SOUND EDITING WITH GARAGEBAND 10.3.

1
Setting Up GarageBand
Upon opening GarageBand, you’ll be asked to choose a project type. Unless you’re using
GarageBand to record music, we recommend choosing “Voice” for your new project.

You’ll then be provided a workspace for your voice project that looks like this and is broken into
several key areas: Control Bar

Track
Work
Space
Library

Editing Space
Now, there are a few things we’ll need to check to make sure our Garageband workspace is set
up for success!
First, make sure that:
1. You’ve enabled the Quick Help Button if you’re an absolute beginner and would like
to have some in-context help when you hover over certain buttons!

2. You’ve set your time keeper to keep track by time instead of beats, unless you’re
using Garageband to record music, of course!

3. You’ve turned the Metronome off (unless you’re recording music)

4. You’ve selected the correct microphone—it’ll

likely default to your laptop or built-in mic, but an
external mic is ideal and should be an option to
select in the drop-down.

Test your mic by

choosing a track,
tapping on the
microphone, and
monitoring the volume
slider.

TIP: If you have plugged in an external microphone and it isn’t showing up as an option, try
saving your work and restarting the program.
5. You’ve selected the most appropriate track types for your project. If you’re doing a
podcast, choose a “Narration Vocal” track and a “Natural Voice” track. To change the
type of sound, select the track you’d like to change, and click the appropriate track types
from the Sound Library. You can change this later if you find it doesn’t work for your
recorded audio.

Selected track will

Choose from the be a lighter gray!
VOICE options to
use GarageBand
presets.

6. Feel free to eliminate the other tracks provided, if you’d like to clean up your
workspace. To do so, right click and delete the tracks you wish to eliminate.
 7. You’ve set any advanced controls necessary to recording your best audio. This may
be setting the “Echo” to 0 on a Natural Vocal track or decreasing the “Ambience” on a
Narration Vocal. TIP: Try recording with the presets first and work on the controls from
there!

8. You’ve added an additional track (or tracks) for external audio by either clicking the [+]
button in the track area, or double clicking underneath the last track for an additional
one.

Add tracks here! à

Or double click here! à

Recording In GarageBand
Recording in GarageBand is fairly straightforward.
Your recording is all controlled via the record,
pause, and stop buttons. And you can playback
your audio using the play button.
When you’re ready to record: TIP: It can be helpful to record all your
1. Select the track you want to record on. narration into one clip and cut/delete
2. Push the red record button and begin recording. mistakes after, rather than recording the
3. Click Stop when finished. same things again and again and trying to
figure out which versions to combine.
Using “Found” Audio in Garageband
You’ll likely want to use music and other sound effects that you’ve found to supplement your
voice narration. If you’re on your own computer, you may have media at the ready. To access

this, you’ll open the media browser in the top right corner of GarageBand and then
drag items onto the timeline from there. If you’re on a public computer, you’ll have to download
the media locally and drag it in from your hard drive. To do this, you’ll need to:
1. Find some media!
a. Open a web browser and enter https://tinyurl.com/yc8lq4gg.
b. Download either Intro/Outro Music.mp3 (easy) or Lobo_Loco (more challenging)
by right clicking and selecting “Download.”

2. Lay the media onto your audio track.

a. Open the Finder (à) and locate the file.
b. Drag and drop the file onto your audio track.

Editing in GarageBand
If you have used high quality audio in your project, you shouldn’t need extensive editing to
complete your project or clip (hint: always try to capture and use the highest quality audio up
front for the most successful project!). However, there are a few tools and actions that you
should know about.
SPLITTING A TRACK INTO CLIPS & MOVING / ORGANIZING CLIPS
When you record or import audio, you get a single clip for each file or recording you do. It’ll be a
rarity if you never have to move or split a clip! Moving allows you to organize when your clips
play throughout the overall recording. And splitting the track into multiple clips, allows you to
move or otherwise manipulate those clips independently.
To move your clips from left (earlier in the overall project) to right (later in the overall project)
or up and down (from one track to another), you merely click on a clip to select it and drag it to
the desired location on the timeline.
To make a cut:

1. Click the scissor icon up in the control bar. This will open track
editor in the bottom of your workspace.
2. Find and move your playhead to the place where you’d like to make a cut/split.
3. Make sure the correct clip is selected (featured below in the track editor), since you’ll
likely have layered audio above or below that one and you want to only cut/split one
of them.
4. Split by using the following options:
a. Right clicking the the track in the track editor and choosing “Split at Playhead”
b. Typing “Command + T”
 5. Now your track should be split and you can move, further cut, or delete either of the
two portions.
In order to better organize your clips, you can:
1. Rename your tracks so that they make sense to you upon first glance. To do this, simply
double click on the track name to make it an editable field.
2. Reorder your tracks by simply clicking and dragging them up and down.

TIP: For ease in editing, try muting all tracks aside from the one you’re working with. Then, unmute the
ones necessary for reviewing and playback. You can do this by selecting “Mute” under each track name.

VOLUME & AUDIO EDITING

You might find that your audio has too much echo or isn’t loud enough. This means you’ll need
to know some basic editing tools to help you improve your sound.
Editing volume of an entire track can be done by dragging the control on the volume slider
left (lower) to right (higher). This is located under the track name and next to the mute option for
each track.
Editing volume to particular parts of your tracks, like fading in and out, can be done by:
1. Enabling Automation, which allows you to make adjustments to each track audio
individually. To do so, click Mix > Show Automation or simply typing “A.”

2. Clicking on the track to apply a sound point. You can make as many of these as you’d
like. Creating two sound points will allow you to add a simple fade in or out. Creating
multiple will allow you to adjust sound as you progress through the track, which is good
for lowering the volume of background music for narration, for example.
3. Drag the sound point up or down to increase or decrease the audio at that moment.
Editing for echo and other problems:
Please remember that you can show the
“Smart Controls” at the bottom of your
workspace if you’d like to revisit those to
reduce echos or background noise. For
podcasting, lessening the echo, ambience,
and reverb might help your narration sound
more normal.

Saving & Exporting

As with any project, it is recommended that you save often.
To save an editable version of your project, you’ll want to click File > Save As.
To export as an audio file (WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc.), you’ll need to click Share > Export Song
to Disk.

For the most up-to-date technical support, view the GarageBand website here: https://support.apple.com/garageband

This site delves deeper into audio manipulation, using GarageBand for music production, and using GarageBand on mobile
devices such as your iPhone or iPad.

Resources For Finding and Sharing Audio:

Finding Free Sounds and Songs:
• Accelerated Ideas Royalty Free Podcast Intros: http://www.accelerated-
ideas.com/freemusictracks/aisearchtracks.aspx?stxt=intro
• Free Sound: www.freesound.org
• Bensound Royalty Free Music (requires attribution): https://www.bensound.com/
• Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sound
• Jamendo Royalty Free Music: https://www.jamendo.com/
• Free Music Archive http://freemusicarchive.org/
•Sharing:
• SoundCloud for audio (private embedding) https://on.soundcloud.com/creator-
guide/sharing
• Google Drive Link Share