There are a number of ways you can go about creating a song in Garageband iOS, including through Apple Loops, the Drummer, and the Smart instruments like the smart strings, keys, and smart guitar. Or you could create something entirely new from scratch with a real-life guitar like my PRS SE Custom 24 from ZZounds.
- 1) Hit ‘A’ for Automation on your keyboard, and Garageband will bring up the yellow volume bar. 2) Drop two automation points on the yellow line (there are three in the image above because I made a mistake). 3) Now select both of the points by clicking and dragging a box around them.
- Make beats online for free with Splice Beatmaker. Choose from millions of royalty-free samples and loops to sequence and experiment with.
- In which I make a progressive house drop in Garageband, and accidentally make a tutorial on EDM production basics in the process.Subscribe for more electroni.
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However, I think that doing it the quick and dirty way to start is a great way to familiarize oneself with the many features of Garageband. In fact, there’s a way of going about it that’s even faster than using the Smart Instruments. So how would a person go about making a song with Garageband for the first time?
To make a song in Garageband iOS
1) Choose an Apple Loop by clicking on the Loops icon on the top-right of the workspace
2) Drag a drum sample like “60s Shuffle Drumset” into the workspace
3) Drag and drop similarly titled Loops like “Against Time Piano” and “Against Time Staccato Strings”
While it’s fairly simple to create a song this way using Apple Loops and some of the DAWs’ other very useful features, if you wanted to make something on your own from the ground up, you would have to be a little more creative. In this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through the easiest way of making a song using loops which I just outlined in short-form format. You’ll have a good idea of what this software is capable of afterward.
Making a Song with Garageband iOS Loops and Smart Instruments
1) Open Up A New Project
The first thing you want to do when opening Garageband iOS is to start a new project. Garageband iOS will show you a number of options that you can use to create a song, including things like the Sound Library, the Live Loops, the Smart Piano, Alchemy Synth, the Smart Drums, Acoustic Drums, Beat Sequencer, the Guitar Amp, Smart Strings, and more.
What you want to use ultimately depends on a couple of factors, including what kind of instrument you like the most, as well as how easy you want your first song to be. The quickest and painless way of creating a song in Garageband iOS would be to use the Sound Library as well as the Apple Loops and quickly piece something together.
Contrary to what you may think, a lot can be accomplished with this. What I normally do, is I choose the Smart Piano to have Garageband open up the Workspace and the MIDI controls which can be seen in the second image here. After you’ve been brought to the keys that are organized in chords/4ths, click on the workspace icon on the top-left.
This is going to bring you to the workspace which is where all the software instrument tracks and audio recordings are held, including plug-ins, effects, and the vast majority of parameters and controls that you’ll use as part of Garageband.
2) Create Your Melody Using An Apple Loop
Select the ‘Loop’ icon, choose “Apple Loops,” and then scroll through the list while testing things out to find whatever sound you like. For this tutorial, I chose the “Against Time” piano riff, which is just 2 chords played over and over again in D Minor. Drag and drop your loop of choice into the workspace.
Many songwriters may actually start with a drum beat rather than a melody, but this is really up to personal preference. I like coming up with the melody first just because I find that trying to lay a melody over top of a drum beat is hard. However, If I’m playing my guitar (connected via an iRig HD 2 from Amazon) or another “real” instrument, I will actually choose to play over a beat, metronome, a drummer, or a time-keeper of some kind.
3) Add Smart Drums or a Drum Loop
When it comes to using Garageband iOS or even the Mac version, adding the drummer track is almost always the easiest part – with the exception of using Apple Loops – because it’s as simple as just turning it on and ensuring that our melody is on-time. You can either drag and drop a drum loop like the 60s Shuffle Drumset 01 into the workspace (the easiest way which I already showed you at the start), or you can use the Smart Drums.
To bring up the Smart Drums in Garageband iOS, click on the “+” sign on the bottom left hand of the project, and then select Smart Drums after swiping once to the right. This is going to allow you to quickly create a drumbeat that sounds good with the rest of your melody.
