Go beyond the sound of one man jamming with these helpful tips for your homemade recordings.

Difficulty Level:
Easy

What You Need:

> GarageBand 3 or later (current version is GarageBand 5, part of iLife '09, $79, www.apple.com)
> A GarageBand project you've already assembled, whether it consists of live instrument tracks you recorded via an audio interface, or software instrument tracks built in to GarageBand
> A microphone for recording vocals (optional, see step 7)
> Some time to tinker

GarageBand has done a great job of bringing user-friendly, intuitive home-recording tools to the masses. But while the results usually outstrip the four-track compositions of yore, most GarageBand creations sound like exactly what they are: one person recording simple musical sketches to a computer. Fortunately, with the application of a few simple pro-recording concepts, your solo projects can be so much more.

Drums

Nothing screams "amateur hour" louder than a clunky drum track. So getting your rhythm section right goes a long way toward giving your tunes a lifelike sound.

1. Keep the Sound Consistent

If you’re using loops, try to stay within a specific “family,” such as “Modern Rock Drums” or “Natural Drum Kit.” And avoid software-instrument (aka MIDI) drums wherever possible for your basic rhythm; they almost never sound as good as the real thing.

Split and rearrange drum tracks to add variety and finesse.

2. But Keep the Track Dynamic

Rigid, ultra-repetitive drum tracks sound like robots. Luckily, drum loops can be easily sliced, diced, and rearranged. Just move the play head to a beat marker (use the waveform in the Track Editor pane as a guide) and choose Edit > Split. By rearranging small sections of longer loops, you dramatically increase your rhythmic options.

Spike your drum tracks with irregular flourishes to break rigid patterns.

3. Garnish Moderately

Once you’ve got your drum track sketched out, get back in there and add some flourishes (yes, even in MIDI if that’s all you have available to you). Throw in a crash cymbal to accent section changes, an extra kick here and there, maybe even an additional snare hit periodically. The goal is to break up what is likely to still be a fairly rigid pattern. Just a few deviations can give the impression of great rhythmic variety, essential for a lifelike sound.

The track editor, toward the bottom of the window, lets you mix things up a little.

Guitars

If your compositions sound a bit "thin," often the problem is simply that all the sounds follow the same path to the listener's ears: straight ahead.

4. Play with Yourself

In guitar-focused genres, you absolutely need to record two rhythm guitar tracks, even if there’s technically only one guitar part. A single guitar almost always sounds lacking to ears used to traditional guitar-focused recordings. Plus, two guitars help cover each other’s mistakes.

5. Pan-Handle

Now, using the Track Pan knob (to the left of the Volume slider), move the guitar tracks slightly into the left and right speakers. This creates a sense of sonic space that does wonders for your sound. But go ahead and keep your blistering solo track in the middle channel.

Track Pan is your friend. Shove those rhythm guitars off to the side to give yourself room to wail.