Although I run a professional studio that uses the best hardware and software tools, my clients sometimes bring in projects that they’ve begun at home. They often use simple off-the-shelf software like Apple’s GarageBand, designed for non-professionals doing home recording. Here, we put their work into our professional environment, using Pro Tools and high-end plug-ins to take them to a better level.
OK — here’s my disclaimer: I dislike Apple Computer’s “dumbed-down” approach that hides choices and tools from users in the belief that information and choices confuse them. My prefer-ence is for capabilities, well-labeled tools, and clearly apparent choices/options.
Apparently, I’m not Apple’s typical user.
My wife, Marty Kendall, has played music professionally for decades. She studied cello at East-man School of Music. She sings in bands and plays bass. She fiddles. And she occasionally writes songs, mostly for her own and her friends’ enjoyment. Marty doesn’t want to bother me at the studio when she’s making a recording of one of her tunes. Years ago she grew frustrated recording just a Voice Memo on her phone, so she turned to GarageBand, wanting to record multiple instruments and vocals.
As a professional writer and editor, she reads and edits everything I write before I send it out. So she’s read every “Studio Insider” column for as long as I’ve been writing it. But last week, she tried to get a new tune into an updated version of GarageBand; it stalled the whole thing. She looked online for help and fixes, but was unable to get it going. So I’ll share a few things she and I learned while setting up GarageBand to work for her.
Oh, no…Updates
It turned out that her version of GarageBand was several years old, and in order to work smoothly, we’d have to update her Mac OS (operating system) and then download and install the latest version of GarageBand. The OS upgrade went smoothly, but took several hours. Downloading and then using GarageBand 10.3.4 also took hours; in fact, it had to happen over-night. Apple won’t let users download just their desired sounds and extras; it demands an enor-mous download that adds thunder and lightning, Sturm und Drang and every possible odd-ball drum pattern to GarageBand’s resident sounds.
The next day, Marty began to record her tune. Since she’s already familiar with basic recording, and had used an older version of GarageBand, she soon found herself recording and adding tracks to her project. Here’s what she did:
She didn’t need expensive gear
First, she connected her USB microphone to her iMac’s USB port, using a regular USB cable. Marty’s mic is an Audio-Technica AT2020USB Cardioid Condenser microphone. I got it for her several years ago, and it gets a great sound, which it delivers right over the USB cable without needing a mixing board, a preamp, or any other gear. (The current version, The Audio-Technica AT2020 USB+, also has a headphone port and a mix control that blends the mic and playback audio.)
She wanted to play guitar while listening to a click track, and then add her voice when she was happy with the guitar part. But she remembered my advice from Studio Insider: use a drummer or a drum machine, not a metronome. It will be easier to stay with the beat, and will even help you to impart a groove to your playing. You can easily mute the drum machine part when you have the guitar part you want. Among the hundreds of drum patterns that downloaded over-night, she found a good one that matched her groove for the tune. Apple names it Bluebird.
She set up a drum track and inserted Bluebird the drummer, using drag-and-drop. Then she dragged out Bluebird’s drum loop to a length that would last for her complete tune. She prac-ticed playing rhythm guitar while listening to Bluebird, and soon felt ready to record. So she put on her headphones, placed the USB mic opposite the neck/body joint of her dreadnought guitar, turned on “record,” and got a good version of her guitar part, synched to Bluebird’s drumming.
Now Marty wanted to add her vocal, so she could make sure that the guitar part felt right. And it would be easier to add additional instruments if she could listen to the vocal as she played them. She created a new track and labeled it “Lead Vocal.” She used the same USB micro-phone for her vocals, placing it about six inches in front of her mouth. Marty’s sung into a mic for decades, so quickly adapted to working with the mic while listening to GarageBand over the headphones. She sang through the tune and recorded her vocal. But on listening back, she found that part of the vocal track had been recorded too loudly. She wanted to “punch in and out” to fix that part, but couldn’t figure out how to do so. So she re-tracked the entire vocal part, getting a keeper the second time.
To complete her rhythm section, Marty wanted to add bass next. She turned off the drummer at this point, so that her bass playing would synch to the guitar part she’d just put down. She low-ered the mic boom and placed the mic opposite the bass’s bridge, about 6-8 inches out from the instrument’s face, and centered between the F-holes. Again, after some unsuccessful passes, she got a good complete take, and now had basic voice, guitar and bass.
She eventually added a harmony vocal and a cello track. Next, she figured out how to add some reverb to the vocals and cello, and found an equalizer that she could apply to her voice track, the bass track, and the guitar track, choosing settings for each that added clarity.
GarageBand lets you export a completed version of your tune, using the command “share.” Ap-ple borrowed a term from the tape recording era, and which Pro Tools has kept alive in the en-suing decades: combining all tracks into a final stereo mix is called “Bouncing.” She bounced a mix and played it for me after dinner. I asked her where she had studied recording!
I hope this short story can inspire amateur musicians to become home recordists, and make fuller use of their computer. If you’re an Apple user, the only additional piece of gear you’ll have to have is a USB microphone.
Good luck, and have fun!
Copyright © 2020 by Joe Weed
Joe Weed records acoustic music at his Highland Studios near Los Gatos, California. He has released seven albums of his own, produced many projects for independent artists and labels, and does scores for film, TV and museums. One of Joe’s productions with British guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson was heard in “The Mayo Clinic,” a film by Ken Burns, which premiered nation-ally on PBS in late 2018. Also in 2018, Joe released “Two Steps West of the Mississippi,” a col-lection of his original instrumental music based on American fiddle roots. Reach Joe by email at joe@joeweed.com, or by visiting joeweed.com.