Setting up the Drummer in Garageband iOS than Mac, although, if you’ve read my guide on the Mac Drummer Track, you know it’s extremely intuitive as well. What you want to do is just drag and drop the different parts of the kit into the X/Y pad and see how they sound. Drag the icons according to the parameters that are clearly indicated in the pad, including “Quiet,” “Complex,” “Simple,” and “Loud.”
I prefer adding the clap first if I’m making a hip-hop beat or something similar, and then I’ll gradually throw in the snare and the kick, as well as the other accompanying parts of the kit like the shaker, cymbals, and hi-hats. Once you’ve set the Smart Drums up in a way that sounds good with the loop you have chosen, hit the big red Record button at the top-center of the interface to actually lay it down into the workspace.
One could argue that the way the Smart Drums works in Garageband iOS is on par with Mac, because you can change the parameters however you want, hit record to add it to the song, and then continue adjusting the Smart Drums while it records the changes in real time.
I think another equally important point to mention here is that what instrument you choose for the Smart Drums is going to change the genre of the song completely. For instance, if you use a hip-hop drummer for the backbone of the melody, the song will sound like a hip-hop song. But if you use a regular drummer, like a Rock Drummer and a rock preset, the song is going to sound more like a rock song.
4) Use Other Instruments to Fill Out Your Mix
When creating a song, there are just a few components that are incredibly important, and that’s the melody and the primary beat, which are usually made up of some type of instrument, like a guitar, piano, synth, and then a drum kit. Once you’ve created your drum rhythm and your main melody, from there, it’s really just a matter of experimentation in terms of where you want to take it next.
For instance, I like to add things like Pads and Soundscape to create more of an ambient vibe. There are a lot of options for where to take it, including the addition of instruments like the Ehru, the Guzheng, maybe another guitar part, or a flute.
It’s really up to you, but just remember that creating the main melody and the drum section are the most important aspects of building the foundation of the song. In this particular case, I used the Apple Loops for the bass instrument as well. I used the preset Diesel Power Sub Bass because it gives the track that much needed low-end and power.
Moving on, this is the foundation of how to make a song in the simplest way imaginable, however, you’ll probably want to create another melody from here because most songs have a chorus or some other kind of interlude, although, in mainstream hip-hop and pop songs nowadays, it’s not uncommon for the track to only feature a couple of chords.
5) Adding a Chorus
For this section, it’s essentially the same as what’s been shown above but with a few minor variations. Ultimately, if you want to keep things simple, you would want to use another Apple Loop that’s in the same key signature in order to keep the foundation of the track the same.
This is going to be the easiest way of keeping all of the melodies cohesive and fluid. In this case, I used the “Summer Vibes Piano Chords,” shortly after the “Against Time” piano track stops playing. These two chord progressions work fine together, but the vibe of the track definitely changes, going from being a relatively somber track with a Dorian vibe, to more of a happy song.
6) Adding Transitions
Transitional phrases, essentially, are when you change up the patterns on the instruments just a little bit to spice the song up and add a few dynamics to it for the sake of not only smoothness but also just to be more entertaining. A common way of doing this is to temporarily halt the Drums from playing which will then lead to the next part of the song.
Another way of adding a transitional phrase to a song is to use the drum trick which I just mentioned above, and then once the chorus starts playing, you can throw in the new instrument, which, in this case, is the Chinese Traditional instrument.
At this point, we’ve created 90% of the song. From here, you’ll want to adjust the levels on your mix, add plug-ins and other effects, and then get ready to export it to your desktop, assuming you have a Mac computer and you can load it into Garageband Mac for a better mix.
If you don’t have Garageband on your Mac or you don’t even own a Mac computer (get this one from Amazon if you are in the market for a MacBook Pro), it’s not a big deal because you can actually mix your tracks directly in Garageband iOS, although, it’s certainly not the best way to go about it.
