Garageband Mixer For Mac
Not in the traditional sense. It is a mixer in itself in so far as you can adjust levels. EQ and fx/processors on every track. You get very basic and not very useful meters for tracks and master levels but you don’t get group buses or insert point. Mar 24, 2019 Garageband Studio is a handy creating music mixer app for playing in real time as well as for creating and playing loops. Create tracks 247 as a drum pads guru record hits and share them with your friends!
Recording
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Pros
- Streamlined, professional interface.
- Makes it easy to record and mix music.
- Enjoyable instrument lessons.
- Works with Logic Remote on the iPad for wireless control.
- Supports 24-bit recording and third-party plug-ins.
Cons
- Podcast features have disappeared.
- No PC version.
Bottom Line
GarageBand is more powerful than ever, and now gives novices and pros alike easy recording built into every Mac. It's still the best way to get started recording or to learn piano or guitar on a computer.
There's been a seismic shift in how records are made. A couple of decades ago, it took a mountain of gear to make an album. Now, you can do it with the built-in software that comes with every Apple computer, thanks to the free GarageBand. Unlike the cartoonish version that debuted in the early aughts, the new GarageBand features a surprisingly serious presentation that roughly mirrors the high-end Logic Pro X digital audio workstation, or DAW. Although GarageBand lacks Logic's amazing flexibility, vast array of instruments, and powerful mixing and mastering features, it's almost as powerful when it comes to handling other tasks. The fact that GarageBand is free makes the app all the better, and a clear Editors' Choice for entry-level recording software.
Setup and User Interface
For this review, I tested GarageBand 10.3.2 on a 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and macOS Mojave. To use this app, you must plug in a USB-compatible MIDI keyboard and either a pair of headphones or a small pair of desktop speakers. For plugging in an electric guitar or bass, or connecting microphones to record vocals and other acoustic instruments, you'll need an audio interface of some kind, such as the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (3rd Gen) or the PreSonus AudioBox USB 96.
GarageBand's basic interface layout mimics that of Logic Pro X and other proper multitrack software. I vastly prefer this to GarageBand's old design, which tried to imitate a four-track tabletop recorder. When you first create a project, you're tasked with selecting a template for the kind of music you want to record, as well as an empty project you can populate from scratch. Selecting one brings up the main interface. The top-right portion of the window is where you add and mix new tracks. You click any recorded data to bring up an editor in the bottom portion of the display. Here you can switch between piano roll and score views, an audio editor, and, where appropriate, an EQ tab that displays a beautiful, clean-sounding parametric equalizer for the given track.
The left side of the display shows your selected instrument. The top bar includes icons for triggering the various windows, a transport bar for recording and playback, an LED-style readout for the current beat, bar, tempo, meter, and other information, icons for loop recording, a guitar tuner, a count off, and a metronome. It's easy to resize the various windows and zoom levels using the on-screen sliders. To the far right, you can launch a Notes page, an audio loop browser, and a media drawer for recorded audio and movies you want to sync music to. Apple also added support for the Force Touch trackpad and Touch Bar that come built into the latest MacBook Pros.
Recording, Smart Controls, and Remote
Recording is as simple as arming a track and clicking the Record icon. You can record at 24 bits with a mic, if you have a USB-powered one or an audio interface with a mic preamp into which you can plug a microphone. You can record and mix up to 255 tracks, and only your audio interface limits how many you can record simultaneously. You can easily record multiple takes, and comp them. With version 10.3.2, you can drag and drop on-the-fly Voice Memo recordings of your latest idea right into GarageBand.
Basic editing is simple, but if you want to really dig into GarageBand, advanced features are available, too. Flex Time lets you massage the groove of a given audio track, while Groove Matching perfectly matches the timing, tempo, and feel of the other tracks to the one you have set up. These are surprisingly transparent sounding, as long as you use them within reason.
There's still no proper mixing board. Instead, you use the left side of the Arrangement window as a mixer, with horizontal sliders on each track. There's a reverb effect, and you can pan tracks from left to right in the stereo field; you can also apply compression to recorded audio tracks. GarageBand includes a basic mastering track to boost your levels and get a finished sound, though it's nothing like what you'd get in a professional-level digital audio workstation, such as Logic Pro X or Pro Tools. Still, it's a much-appreciated inclusion in a free recording app.
GarageBand works with the excellent Logic Remote app that's available free on iOS devices. You can use your iPad or iPhone to wirelessly play any GarageBand instrument on the Mac, adjust the Smart Controls for individual sounds, and otherwise edit and arrange your project. It also has built-in transport controls, so you can record with a guitar or vocals on one side of the room while you remotely start and stop the Mac on the other side using Logic Remote. This process used to require the use of a $1,000 hardware control surface and a professional digital audio workstation program; now it's free on your phone or tablet.
