBand, yous have a few options.

Project Templates are a great manner to get started with a predetermined set of instruments. However, it can exist easy to fall into the trap of relying on them and creating songs that sound just like everyone else's.

setting up your session

To avoid this, use the Empty Project option. When yous select this, GarageBand will inquire y'all which type of track you'd like to create.

use the empty project option

In that location are four options to choose from. Don't worry, this doesn't modify how your project will operate, this is but selecting your beginning track. You can and volition add together many others, and near probable use a combination of all 4.

Software musical instrument – a virtual musical instrument in GarageBand like a guitar or piano
Audio (mic) – for recording mic'ed instruments such as vocals
Audio (guitar) – for recording guitar or bass straight into your figurer
Drummer track – a virtual drummer that literally writes beats for you lot

Allow's start with an audio track (the i with the image of a microphone).

2 – Using Apple Loops

Apple tree Loops are a freaking godsend. These little gems are pre-recorded and mixed loops that give you lot the ability to create some insane music merely past clicking and dragging them into your session.

They come free with GarageBand, and are fabricated up of pulsate loops, song chops, melodic phrases, risers, yous name it…

Striking O to open up the loop browser, or click the toggle button at the top right of your screen.

use apple loops

You tin can narrow down your search using the Instrument, Genre, and Descriptors tabs. To audience a loop, click on the title to play it.

audition a loop

In one case yous detect a loop you lot similar, merely drag it onto your timeline and position it appropriately. The tempo of your projection will alter automatically (unless you lot have other regions in the timeline), but the bully thing near Apple Loops is they adjust equally you raise or lower the tempo!

the tempo of your project adjusts automatically

iii – How To Use GarageBand's Drummer

Now that we've got a nice trivial loop going, it'due south time to get rhythmic past adding a drum vanquish. This is super easy in GarageBand, whether you lot accept feel programming beats or not.

Of course, you lot can fire upwardly a drum software instrument and tap in a trounce yourself, but we aren't going to go to all that trouble. Let'south fire up a Drummer track, and option a drummer and drum kit that suits our loop.

garage band drummer

Adjust the parameters as you like and until you find something you really like. These parameters are region specific, non rail specific. That means you lot can create a more than laid dorsum crush for the verse, build it up through the rise, and then hit domicile when the shell drops.

adjust the parameters as you like

iv – Laying Downwardly Some Bass

GarageBand has some seriously sick bass instruments. Non simply volition yous observe some sweet upright and electrical basses, in that location's also a suite of bass synths available. Modulated bass-lines here we come… wob wob…

Load up a new software instrument, and browse the library for something you feel you can use.

lay down some bass

If you have a MIDI controller connected, you can now use this to play in some bass-lines. Don't have i? Don't worry! GarageBand has a peachy little mode to use your calculator's keyboard to play software instruments.

Navigate up to Window at the acme of your screen, and select Show Keyboard.

Select show keyboard

Click the computer keyboard icon, and you're away!

At present yous can play your bass instrument from your keyboard, and add some low terminate to your song.

It tin accept a little bit to get used to this blazon of keyboard, and fifty-fifty after you've been using information technology for a while, you'll still play some bum notes here and there.

Hit East to bring up the Editor and edit your MIDI data. Yous tin make changes to timing, notation length, velocity, and pitch, whatever your song needs.

1990's Anime Theme Song

v – Adding A Vocal Hook

Though there's zippo wrong with using GarageBand to create an instrumental song, 1 matter that will add together a whole new level to your tracks is a sweet vocal claw.

If you are (or know of) a vocalizer, awesome! It's pretty simple to use GarageBand to record vocal lines.

How To Record Vocals

Simply plug in your USB mic or interface, and set up the recording preferences under GarageBand>Preferences.

set up your recording preferences

And so head to the Audio/MIDI tab and modify your Input and Output settings.

change your input and output settings

One time everything is all set up and working, you tin create a new audio track and hit tape! Y'all'll probably be stopping and starting a lot while recording, so here'southward a little tip: the key command to record is R.

Finding A Vocal Hook In Apple Loops

If, like many of united states of america, you're not blessed with the vocalisation of an angel, GarageBand has y'all covered there too.

Hit O to open the loop browser and check out some vocal lines. Just make sure they fit with the key of your vocal. Y'all should be able to tell pretty chop-chop in one case you lot add them as new tracks.

A cool lilliputian tip to spice upwards your tracks is to open upward the Editor and click Reverse Playback on a loop. You tin also chop up and edit your loops, and so it's an important matter to acquire how to cut in GarageBand.

open up the editor and click reverse playback on a loop

6 – Arranging Your Vocal

Now that you lot've got a few different instrument tracks loaded, and your project is kickoff to sound like a vocal, it's fourth dimension to make some system decisions. You don't want to get stuck in a rut of making 8 bar loops all the time!

Allow'south assume what you've written and so far is the chorus, hook, or drop. Well, now we desire to requite the song a bit of flow, some dynamics, and create a bit of a build-upward.

Make Your Song Build

Mayhap we'll starting time by introducing the melody, and then bring in a drum beat out afterward viii confined.

make your song build

To give the song a scrap of momentum, and to create some variation between the build and the drop, you might mess with the drummer settings to make a more than mellow drum crush.

mess with the drum settings

Bank check out the Apple tree Loops browser and see if you lot can make use of whatsoever of the FX and risers to add together a scrap of interest and impact to your song.

make use of any of the FX

Silence Is Gilded

Ane of the keys to dynamics is understanding when to use silence. A dandy niggling trick to add impact is to utilise a little space and silence in between sections.

use a little space and silence in between sections

Many of the loops and software instruments in GarageBand use furnishings to make them more interesting. A great way to tie things together and create a bit of space in your vocal is to use a reverb plugin.

using effects tracks in your song

Balancing Out Your Levels

Not every rails has to exist turned up to 10 in a song. In fact, you'll probably discover that you need to do some level adjusting to get everything but right.

Use the level controls on each rails to residue your mix and make sure each track is aural, just that none are coming through too loud.

balancing out the levels

Determination

Whether you're using a Mac, or the iOS app on iPad or iPhone, GarageBand is a super quick, easy piece of software to get your caput around. Information technology's no wonder that it is popular with beginners and meridian producers alike. Plus, it's probably one of the merely truly free DAWs left…

Whether you're producing hip-hop beats, or simply playing around with a few chords, GarageBand makes it easy. We'd love to encounter what you've created, why not mail your track below?