One of the best things you can do to improve the quality of your screencasts, is improve the quality of your audio.
10 Cool Tips and Tricks for GarageBand 11 MacLife Share This Story. Get our newsletter. 11/09/10 5:35PM. GarageBand can help with iffy timing. Choose Track Configure Track Header (or hit Alt+T and tick the Groove Track box), mouse over the left edge of your drum track and click the yellow star to make it the ‘groove master’. GarageBand on iOS and iPad OS is renowned for it’s intuitive and easy to use instruments, controls and options. Apple haven’t made everything simple to find however, hiding away some of GarageBand’s most useful features. In the video below I share 5 hidden tricks and tips that’ll help you master GarageBand on iPad and iPhone.
I’m assuming that unless your name is “Dr. Dre”, you probably do not have a professional sound studio in your basement full of high-end equipment and expensive software. And if you’re like me, you don’t even have a basement.
What I do have is a Blue Yeti microphone, GarageBand and a copy of Screenflow that I can barely afford. I’ve struggled for a long time to get my audio to sound “good”. I’ve gone back and forth on what the bar for that is. When I first got started, everything I recorded sounded like I was at the bottom of an empty can of tomato soup. With the help of some friends, some Googling and the wisdom of my wife, I’ve seriously improved my station. In this post, I’ll share with you the tips and tricks that you can use to immediately improve your audio quality.
The Room
First off, let’s talk about your recording space. You are going to want to work and record in the same area. I used to unplug and go into my closet and record. You don’t need to do this. But you do need to do some basic things to your work area.
When I first started recording in my office, everything was so echo’y. It sounded like I was in a bathtub. My wife pointed out to me that the bare walls, window and floor were not helping. She instituted 3 things in my office that made a whole world of difference.
Garageband Tips
She got an area rug. If you have hardwood, tile or laminate floors, an area rug is going to be essential. Sound loves to bounce off anything it can, and it really likes hard, flat surfaces. An area rug will work wonders.
She hung curtains next to the window. My drapes don’t even close. They are just there to soak up the sound.
- She hung things on the walls. Pictures, guitars, sock monkeys. You get the idea.
These 3 things were enough to dampen the sound in the room so that it is fit for recording. You don’t actually need a bunch of sound panels or a special box you made out of plywood that sits weirdly in your garage. Just a rug, some drapes and a few wall treatments will do the trick.
Next, let’s talk about the equipment.
The Equipment
At the risk of looking extremely self-absorbed, here is a picture of my current recording setup…
My setup will run you about 250$ total. Here are the essential components:
Blue Yeti Microphone (130$)
This is probably the most popular mic on the market. Some people will say the RODE is better, but don’t listen to them. Listen to me. I’m writing the blog post.
RODE PSA 1 Swivel Mount Boom Arm (100$)
If you plan to record audio and the screen at the same time, you have got to get the mic off of your work surface. If you don’t, the mic is going to pick up the concussion from your typing and it’s going to sound less like a keyboard and more like a death metal drum solo.
Foam Windscreen (13$)
You’ll see people with fancy windscreens and pop filters. That’s the big circle that you usually see between the mic and Taylor Swift when she’s in the recording studio. I almost bought one of these until my colleague Shayne Boyer pointed out that you can buy a 13$ Windscreen and it works brilliantly.
OK - that’s the equipment. Let’s talk about the mic configuration for a moment. There are a few key things you need to know about it.
Mic Configuration
The Blue Yeti is a condensor mic. This means that it’s super sensitive. If you don’t adjust it correctly, it’s going to pick up everything. And I do mean everything. If someone next door sneezes, your ears won’t pick it up, but I swear you will hear it on the video.
You can fix this, you just need to get the settings right. On the mic, there is a side that has a “Gain” and a “Pattern” option.
The “Gain” is how sensitive you want the mic to be. Since you only want it recording your voice, you want to turn the gain all the way down. That seems completely counter-intuitive, but I promise, this is where you want it.
The “Pattern” controls where on the mic the audio is picked up. All you have to know here is to pick the upside-down ♡ setting. This setting means that the microphone will pick up audio from the front-side only. That’s the side you are speaking into, so that’s what you want.
When you talk into the mic, you want it upright like you see it in the picture above. Talk into it from the front side, not the very top. The Blue Yeti site shows it like this…
OK - you’re setup to record. The next step is to configure the recording software. When I record screencasts, I record audio first, then I record the video and edit it to go with the audio. This is so that I can record the audio with GarageBand and edit it before I add in the video.
Working with GarageBand
If you don’t have a Mac, I’m sorry. Feel free to skip over this section, and frankly, the rest of this post. I have no idea how to do this on Windows, although I’m sure there are some great alternatives.
For you Mac people, Garage Band is really all you need.
I record a Narration vocal and I created a custom audio setting using Nic Raboy’s excellent setup from an article on this same topic.
Now, change the way GarageBand is showing your track. By default, it shows “Beats and Project”, which displays your audio over time as “Bars”. This isn’t super helpful for seeing how long your track really is. To fix this, you want to change this so it displays your track as “Time”. This is a hard menu to find, but it’s that tiny arrow next to the “key” display.
Select “Time” from the menu that pops up.
After you record your audio, you’ll want to edit out your breathing, as well as pops and clicks and other mouth sounds you would rather not expose your listeners to. To do that, select the “Show Editor” option from the view menu.
