GarageBand
Making an Aesthetically Pleasing Result
By now you have made one or more GarageBand compositions. Follow
these seven points to help make them the best they can be.
1. Cut away the
wasted notes. What doesn't need to be here?
2. Use a variety of elements. Why three or four piano
parts when you can have different instrumentation? Experiment.
3. Make those
elements work with each other. Is one instrument stepping
on or fighting with another? Let each good idea have its own
space in the song.
4. Ask yourselves and others, "do you
like it?" Be honest but
nice with each other.
5. Organize your music. When you listen to your piece
does it sound like all the parts belong together? Does your
assembly of sounds have a sense of purpose?
6. Balance familiarity and
variety. Our ears like to hear a recurring idea.
Think of your favorite music. Some ideas are repeated and some
are new.
7. Ask, "does this bear repeated listening?" Are you excited about what you have?
Do you want to share it with everybody? If you are bored with
your own music you have a problem.
Once you have done these things, it's time for
MIXDOWN
We need to mix down our material to a stereo audio file in order to
become part of our finished product: an audio CD. Also, in order
to properly evaluate your music, you need to hear it in a variety of
settings. So here's how we are going to do
that.
1) Spend some time getting your fades, panning, balance and sounds the
way you want them. Make sure you have cut out any extraneous
material and moved your song to start at the beginning of the
timeline.
2) open Preferences and then go to "Export" in the Preferences
dialog. Check your playlist, composer name and album name and
change them if you want. You will need this information to find
your mixed-down audio later.
3) Make sure your tracks are enabled (that nothing is muted that you
want to be heard) and go to Share > Send Song to iTunes.
4) Once you have exported to iTunes, go in to iTunes and locate the
playlist where your newly mixed song is placed.
5) Listen to the song in iTunes. Is your impression of it
different when you are listening without the "visual aid" of the
GarageBand interface? If so, how? Are there things you want to
fix about arrangement, sounds, balance?
6) Go back to GarageBand and make your fixes.
7) Send your song to iTunes again with your fixes and
improvements. Listen critically to your results. Are you
happy?
8) With your song selected (highlighted in dark blue), Hit
Apple-R. This will bring up a window of the folder where the .aif
of your mixed down song is contained. That folder is probably
called "Import" and is probably found like this: Music > iTunes >
iTunes Music > Import. Yours may be different so make sure you know
where your file is. You need that information for later.
8a) In order to make this file small enough to send, you will have to
convert it from an .aif to a .mp3. Here's how you do that: iTunes >
Preferences > Advanced > Importing. Set to import using MP3
encoder with setting on Good Quality (128 kbps) This will create
an mp3 of your mixed down audio.
9) E-mail the .mp3 as an attachment to everyone in your project group
AND andrewpfaff@gmail.com (that's me).
10) (Outside of project time) -- Open, download and listen to
your creation in as many different formats as possible. Put it on
your mp3 player. Listen to it on your stereo. On your
computer at home. What other things are becoming apparent to you
about your mix? Does the balance of instruments and sounds change
from place to place? What adjustments need to be made in order to
make this as listenable as possible in ALL environments?
11) Next week, re-convene with your findings and adjust your mixes
appropriately. Project Presentation Time is at hand!!!
FILES: here