Learning how to make a song with loops in Garageband

When you open the application Garageband, this is the first window that appears. In the dark region you can choose different templates, which help you to set up your song. The important one for beginners to use is the standard piano template. So you may begin by clicking the piano icon

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Section 1. Creating a song with loops

After you click the piano icon, this template appears. To begin working on a song you have to add your first loop.

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1. First turn your focus to the second column of the interface. (the screen cap is of the top right quadrant of the right side column)

2. Now click on the type of instrument you would like to start with. Ex. Drums. Then, all of the different kinds of drums will appear in the quadrant below.

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You can futher narrow the options of drums by clicking on adjectives to describe the type of drums you would like to use. So I first selected “All

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Drums” then I clicked “intense” then in the lower quadrant my options appeared.

For my sample song, I will use “Live Edgy Drums 06”

To select a certain loop for your song, all you have to do is click on it and drag it into the top of the dark grey region.

*Note - the drum icon was not there before I drug the loop over. You can can drag a loop over to the empty grey region and the corresponding track will appear.

At this point, the duration of my song is only a couple seconds since the loop only plays for 2 measures.

To make it repeat, you need to click on the top right corner and stretch it out as far as you wish for your song.

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For my sample song, I have looped the drum track to measure 32. If necessary I can re-edit the length later.

Creating a song is about layering tracks to create a euphonic (or cacophonic for whatever reason) sound. It is important to select instruments that sound good together. Since I have selected a hard rock type beat, I will use rock-y guitar loop to accompany it.

So I will simply repeat my process but this time I will click on “Guitars” in the top-right quadrant and drag that below the drum track. For this example, I will use “Edgy Rock Guitar 14”. I found this loop by simply selecting “guitar” on the right and quadrant and then further narrowing it down by clicking the adjective “intense”.

This screen cap shows my options of “Intense” “guitars”

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This is my new guitar track after I dragged it into the dark grey region (or the live timeline)The completion of your song will be done in this manor. The number of loops you will use is up to you. The instruments and the style of music that your songs are depend on your own musicianship.

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Section 2. Completing your song

As you have probably found out, loops can potentially repeat forever. You have two options of ending your songs.

1. - Looping the entire song- This is done by clicking the looping icon on the bottom

part of the window.

The small icon above is the looping icon. As shown in the larger figure, the looping icon is near the LCD display screen of the measures.

If the looping icon is blue it is on.

As soon as you click the looping button, you may notice a gold bar that appears on the top of the window where the measures are displayed.

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*Turn your focus to the gold bar

-The gold bar indicates what segment of your song is being looped. The idea is that when you play your song and the timeline eventually reaches the end of the gold bar your song will repeat from the beginning without skipping a beat.

- Editing the length of your looping song

all you have to do to change the part of your song that loops is grab the right end of the gold bar and drag it out to whichever measure you wish to have repeated in your song.

The number is hard to see, but the gold bar just stretches past measure 32. That means that the song will play for 32 whole measures and then it will repeat.

If you decide to have your song running on a loop you may not export it to, say, itunes or wherever else. Exporting can still be done, but you will have lost your song’s repetition.

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Now that we know how to loop your song, that leaves one obvious possibility concerning the length of your song

2. - Selecting an end point to your song

The second and most useful way to end a song is by setting the “termination arrow”. “Termination arrow” is a term I made up. It refers to the small grey arrow next to the gold bar. It is very small in the screen cap above so I will enlarge it.

The Termination Arrow

This arrow determines the length of your song assuming the looping icon is not on.

*If the looping button has been pressed the song will repeat regardless of the location of your termination arrow.

To successfully end your song you will have to go back and turn off the loop.

After un-clicking the looping icon, it turns grey again.

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As you can see, after you turn off the looping system, the gold bar disappears, but the termination arrow remains.

Now when the song is playing and the red line (the location indicator) hits measure 33 (where the termination arrow is) the song will stop.

*Note-

Song’s created by loops will normally have abrupt endings, as you may have noticed if you are trying to make your own song. Songs made from purely loops are not usually meant to have perfect endings. They are usually just sound samples that you might put in a video or something of the sort. So do not waste time trying to find specific loops that seem to end well for your upcoming radio single. It probably won’t happen.

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Section 3. Exporting a finished song

Apple has made exporting your Garageband song simpler than ever with their latest updated versions.

Assuming that you have your termination arrow set where you want it and you have your loops where you want them within the timeline, all you have to do is use Garageband’s sharing feature.

Your finished song should look something like the one below

To export all you have to do is click “Share” on the toolbar and then select “export to iTunes”

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From this point, your exporting options are very clear. You can either Send your song to itunes, iWeb, or burn it to a disk. The common thing

to do is to send your song on iTunes. Once your song is there, there you can convert it in different ways or use it for different purposes.

Overview:

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When trying to make a song with loops on Garageband, keep in mind the three main steps.

1. Using loops to create the song2. Defining the end point of the song3. Exporting the song

The basics are as simple as that. Of course, Garageband has more complicated features that can be learned about, but knowing the basics is a good way to start. From this point you two options for continuing your quest to mastery of the application Garageband. You can either learn the fun way, by experimenting and by trial and error, or by further research. I’m sure apple has some sort of handbook to help you, but I usually find inclusive instructional booklets hard to read and quite frankly, plain boring. I recommend a website called www.Lynda.com for quality tutorial films.

Garageband in audio engineering

Learning how to use a music software program like Garageband is actually essential to the profession Audio Engineering. Audio Engineer’s job usually entails audio recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. All of those aspects of audio engineering are introduced in Garageband. If you develop an interest in audio engineering as I have, Garageband is only a good starting point. You will begin to use much more sophisticated music software programs that are actually used by the professionals like Logic Pro and Pro Tools. Programs like those don’t need to be invested in just financially, but time-wise as well. Spent my whole year’s personal project (MYP school project) learning how to use Logic Pro 8. But just like any of you, I began my educational career by simply focusing on the basics. Understanding Garageband can lead to other things including future potential careers.

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