Using effects in Garageband

While GarageBand may be marketed as an entry-level program, it offers a surprising number of great sound effects. In addition to sounding great, these effects are also very easy to use. Let’s take a look at the different ways effects can be used in your GarageBand songs.

software instruments

Software Instruments come preloaded with four effects. Let’s look at them individually:

• compressor: Technically, compression is a form of dynamics processing that allows you to “tighten” the dynamic range of a signal. In real world terms, this means that the difference between the loudest part of a signal and the softest part is reduced. In effect, the soft parts of a sound become slightly louder, and the loud parts become slightly softer. This allows the signal to stand out a bit more in the mix. Compression is most often used on highly dynamic signals like drums and vocals.
• visual equalizer: Short for equalization, EQ allows you to increase or decrease the volume of certain frequency ranges in a sound. As you add tracks to your song, your mix may start to sound “muddy” and undefined. You can combat this by removing unimportant frequencies from each track. For example, removing some low mids from a vocal track can help it shine a little brighter.
• echo master: This slider controls the amount of signal from this track that is sent through the Master Echo effect.
• master reverb: This slider controls the amount of signal from this track that is sent through the Master Reverb effect.

royal instruments

Real Instruments come preloaded with the same four effects as Software Instruments, with the addition of one new effect:

• noise gate: The purpose of a noise gate is to keep out or “mute” any sound below a certain threshold or volume level. A perfect use for a noise gate would be to remove pickup noise and hum from a guitar signal. When the guitarist isn’t playing, the noise gate closes, preventing the pickup’s hum from being heard in the mix, but as soon as the guitarist starts playing, the noise gate opens, letting the pickup signal through. guitar.

guitar tracks

Guitar tracks deal with effects differently than software and real instruments. Not to disappoint anyone, but I’ll save it for another article. I wouldn’t be able to do it justice in a few short sentences here.

master track

The signals from all the separate tracks in GarageBand are run through the effects on the master track. The Master Track in GarageBand comes preloaded with five effects that are divided into two groups:

track effects

The amount of each track that is run through these two effects is controlled by the master sliders on each instrument track.

• Echo: An echo is a delayed repetition of a sound that usually occurs in a subdivision of time, such as quarter notes or eighth notes.
• reverberation: Put enough separate echoes together and what you get is reverb. Think of reverb as the ambience of a space. Generally, the larger the space, the longer the reverberation time.

master effects

These are turned off by default, so you’ll need to turn them on if you want to use them.

• visual equalizer: Same as with real software and instruments.
• compressor: ditto
• duck: Most often used in voice-over work, a fader is designed to automatically reduce the volume of backing tracks while a lead track is playing. This is not used too often in music.

Just use the presets

All the effects in GarageBand are highly editable, but I suggest you start by using the presets. Each effect comes with a very nice set of presets that will work well for about 90% of your needs. If you need something that the presets don’t provide, I suggest you follow these steps:

• Choose a preset that is close to what you are looking for.
• Clicking on the graphic on the left side of the effect will bring up the editing parameters for that particular effect.
• Now start adjusting the effect parameters until you get the sound you want. Don’t be afraid to experiment because you can always go back to the preset if you really mess things up.