Taking another page from Logic Pro X, GarageBand boasts Smart Controls that highlight the most effective parameters to tweak for a given sound, and present knobs, buttons, and sliders for you to adjust, depending on the instrument. You can now record performances with Smart Controls, too, letting you shape and evolve sounds in real time that then get printed to the track as automation data.
Many Instruments
There's a solid sound library built in, and Apple has been continually adding to it over the past several years; you no longer need to pay $4.99 to get extra sounds. Out of the box, you get an array of sweet-sounding acoustic and electronic drums, electric and acoustic basses, and a small variety of synth pads, leads, and basses. There's a nice acoustic piano, electric piano, clavinet, and tonewheel organ, new Mellotron patches, and acoustic and clean electric guitars. The orchestral instruments contain several choir samples, a harp, and a pipe organ, in addition to the usual strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. A new Chinese instrument section includes the Erhu and Pipa, and for Japan, the Guzheng, Koto, and a set of Taiko drums.
Guitar and bass players can plug in and choose from a selection of 28 instrument-specific amps and cabinets with a choice of several microphones, plus 35 separate stomp boxes and a handy tuner. You also get Drummer, a virtual session player plug-in that accompanies your tracks with one of 28 players. Drop one on a track, and you'll get an automatic groove you can tune in real time to simplify or busy up the playing. GarageBand 10.3 adds two new players for roots and jazz-influenced brushwork. More than 3,000 Apple Loops help get you started in a variety of genres, and there's even a library of 400 sound effects for basic post-production work. (Note: You'll need to download most of the sounds separately by heading to GarageBand > Sound Library and selecting Download All Sounds; they're not included in the initial App Store download.)
Across the board, the patches sound good to excellent. I particularly like the Steinway piano and the acoustic stand-up bass. GarageBand supports third-party AU plug-ins, so you could buy or download free virtual instruments and add to your sonic repertoire—and those will of course carry over if you upgrade to Logic Pro X or another professional DAW. A quick check around the internet revealed people having trouble with existing third-party plug-ins, so check each manufacturer's website for updated compatibility with GarageBand.
Options, Options, Options
GarageBand comes with 40 free basic guitar and piano lessons you can download; to get started with these, click Learn to Play in the New Project window. Each lesson provides real-time feedback as you play to show you what you've done correctly or incorrectly. The Lesson Store is no longer; you now get more than 20 free downloadable artist lessons from famous artists such as Sara Bareiles, John Legend, Rush, and Sting, playing their signature hits and showing you how to do so. Apple used to charge $5 a pop for these, so this is an excellent freebie.
There are plenty of online sharing options for social networks, as well as the ability to export to MP3, SoundCloud, iTunes, or a custom ringtone file for your phone. You can also save projects to iCloud, or better yet, start a project on GarageBand on the iPad or iPhone, save it, and then open it in GarageBand on the desktop. You can now import projects from the iOS Music Memos app, as well.
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Stunningly Versatile
GarageBand is incredibly powerful for a free DAW. There are lower-cost DAWs on the PC side that come in at under $100, such as Cockos Reaper and Studio One Artist, but there's nothing free with this much power and this many included sounds. If you prefer a full mixing console, many more instruments and effects, pitch correction, proper mastering, and other pro editing features, Logic Pro X—also an Editors' Choice for Mac users—is an excellent buy at $199. All told, you can't beat GarageBand for getting started making music, immediately and affordably.
Apple GarageBand (for Mac)
Bottom Line: GarageBand offers easy music recording for novices and pros alike, and it comes free with every Mac. The app is still the best way to learn piano or guitar on a computer and easily earns our Editors' Choice nod.
Once upon a time there was a German company called Emagic that created a program called Logic, later to become Logic Audio, still later to become Logic Pro. It worked on both Macs and PCs. It had the reputation of being amazing but with a steep learning curve.
In 2002, Apple bought it and Steve Jobs tasked Dr. Gerhard Lengeling and his Logic development from Emagic with making it more user friendly and also with creating an entry level version, with the result being GarageBand, announced in in 2004. (PC development was unsurprisingly discontinued.) In those days, the two programs did not look much alike or necessarily behave all that similarly, but over time they have become far more obviously related.
Here is a new GarageBand project with one software instrument.
Here is a new Logic Pro X project with one software instrument when the Advanced Tools are unchecked.
A picture speaks a thousand words, no? With the Advanced Tools turned off, Logic essentially is GarageBand. So if you are a GarageBand user (and most new Logic Pro X users do begin with GarageBand) why bother transitioning to Logic Pro X? There are a lot of reasons. Here are ten of the most compelling.
