We like to be in control. Wait. Make that love to be in control. That’s one of the reasons why we love GarageBand ’08: it lets us fully automate effects and instrument parameters as the project plays out—no micromanagement required. We showed you how to use GarageBand’s new automation features to give movement to your sounds in the "Add Movement to Sounds in GarageBand,” article. Now learn how to apply the same principles to change the very nature of an instrument’s sound over time—just like they do on the drum, synth, and vocal tracks all the kids are so in love with these days.

 

Forget sticking with stock instruments—GarageBand lets you easily make sounds mutate and move while your song plays. Apple GarageBand ’08 ($79, as part of iLife ’08)

 

1. Create an Uptempo Project

Choosing a major key gives your music a happier tone, while music in a minor key is generally darker.

 

To match the style of music you’d normally hear these types of effects in, let’s create something danceable. In GarageBand, choose File > New, and select Create New Music Project. In the resulting dialog, type a name for your project, type 132 in the BPM field (beats per minute, or the tempo of the song), choose C Major from the Key pop-up menus, and click Create. Once the project window opens, close the Keyboard window (if it’s open) and delete the default Grand Piano track (select the track and press Command-Delete).

 

2. Grab Some Beats and Harmony

Here are the five tracks you should have added—yeah, it’s a pretty odd mishmash.

 

Alrighty, let’s build up something eclectic using GarageBand’s included Apple Loops. Display the Loops browser by clicking the eye button. First, we need a beat—to find some house music beats, click the All Drums, Beats, and Electronic buttons. Scroll down the resulting list until you find the Deep House Dance Beat 02 loop, drag it up to the beginning of the timeline, and then click Reset in the Loops browser.

 

That’s one way to find loops, but if you know what you’re looking for (and we’re about to tell you), find the rest of your tracks by name. In the Loops browser, type “70s” in the search field, select 70s Ballad Piano 01 in the resulting list, and drag it up to the beginning of the timeline below your beats track. Repeat to add the following loops: 70s Ballad Drums 01, 80s Dance Bass Synth 04, and Chordal Synth Pattern 15.

 

 

3. Sequence Your Song

Drag a loop’s lower-right corner left to shorten it (shown here), or drag its upper-right corner right to extend it.

 

Now that you’ve got the tracks, create the actual foundation for the song. We’re going to start this song off with a normal piano and drum intro and then have it turn into something more electronic. Select the Beats track, click the loop, and Option-drag it to create a duplicate that starts at measure 5. Then drag the upper-right corner of the duplicate loop to the right, and extend it to measure 17. Go back and select the original Beats loop, drag the lower-right corner of the loop leftward and shorten it to one measure, and then move the loop to start at measure 4. Then select the Piano track and extend the loop to measure 17. Select the Kits track and extend that loop to measure 5. Select the Synth Bass track and move the loop to start at measure 9, and then extend the loop to measure 17. Finally, select the Synths track and move it to start at measure 5, and then extend the loop to measure 21. Click the Play button to hear your song so far.

 

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4. Add Custom Automation

The Add Automation dialog lists all available instrument and effects parameters for your selected track.

 

At measure 4, the regular drum track (Kits) begins to transition to the Beats track. To make the transition a little more exciting, let’s automate a one-measure flange effect to fully erupt on the Beats track, which already features a low-level flange effect. Select the Beats track, click the automation disclosure triangle to show the curve, and choose Add Automation from the automation pop-up menu. In the resulting dialog, click the Flanger disclosure triangle; select the Intensity, Speed, and Feedback checkboxes; and click OK. These three parameters now appear in the automation pop-up menu.

 

5. Change Up the Beat

By manipulating multiple parameter points, we create a stutter effect before the Beats track returns to normal.

 

On the Beats track, choose Intensity from the automation pop-up menu to display its curve (currently, a straight horizontal line). Click on the curve at measure 4 and measure 5 to add two anchor points at each end of the measure (keep them at 10%), add a point in the middle of the measure and drag it up to 89%, then add a point right before measure 5 and drag it up to 100%. Then choose Speed from the pop-up menu, add anchor points at measures 4 and 5, add a point just before the third beat of the measure and drag it up to 14.300Hz, then add a point just before measure 5 and drag it up to 13.400Hz.

 

Now choose Feedback from the pop-up menu, add anchor points at measures 4 and 5, drag the measure 4 point all the way down, add a point in the middle of the measure and drag it up to 99%, then add a point just before measure 5 and drag it up to 99%. Finally, choose Track Volume from the pop-up menu, add anchor points at measures 4 and 5, then add a point just before measure 5 and drag it down to -6 dB. This creates sort of a stutter effect—take a listen and then play around with the points if you want to customize it further.

 

6. Add Synthesizer Parameters to Automate

Some instruments provide a glut of instrument parameters for your tweaking pleasure.

 

To give you some inspiration for morphing instruments, let’s change the sound of the synth line to close out the performance. Select the Synths track and click the automation disclosure triangle to display the curve. From the pop-up menu choose Add Automation. Click the Hybrid Basic disclosure triangle and select Cutoff, Resonance, and Cutoff Envelope. Then click OK to make these parameters available in the automation pop-up menu.

 

7. Morph the Synth

By tweaking core sound generator parameters (such as the Resonance here), we changed the very nature of the synth sound.

 

Take a listen to the last four measures of your song to hear what the original synth line sounds like on its own. Now let’s morph the instrument to make it almost sound like it’s imploding into itself. Choose Cutoff from the automation pop-up menu to display its curve, add a point at measure 18, then add a point at measure 21 and drag it down to 0%. Then choose Resonance from the pop-up menu, add points at measures 18 and 21, add a point at measure 19 and drag it up to 100%, then add a point at measure 20 and drag it up to 81%. Finally, choose Cutoff Envelope from the pop-up menu, add a point at measure 20, then add a point at measure 21 and drag it down to 20.

 

Now take a listen to your handiwork, and feel free to tweak any of the settings, add more automation, adjust volumes, add effects, and do whatever else you want to make the bitty ditty your own.