Notes on Making an Audio Recording with GarageBand v.2.0.2

See podcasting resource page
Stephanie Failes, Rockingham County Public Schools

Launch GarageBand

Start a New Project, name your project, and save into a folder on your computer.

You can highlight and delete the Piano track (Track > Delete Track)

Voice

For the audio track, create a new track (Track > New Track) and select the appropriate type of track (Real Instrument - Vocal - Male or Female Basic)

Click the Record button and speak your text. Press the record button again to stop recording. (You can highlight and delete segments that you do not like. Multiple spoken segments can reside in the same track. By splitting up your clips, you can control their placement when trying to coordinate voice with music.)

Troubleshooting tips:

• If you hear a metronome when recording, turn this off by using Control > Metronome.
• If the quality of the audio recording is not good through the built-in mic, use an external USB mic instead. It will automatically detect the mic when plugged in. You MAY need to change your Audio Out preference (GarageBand > Preferences then Audio/Midi) to Built-In Output after plugging in the external mic. You'll know it needs to be done if you try to play back your recorded voice track and hear nothing!

Play back your recording by rewinding the playhead and pressing the play button.

At this point, your project may look something like this:

Music

For the music track, you can use some of the built-in instruments and rhythms. Don't worry if you don't know anything about music. I don't either but managed to throw something together that would suffice! Later on in this page, I'll provide you with some ways to locate and obtain some free music that others have created.

Click the "Eye" icon to see all the instruments (called the Loop Browser) It's here you'll find all the pre-recorded rhythms and beats and sounds that you can use underneath your voice track.

The idea here is to click an instrument name then you'll see a list of all the loops created with that instrument. Click items in the list to preview them. If you hear something you like, drag and drop it from the list to a grey area under your voice and a new track will be created.

Tips:

• Note that many loops offer short, medium, and long versions.
• Click the Reset button to see all the choices of instruments.
• Experiment with different combinations. You may stumble upon a good combination! It's OK to drag more than one loop up there.

Volume may need adjustment. For instance, you may need to raise the volume of your voice and lower the volume of the loops.

See the circled button in the "Jingles" track (above). Click it to show the volume track. You can lower the volume of the entire track by grabbing the blue control button at the left end of the track. See circled area below.

Or, alternatively, you can lower just PORTIONS of the track. Click on the volume "line" to create a point that can be dragged to raise or lower volume. Here, volume is raised during the non-speaking times. Try both methods and see which you like best!

Other Music Sources

If you can't find any type of music from within GarageBand, you can check out the collection of Royalty Free Music RCPS owns. See this site for information concerning this music.

You can drag and drop your music file into your Garageband project.

Exporting to iTunes

Now, back in GarageBand ...

With voice and music complete, you're set to do something with this project!

If you want to burn it to a CD (perhaps along with others), then select File > Export to iTunes and voila! Make a New Playlist and drag your creation(s) to this playlist then you can burn that playlist to a CD. Or, they can be transferred to your iPod from your iTunes Library.