7) Mix the Final Track
In simplest terms, the purpose of mixing a track is to make everything sound a lot better. It’s amazing what a compressor and EQ can do. Mixing, which includes adjusting the volume, effects, automation, and dynamics processors, definitely makes an extraordinary contribution to the overall quality of your song, in fact, it’s one of the reasons why I recommend reading Bobby Owsinski’s The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook (from Amazon).
This tutorial won’t dive into how to do this 100%, mostly because mixing is a whole other art form. To start the mixing process, you want to use your finger and find the little grey tab left-hand side of the software instrument track icons. This is going to bring up the VU meters as well as the mute and isolate icons so you can hear how things sound by themselves or when eliminated from the rest of the mix.
Additionally, if you want to bring up the mixing menu for the individual tracks, you can just press on the little icon that looks like a bunch of icons on the top-left hand side of the Garageband iOS interface. The most important part of mixing, without a doubt, are the volume levels. This is around 80% of the mixing battle, and it’s where the vast majority of the changes are made to make everything sound better.
A) Adjusting the Volume
There are two things to keep in mind when adjusting the volume. One is that you want to listen to your project with solid headphones. Because you’re using Garageband iOS, I assume portability and convenience are important to you, which is one of the reasons why I recommend getting the Etymotic ER4SE studio monitors from Amazon.
In addition to the fact these aim for a flat neutral response, there is one specific reason why these are one of the best pairs of headphones you can get for the money. The other is that you want to make sure that none of your software instrument tracks or audio recordings go into the red, which means they’re clipping and will end up distorting on the final project.
To bring the volume on your tracks down, you just have to drag the fader over to the left to the point where the signal is no longer clipping. Listen and pay attention to the way that everything sounds, and get your levels to sound good without having your instrument tracks going into the red.
B) Changing the Panning
After you’ve adjusted the volume, the next thing I would approach is the panning. It’s important to note that the volume changes you made before may appear to change once you’ve panned all of the instruments to where you want them to be using my guide as a frame of reference.
A general panning rule is to keep your bass and other low-end instruments in the center or slightly to the right or the left, although, this certainly isn’t a rule, it’s more of a guideline. Because we’ve used things like Loops and the Drummer track, there isn’t a lot that can be done with panning, because all of the parts of the drummer track are in one channel, and thus, the different sections of the kit can’t be panned to other areas.
However, panning will become a lot more useful when you’ve created something from scratch. As I’ve already mentioned, mixing is a thorough process, but there are some year-saving tips that I’ve written about before.
C) Adding Compressors, EQs, and Other Effects
When it comes to adding compression, EQ, and other effects, the same thing that was said for panning can be said here as well, which is that if you’re using things like the drummer track and loops, there won’t need to be many changes.
Using EQ, compression, and other dynamics processors are more useful when it comes to adjusting the sounds of actual recordings, but it’s still useful on software instrument tracks, or for changing the vibe slightly on your loops. To bring up the effects, it’s the same process for adding panning and adjusting the volume, which is to hit the little button that looks like a bunch of faders.
After this, you want to click on the “Plug-Ins and EQ” menu to bring up the processors, and then you click on “Edit” to add the plug-ins that you want. Also, make sure you actually turn them on by clicking on the little power button which turns blue if it’s on and grey if it’s off.
Admittedly, Garageband iOS doesn’t come with a very good EQ, however, there are free and other inexpensive options available which I’ve discussed before. For this song, it makes sense to add EQ and compression to things like the piano, the flute, and the bass, but for everything else, I’ll just leave it as default.
Channel EQ
For the channel EQ, I attenuated (decreased) some of the lower frequencies to make room for the Diesel Power Sub Bass, then I turned up the middle-highs a bit by +1-2dB, and then I attenuated the highest frequencies because there isn’t much there anyway. Using Garageband Mac’s presets is a great way to approach this as well.
Compressor
For the compressor, I didn’t make a lot of changes to the default preset, other than increasing the threshold so it actually effects the signal, and then I turned up the ratio and attack. Compression is a little more complicated than the Channel EQ, however, there are just a few things you have to consider and understand when using it which I’ve explained before.