This will open up an editor in the bottom area that allows you to zoom in and edit out parts of the track. You’ll be able to see your breathing just by looking at the track. It’s the flat part in between sections. To remove that area, click and drag to highlight the region you want to remove, and then press “Delete”.
If you want to move your sections of audio closer together as you cut out the breathing, use the upper track portion. To do the fine grain editing itself, use the editor portion below.
OK! All your heavy breathing is now out of the picture and your audio sounds good. Export from GarageBand using the “Share/Export Song To Disk” option.
The last step is to pull it into Screenflow and apply some final tweaks.
Screenflow Audio Tweaks
Again, this is Mac specific. I do feel bad about the lack of cross-platform-icity in this article. That’s got to count for something.
In Screenflow, I pull in the audio and then I record my screen to match the audio. This can be a bit tedious, but usually results in a higher quality video. One of the last things I do is tweak the audio in Screenflow.
I select the entire audio segment and I apply two options…
- Smooth Volume Levels
- Remove Background Noise (50%)
And…..CUT
That’s it! Hopefully there are some tips in here that you find helpful. Don’t be too hard on yourself over your audio. You are never going to get it perfect, but these simple steps should get you about 90% of the way there. The last 10% is all found in Dr. Dre’s basement.
Oh - and here’s a sample of my audio sounds. FWIW, the bass intro was also recorded in GarageBand…
Are you a musicophile or a music enthusiast who has just embarked on an insatiable journey of music composition or a music professional already? If you are the one, you would probably be looking for a good app that could fulfill all your requirements like the” Genie with the lamp” in the fairytales we know so far.
Without letting you go on with further deliberations about it being possible or not, the good news is it is possible with this great app “Garageband 10.3.2” which can be used on your mac or ios device to create a piece of music all by yourself, & that too, anytime and anywhere, equally appropriate for the amateurs as well as professionals. The best part about Garageband is that you can also run it on windows system, check out this guide on how to run garageband on windows.
For those unknown, this app” Garageband” is an innovation in the world for music composers to help the users to create music and Podcasts, being a range of digital acoustic workstations, especially for macOS & ios devices. It is a one-stop abode for music enthusiasts who not only love listening to music but also enjoy composing and sharing the music of unmatched quality. You can also run Garageband on your windows system,
With the Garageband, the users will be able to put their song compositions together adorned with the instruments like the drums, bass, keyboards, guitar, and other exotic instruments instantly with this great & free music-making tool, without any pre-instructions being required to play.
Though, Apple has not made it that way, so to be too easy-peasy to find some hidden yet fantastic options, however, masking away some of the Garage band’s most useful features is easier to crack. Below down I will be providing some hidden tips and tricks to explore more on the app and to find out if some of these are known to you already-
# Tip 1- Finding the Note labels on the keyboard-
Have you ever wondered how it would be possible, anyway? Well, with the garage band, you get an option to turn note names on or off which is still a hidden secret for many to discover. For doing that, you just need to go to your device settings and scroll down until you can see the option of the Garageband on the left side app on the list.
Next, touch the Garageband app on your phone, move to the settings option then, turning on the feature of Keyboard Note.
#Tip 2-Try the Notepad option available on your ios Devices-
Earlier, the feature of recording chords on a notepad was available only for the desktop version, but now the ios app has got a built-in feature in ios devices like the iPhone & iPad which enables the users to store their music notes.
For accessing the Notepad-
Go to the Settings option.
Tap” Notepad” there you will find a blank area to record all your music notes and along with this get uninterrupted access to your notes at any time by tapping the settings option.
#Tip 3-Adjust the smart Drums while recording a pattern-
With this feature, the Garage band has given “full wings to the creativity level of prospective musicians” as the smart drums feature could be used to create a super-fast drum pattern. Smart Drums help the user to create a musical array by placing all the instruments on a list.
On the app, every instrument available plays as a pre-existing pattern for a simpler rhythm drag the instrument to the left side while for a more complex rhythm turn it to the right side. Further, you can access the recording of the pattern & music by tapping the record button.
Garageband Tips And Tricks Macyellowray Youtube
#Tip 4-Creative Variations in the Autoplay pattern on the dial-
This one came as a total surprise for me too!
Out of all the marvelous specialties of the Garage band app, this character is super-beneficial as well as a suitable option for music admirers. Here, the user can choose between a great variety of options like the guitar, keyboards or a pizzicato, etc. that have chord strips on their screen that makes it super easy for the user to perform the instrument with the single touch of a finger.
But that’s not all!
Once the user will come to touch the chord strips with two fingers, the Garage band will provide you with loads of Autoplay patterns, which you will come to hear one by one with your selections and proceed further with chords. Thus, you will feel amazed by getting the opportunity to listen up to 12 variations of different autoplay patterns.
#Tip 5- Undisclosed string unification Alternatives-
While you open the quick strings and crisis into notes view you can play individual legato notes by touching the chord strings for instance if you desire to play pizzicato or guitar tap on the articulation button slowly pressing towards the left side.
Two cryptic traits follow-
To make the pizzicato turn on, tap the articulation button twice and repeat the same to turn the option
Garageband Tips And Tricks
To play the music notes associated with the stringed instruments just tap & hold the articulation bar on the left side, further swipe the string up and down to produce a rhythm.