Getting Started With Garageband for IOS

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WELCOME TO GETTING STARTED WITH GARAGEBAND FOR IOS!

Way back in March 2011, Apple announced they would be releasing a version of their popular recording program Garageband for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch operating system, iOS.

While seen by many at first as little more than a fun distraction, Garageband on iOS has become an incredibly full featured and robust app, with a massive (and still growing) community of music makers and content creators.

I personally first got to grips with the app in early 2012 on my (then) shiny new iPhone 4s.

To say I was blown away would be an understatement - here, in my pocket and accessible wherever I went was my own fully featured recording studio.

Fast forward three years and there are thousands of people who use Garageband iOS every day to write, compose and record everything from electronic dance music to doom fueled metal and everything in-between.

In this guide well look at Garageband iOSs core features, try out some Smart Instruments, discover how to record audio into a project and take a crash course in Editing.

Lets do it!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

GETTING STARTED 4 CREATING A TRACK 5 SONG PARAMETERS 9 READY TO RECORD? 10 SMART INSTRUMENTS 14 CHORD VIEW 15 NOTE VIEW 17 SMART DRUMS 20 LOOPS 23 EDITING CRASH COURSE 26 REGION TYPES 26 SHARING YOUR SONGS 30 AND FINALLY 32 3 garagebandios.com

GETTING STARTED

If this is your first time using Garageband, when you open the app youll be taken directly to the Instrument selection menu.

If you already have a work in progress, Garageband will open the last song you were working on automatically.

Ill assume this is your first time for the purposes of this guide.

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CREATING A TRACK

Swiping left or right through the different options, youll discover several Touch Instruments as well as some Smart versions of them.

Youll also find the Audio Recorder, Guitar Amp, the Sampler and - if you have purchased other compatible apps from the app store - the Inter App Audio Apps function.

Start by tapping on the Keyboard touch instrument.

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Lets get aquatinted with the Instrument screen layout:

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1. Play Area - Heres where you will play melodies and chords using the touch instruments interface.

2. Control Area - Heres where you will be able to change the sounds and character of your instrument using a set of instrument specific controls.

3. The Ruler - The ruler shows musical time in beats and bars. The playhead moves along the ruler to give you a visual cue as to where in the song you are.

4. My Songs - Tapping on My Songs will open the My Songs browser.

5. Instruments - Tapping here will open the instrument selection menu.

6. Instrument view/Track view -You can toggle between the instrument view and track view using these icons.

7. Playback controls - Use the controls to skip back to the start of your song, play your song or record your currently selected instrument.

8. Volume slider - Use this to increase/decrease the volume of your entire song.

9. Metronome - Tap to toggle the metronome sound on or off when recording.

10. Mixer Controls - Opens controls that affect your currently selected tracks volume, panning position , etc., You can add quantization and other effects here too.

11. Song Settings - Lets you look at settings like tempo, key and time signature controls.

12. Info button - Opens Smart Guide overlays for your currently selected Touch instrument or track view.

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The only difference between the controls present in instrument view and tracks view is the inclusion of the Loops icon - it will appear between the metronome and mixer controls. (More on loops later!)

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SONG PARAMETERS

You can change all manner of settings for your Garageband song by tapping on the wrench icon.

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READY TO RECORD?

Its as easy as hitting the record button! Everything you play will be recorded into your track as a purple (or audio) region.

When using the Audio Recorder, Sampler or Guitar Amp, you can tap the small jack icon to open up input settings - essential if you are using an external audio interface like the iRig HD, or Focusrite Solo!

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By default, Garageband sets the length of your song to 8 bars, meaning that if you record up to and over this point, the playhead will jump back to the beginning of the 8 bars and continue to record.

You can change the length of your song by tapping on the plus icon at the right hand edge of the ruler.

The Song Sections menu will be displayed. As this is a new project, only Section A will be shown. You can add more sections here if needed (doing this allows you to add sections to, verse, chorus and bridge segments).


Tapping section A will take you to this menu, where you can either set your song to Automatic, which will allow you to record indefinitely or set your own number of bars for section A.

Its up to you which you prefer, though personally Im a fan of setting this to automatic most of the time.


However you choose to set the length of your section or song, once youve recorded your audio you will be able to add a number of optional effects to what youve just recorded.

Experimenting with these effects is a great way to give your newly recorded sounds a unique twist!


SMART INSTRUMENTS

But what if youre not a piano virtuoso, talented vocalist or guitar hero?

Garageband allows musicians of all technical ability to produce great sounding melodies and songs using Smart Instruments.

Once again, recording your Smart Instrument performance is as easy as hitting the record button, so once youve got to grips with how to use them, tap that red circle button in the playback controls to start your recording!

Several of the available Smart Instruments have very similar interfaces and work in the same way.

For this guide, well get acquainted with the interface for Smart Guitar. The layout and functions are very similar to other Smart Instruments, though well look at Smart Drums separately.


CHORD VIEW

1. Swipe you finger across the strings to play a chord, or tap them individually. Tapping the top area of these strings will play the chord in full.