The bottom line on compression is that it reduces the volume of the loudest peaks and brings up the volume of the quietest parts. By using the “Gain” feature, you can increase the total volume of the processed signal which is usually brought down by using a compressor.
Adding Effects like Delay, Reverb, and More
For this song, I didn’t think it was necessary to add much effects, however, in the case that you do want to add some effects, I would say that delay, reverb, chorus, and phasers are among the most useful to use. To bring up the effects, it’s essentially the same thing as bringing up the dynamics processors, which is to click on the “fader” icon and then click edit to bring up the individual plug-ins with your software instrument track selected. Click on the Green button to add the effects on the right.
How to Share or Export Your Garageband iOS Song
Now that you’ve finished adding everything to the tracks and you’ve changed the volume, it’s time to share the project by either exporting it as a Stereo file or by exporting it as a project so you can play around with it more in Garageband Mac. To do this, you just have to go back to the song menu, right-click on the project, and then click the option “Share,” which is going to bring up the options menu for exporting the song.
If you choose to share it as a completed stereo track, choose the highest quality, which is the Uncompressed (AIFF).Another option is to share it as a project to your desktop so you can put it into Garageband. You just have to select the option and it’ll take a moment for it to export. Once that’s done, it’ll be on your desktop and you can then open it in Garageband Mac.
Mastering the Song in Garageband iOS
This, like mixing, is a whole other tutorial on its own, however, we’ll explore it briefly here. The mastering phase is the final part of the process where we get the project to sound as good as we possibly can while also matching the volume of the competition (although not everyone likes this).
To master, select the song and then export it as a stereo .WAV file. Share it as a Song and once it has been successfully exported as a .WAV file which you do by saving it, then you reinsert it into Garageband iOS interface to add a compressor, a channel EQ, a limiter, and other dynamics processors.
Important Things to Note About Making Songs in Garageband iOS
1) Mix and Master the Song in Garageband Mac Instead
As I’ve explored already, making a song in Garageband iOS is fairly easy, but when it comes to mixing and mastering, I would say it’s definitely a much better option to use Garageband Mac. Sure, it can be done with iOS, but your workflow is just going to be a lot smoother and simpler if you use Garageband Mac. This same argument could probably be made for making the song from scratch as well.
Products Mentioned
1)PRS SE Custom 24 from ZZounds
2)iRig HD 2 from Amazon
3) 2020 13″ MacBook Pro from Amazon
4) Bobby Owsinski’s The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook from Amazon
5) Etymotic ER4SE Headphones from Amazon
In this tutorial today, I’m going to show you how I would make a very simple trap beat in Garageband.
I should probably start out with a few disclaimers to protect myself from getting eviscerated in the comments.
Truthfully, I can’t show you how to make the best trap beat around and also score you a #1 hit on the Billboard 100, because I’ve done neither of those things, but I can get you started down the right path.
Moreover, I’m not an expert on Trap Music. From an outsider looking in, all I can do is show you how I would make a Trap Beat if I was going to create one – stamped with my individual style – for a client.
With all that said, I find that trap beats are some of the simplest songs to make because they tend to be short, they don’t have interludes, and they usually use the same melody throughout the song. Ultimately, there are a few steps one can take.
To Make a Trap Beat in Garageband
- Use the Trap Door or the Trap Kit from Drum Pro
- Have a snare on every third beat
- Use double or triple-time hi-hats
- Set the BPM between 100 and 170
- Make a melody in a minor key
- Use the same melody throughout the song
- Use a flute or another woodwind instrument
- Use chants, sirens, and other sounds
Some of these steps will need to be unpacked, so we’ll do that now.
by the way, I have a list of all the best products for music production on my recommended products page, including the best deals, coupon codes, and bundles, that way you don’t miss out (you’d be surprised what kind of deals are always going on).
What This Tutorial Will Include
For this tutorial, I created a track and called it “Gunshots.”
