if you're just getting started with garageband on mac and are feeling
a wee bit overwhelmed with all of the knobs buttons windows icons and options
this video is for you here are five tips to help you get up and running in
garageband when you first open garageband you'll come to the choose a project screen you have
multiple options to choose from in the list on the left there you can open any recent projects
you may have been working on you can launch any guitar piano or artist lessons you've downloaded
you can access the lessons i just mentioned from the lesson store tab from this tab you
can select from six project templates that open garageband with certain instruments or features
already selected my advice is to stick with the new project tab and the empty project option this
opens up a fresh garageband project from scratch and is the best way to begin if you plan to
play or record garage bands built in midi sounds with one of these or the musical typing function
open a software instrument track if you plan to record your voice or an instrument with a
microphone whether that's a usb microphone or an xlr microphone with an audio interface open
the audio track with the microphone image if you want to hook up an electric guitar or bass with an
audio interface select the audio track with the guitar image if you want to start with a drum
or percussion beat using garageband's excellent virtual session players choose the drummer track
and if you want to just jump in and mess around with garageband's huge amount of loops picking
any of these track types will open up the project and allow you to access
the workspace and the loop browser so just go ahead and choose any of them
look i know you probably want to just dive in and start creating but taking a second
to make sure things are set up correctly will save you some headaches further down the line
i promise head up to garageband in the toolbar click on it and then select preferences
you can also access this preferences window with the keyboard shortcut command and comma
in this menu the first tab to look at is audio slash midi now if you have a usb
microphone or an audio interface hooked up to your mac make sure it's selected as the input source
by using the drop down menu here what you're doing here essentially is telling garageband
where to record audio from when you hit record if you leave it on system setting it will record from
the built-in microphone on your mac if you select your attached gear it will record audio from there
same goes for the output source if you want to hear your project and what you're
recording with headphones plug directly into your max headphone jack leave it on system
settings if you have headphones plugged into an attached audio interface for example select it
as the output source beneath the devices section is the effects checkbox checking this box
allows you to use apple's and third-party plugins in your projects there is no reason
not to have these tools available so make sure that box is ticked over in the advanced tab
you'll want to uncheck the auto normalize box when selected garageband automatically exports projects
at what it thinks is the optimum loudness that is the highest volume level at which no
distortion occurs in practice this can actually make your exported projects sound quieter and
can cause issues if you plan to master your track and distribute it to online streaming platforms
on the left of the garageband window is the library
depending on the track type you've selected this is where you'll find
instrument sounds that you can play in a software instrument track
voice guitar and bass presets for audio tracks oh
and choose from the 33 available session drummers and the 91 different drum kits that they can play
when you first download garageband to your mac you only get a fraction of its full sound library
with the initial installation you may notice in the loop browser or library
that some sounds or presets are grayed out with a wii download arrow next to them to access
garageband's full sound library head to garageband in the toolbar hover
your cursor over sound library and select download all available sounds
be warned however that this is a sizeable download so you might want to set it up
before you go to bed or before you go to work or something like that
a bonus tip here and the latest version of garageband apple added the ability
to change the color of your tracks regions right click or control click
on the tracks header and select assign track color not only does this look
great it's a brilliant way to organize your tracks by type in larger projects
if you're hungry for more garageband knowledge bombs then click here to check out
my garageband for beginners playlist take care of yourself i'll see you next time bye for now