2. Tapping here will allow you to select from different types of the Smart Instrument you have selected. For instance, with the Smart Guitar, you can change the default Acoustic guitar sound to Heavy Rock , Classic Clean or Roots Rock variants.


3. Turning the Auto Play dial allows you to tap on chords and have Garageband play one of 4 pre set patterns automatically.

4. Tapping this switch toggles between the chord view and the notes view.


NOTE VIEW

1. Tap on individual notes to play them. You can even perform string bends on Smart Guitar and Smart Bass. Tapping above the nut (above the first fret) will result in the open string being played. You can also make a palm mute sound by holding your finger on the string up here while tapping the notes on the fretboard with your other finger. Doing this in Smart Strings results in a pluck sound instead of the string being played with the bow.


2. Tapping here allows you to play notes of a particular scale. Once youve opened this menu, simply tap on the scale youd like to play. The fretboard will change to show note bars instead of the usual frets.


Heres how the note view looks after selecting a major scale from the scale menu.


SMART DRUMS

Whether youre looking to lay down a simple beat to play along with, or want to create the driving backbone of your track, Smart Drums makes it incredibly easy to do - no drum sticks required!

Lets check it out!


1. Tapping here lets you select the type of drum kit that Smart Drums will draw its sounds from.

2. Starts or stops Smart Drums from playing.

3. Resets Smart Drums back to its default setting.

4. Tapping the dice icon creates a random mix of drum sounds and parameters.

5. Dragging a drum sound into any of the squares in this 8x8 Smart Drum pad will cause the drum youve chosen to play one of 64 possible rhythm variants.

6. You have a choice of 6 drum sounds to choose from, mixing different variations of these together in the grid can give practically unique drum sounds every time.


LOOPS

Garageband has a ton of pre-loaded sounds and samples that you can use in your projects.

Using loops is a great way to build up your song quickly and because theres such a big selection of sounds to choose from youre almost guaranteed to find a loop that fits the sound of your project.

Tapping the loop icon while in tracks view will open the loop browser.

Lets have a look:


1. At the top of the loop browser, you can choose to import audio from your selection of Apple Loops, third party loops you may have added and even music files from your iTunes library.

2. You can select which instrument youd like your loop to be.

3. You can select a genre.

4. You can choose in depth descriptors to narrow down your loop search.

5. Here is where youll find a list of loops that match the keyword search terms you entered.


Once youve chosen a loop, tap and hold on its icon and drag it into the desired position in the timeline.

Its as simple as that!


EDITING CRASH COURSE

Chances are youre going to want to make some specific changes to your Garageband song at some point.

Whether its cutting out a piece of an audio region, copying another or perhaps fixing a timing issue, heres a rough and ready walk through to get you started.

Theres a couple of important points to keep in mind before you dive in and start editing your Garageband project.

REGION TYPES

There are 3 different region types in Garageband iOS:

PURPLE REGIONS - Show recorded sounds from Guitar amp, Audio recorded ,etc.

GREEN REGIONS - Represent touch/smart instrument recordings

BLUE REGIONS - Are Apple loops.


When youre ready to begin, select the region you want to edit by tapping it.

To select multiple regions, hold your finger an any single region, then (while still holding) tap other regions to highlight them at the same time.

To have the edit menu appear, you need to tap again immediately after your first, highlighting tap.


CUT - Removes the highlighted region from its current position, allowing you to paste it in another position.

COPY - Copies the selected region to your clipboard, ready to be pasted, but will not remove it from the timeline.

PASTE - Allows you to paste a region you have previously copied.

LOOP - Allows you to stretch the region to whatever length you require, looping the sound where necessary to fit.

SPLIT - Splits your selected region at the point the playhead is at currently.You can do this by tapping and holding on the SPLIT (scissors) icon that appears and swiping down.

EDIT - Opens the note editor (NOTE: not available in purple recorded audio regions).


In this advanced Editing window, you have full control over the positioning and velocity of every note in the region.

Its a fantastic tool to really fine tune your songs sounds! (Note: tap done to return to track view)

RENAME - Allows you to rename the region you have selected.


SHARING YOUR SONGS

Garageband for iOS makes it incredibly easy to share your latest musical masterpiece to a variety of social media and streaming sites.

On the My Songs screen, hold your finger on the icon of the song you wish to share for a few seconds youll see it will become highlighted and the small menu will appear in the top left of the screen. Tap on the share icon.


From here its just a case of choosing where you would like to share your song. Depending on what you choose, youll be asked if you want to change how your track will be compressed and even if you want to change its title.


AND FINALLY That about wraps up this guide to getting started with Garageband iOS.

I really hope youve enjoyed reading this ebook as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Thank You! I cant thank you enough for supporting GaragebandiOS.com - you really are amazing!

If you have a spare minute id love to get your opinion on it.

Drop me a line at:

[email protected]

Thanks again and all the best!

Patrick 32 garagebandios.com

The information contained in this guide is for informational purposes only.No part of this publication shall be reproduced, transmitted, or sold in whole or in part

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reading this guide, you agree that myself and my company is not responsible for anysuccesses or failures regarding any business or professional decisions relating to

any information presented in this guide.

Patrick Baird 2015. All Rights Reserved.


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Getting Started With Garageband for IOS