The Mixer
In a GarageBand project like this I see volume sliders on each track and pan knobs but if you want a full fledged mixer, sorry, you do not have one.
In Logic Pro X you do, available as part of the Main Window, toggled on/off with the key command X, or as a standalone window.
Which means when you are mixing on the fly and making adjustments in real time, it is far easier. It is also enables you to add the same plug-in to multiple channel strips and easily copy plug-ins from one channel strip to another. While GarageBand users obviously manage to mix music without a full featured mixer window, I can’t imagine mixing a project without one.
The Inspector
Logic Pro has an Inspector that you can easily toggle on/off with the key command I, for each track which allows you to control things that affect regions, channel strips, plug-ins, and what comes next in the signal flow (in this picture the stereo output) or sends if they are instantiated as well as add, remove and alter plug-ins far more easily than GarageBand.
Auxes and Sends For FX Like Reverb
These simply do not exist in GarageBand as they do in Logic Pro X, so if you want to e.g. send a bunch of tracks to the same reverb, it is not doable in a console workflow emulation.
Optimising performance garageband ipad. Feb 22, 2016 Question: Q: iOs GarageBand 'Optimizing Performance' operation degrades recorded signals. Hi, I have GarageBand on both my iPad Air and iPhone 6 (iOs 9.2.1, GarageBand 2.1). I have experienced this problem on both platforms. I really love GarageBand. I love it to a point that I have put many hours recording guitar and bass on relatively small. Jam with other users in GarageBand for iPad. You can make music with other GarageBand users sharing a Wi-Fi connection. The Bandleader creates a Jam Session, then up to three Band Members can join the Jam Session. Playback and recording are synchronised between all devices, so everyone can play and record together as a band. I have GarageBand on both my iPad Air and iPhone 6 (iOS 9.2.1, GarageBand 2.1). I have experienced this problem on both platforms. I have put many hours recording guitar and bass on relatively small projects (max 10 tracks, about 1 minute). I experienced the 'Optimizing Performance' message some times, that lasts for about 5-10 seconds.
Event List For MIDI Editing
Whether alone or in tandem with the Piano Roll or Score Editor, the Event List shows you details down to the tick level, which is invaluable. It is personally my most relied-on MIDI editor.
Customizable Key Command Shortcuts
The key to efficient workflow in either GarageBand or Logic Pro is using key commands for shortcuts. In Logic Pro, almost everything can be done with a key command and with the exception of a few that are “hard wired”, you can create your own. GarageBand also has a great number of them but you are stuck with the ones they give you.
Track Stacks
Logic gives you two kinds of Track Stacks: Summing Stacks for creating layered and split patches that you can save in the Library and Folder Stacks for simple track organization. Both incredibly useful, both do not exist in GarageBand.
Take Folders With Swipe Comping For Audio
Go into cycle mode and keep singing or playing your part and you can see all your passes in a Take Folder. You can then simply drag over the sections of each take you like for a comp that you can leave as is, flatten, which lays out the regions for editing, adding further fades, or flatten and merge to create a new audio file. A great way to record audio that again, simply is not available in GarageBand.
The Arpeggiator MIDI Plug-in
You can easily open fantastic arpeggiated parts ranging form the most simple or complex or create your own with all kinds of sounds. Great, great tool, only in Logic Pro.
Drum Kit Designer
While both Logic Pro and GarageBand have the Drummer instrument to help you create great drum parts quickly without requiring much knowledge about what the real guys play, Drum Kit Designer allows you choose between a ton of individual kit pieces to create your own drum kits.
Markers
Quite simply this is the best way to navigate through a project. While both Logic Pro and GarageBand have Arrangement Markers for use with Drummer, only Logic has Markers for navigation that you can name, color, and use key commands to go from one to another or to a specific marker.
Garageband For Mac Tutorial
These are only ten examples and there are many, many more. That said, please do not think that I am dumping on GarageBand. It is a remarkable program and I have heard terrific music created with it, and it is free. And given the similarities, It is not a coincidence that most new Logic Pro X users come from GarageBand. But it is the difference between a basic tool that is suitable for hobbyists who do not have deadlines to meet, and a full featured program that busy professionals with deadlines and hobbyists who want to up their game can enjoy creating music with. The learning curve from GarageBand is no longer nearly as steep and at $199, Logic Pro X is an incredible bargain. And you can start projects in GarageBand on the Mac or IOS devices and then work on them in Logic Pro X.
If you are a GarageBand user who is serious about creating music, this is a transition worth making.