hey it's Patrick here from the GarageBand guide.com in this video I'm
going to take you through some different ways you can connect your guitar to your
guitar into GarageBand is to position your Mac's built-in microphone in front
of an amplifier hit record and start rocking out the results however will be
less than stellar and pretty much useless for all but the roughest of the
rough demos you absolutely can an external microphone in front of your amp
hit records and get much much better results but in this video I'm going to
focus on some different gear that allows you to plug your guitar directly into
your Mac
the cheapest way that I could find to di or directly empu your guitar to a Mac is
via one of these quarter inch jack two USB cables I got this one for around six
quid on Amazon but you can find better quality examples of them from other
brands and sellers it's dead easy use just plug one end into your guitar the
other end into your Mac and pervaded you already have an open garage band will
automatically recognize it as an input unless you you may run into especially
if you're using a cheaper em solution like this quarter inch Jack the USB plug
is latency no latency essentially is the length of time between when you would
play a notes on your instruments and it registering inside your door in this
case in GarageBand now there's no way to change the settings of this and
GarageBand so if you find that you are having very very high levels of latency
like I am with this particular cable here and there's no way to fix that from
Adam GarageBand itself other doors do have the option you can adjust buffer
sizes and things like that so bear that in mind if you plan on getting a cable
that's as cheap as the one that I got not only that but when I plug this cable
in it seemed to be making some kind of strange more scored Lakes and either
that or you know it was contacting the mothership to come and collect me
one of the two things either way and it makes the whole thing pretty unusable so
make sure that you are getting a good deal that you're buying from somewhere
that if it doesn't work with your version of GarageBand you can always
return it so here's how the quarter inch jack to USB cable sounds again as I
mentioned before bear in mind I was dealing with quite a bit of latency so
that's why the playing and the recording is a little bit crap
the next step up from that is something like this small portable interfaces like
this one have become incredibly popular in recent years particularly with those
using iPads and iPhones that's not to say super portable interfaces aren't
suited to Mac users as well in fact if you're only looking to di a single
instrument at a time they make a great budget alternative to a fully fledged
audio interface I'm using an eye rig Pro aisle from Ikea multimedia in this case
which also has an XLR and poot for attaching a microphone but units like I
case eirick HD and Apogee Jam series include a single quarter inch Jack input
that's perfect for recording guitars these interfaces often come with several
connection types allowing you to use them with a variety of different devices
to attach the iRig I have here to my Mac I'll need to use the USB connection
GarageBand will again automatically recognize that an audio interface has
been attached and as long as track monitoring is enabled you'll be able to
hear yourself play sound quality is also greatly improved with clean sounds
actually sounding clean and driven tones much clearer and control here's an idea
of how one of these interfaces sends
you
finally the pro way but also more expensive way to di your guitars into
GarageBand is to use an audio interface if you want the best possible quality
recording of your guitar or any instrument for that matter then using an
audio interface is the way to go from cheaper single input interfaces to
professional-grade firewire units with dozens of input and output options
there's definitely a lot of choice when it comes to choosing an audio interface
I'm using a focusrite scarlett 2i2 interface here which runs for about 100
quid new but other popular interfaces like the Presonus audio box or M audio
fast track are great options to enter faces like these are pretty
straightforward to use connect the interface using the USB plug and
GarageBand will once again automatically recognize that an external audio
interface has been connected plug the guitar into the desired input and away
you go a quick tip here I find with my
interface that GarageBand will automatically assume that I want to use
the interface as both an input and an output source now that is handy if you
have studio monitors attached but not that handy if you want to listen to
what's being played through headphones that are attached to the max headphone
jack heading to garage bands preferences menu selecting audio / MIDI
and then selecting built-in output from the output drop-down menu fixes this so
here's an idea of how audio recorded through an audio interface sounds
so there you have it that's three ways you can connect your guitar to your Mac
so that you can record it in GarageBand if you found this video helpful then hit
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