I’ll explain the simple music theory behind the melodies, including chords, key signatures, scales, and modes. I’ll assume that you know almost nothing about music theory.
I should also add that it’s not necessary at all to learn music theory if you want to create cool songs and melodies. As I mentioned before, it’s mostly just a way of communicating efficiently with other musicians.
In fact, when I wrote this song, I had no idea what scales or modes I was using. I just created a simple chord progression, and then messed around until I found something that sounded cool.
Lets Begin
Characteristics Of Trap Music
There are a few qualities of trap music which many people have grown accustomed to. I’m going to outline just a few of those things right now.
Obviously, there are other thematic principles and characteristics related to the lyrics and culture, but we’re talking about the musical aspects only for the sake of this tutorial. I made another tutorial on making sad trap beats as well.
Here are some of the most stand-out features of trap music:
- The snare on every third beat.
- Roland TR-808 (Boutique 808s) plays a key role
- Uses the Trap drum-kit which has its very own sound.
- Double or Triple Time hi-hats.
- In many cases, a dark-vibe
- Usually created with a Minor Key signature or Aeolian Mode.
- Tracks are typically between 100 and 175 Beats Per Minute but usually hovers around 145 – according to DJ Johnny Terror.
- Often incorporates the use of flutes
- Often uses chants/sirens/other miscellaneous sounds.
Without further ado…
Here’s the beat that I’ll show you how I made.
The actual process
Obviously, the first thing you want to do is create a new project in Garageband.
You could use the Hip-Hop template, but that would give you sounds and drum-kits that are more basic Hip-Hop, like Boom Bap, rather than a Trap beat.
1) Load the ‘Trap Door” drum-kit.
The first important step is to load up the Trap Door drum kit – found in the Electronic Drum Kit category near the very bottom.
I chose this as the first step, because the drum-kit commonly used by Trap producers is the most easily recognized characteristic.
Of course, there are other aspects to the style, but for the most part, that drum kit is going to make the listener think, “Oh, this sounds like a trap beat.”
Bonus tip: (There is also a great Trap Set that comes with the Drum Pro plug-in that I wrote about in this article here. You can find the Drum Pro plug-in at Plugins4Free)
2) Make the First Melody
I usually start with the melody afterward, and then I make the rhythm section because I guess I would say that I’m more of a melody rather than a rhythm-focused kind of a guy.
In this particular track, I wrote a melody using a simple C Minor chord, C-Eb, G, using the Classic Clean guitar setting, which you can find in the category, “Guitar,” in the Software Instruments tracks.
Now, you don’t have to make a beat using a minor key signature or minor chord progression, but a minor key signature is pretty common.
Thinking of Post-Malone’s Trap-influenced “Rockstar,” in particular, that track has a strong minor tonality.
It’s easily one of the most minor pop hits I’ve heard in a while, and it doesn’t have a switch to a Major Key signature at any point in the song.
If that isn’t Trap enough for you, Dave East and 2 Chainz’s track, “Can’t Ignore.”
That song is in D Minor and it really emphasizes the tonal center (the dominant note of the song, the note on which the rest of the track revolves) throughout the entire track by coming back to the D note repeatedly with both the piano and the 808s.
In the image you can see below, you can check out the simple chord on which the entire song (my song) is based, C Minor.
When I first began messing around with the MIDI keyboard, the C minor chord was my go-to chord. I literally just played around with that chord, C Eb, and G.
There are 12 notes in standard Western notation, C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, (F# or Gb), G, Ab, A, B, and Bb. Some of these notes have different ways of describing them, for instance, Gb can actually be F#.
Anyway, chords are known as triads, because there are literally 3 notes in it, hence the use of the “tri” prefix. Putting that to good use, a C Major chord means it’s the Root, the Third, and the Fifth.
Essentially, you just pick the root, in this case, C, and then the 3rd, E, and then G is the 5th because it’s literally the 5th note from C.
See:
C(1), D(2), E(3), F(4), G(5).
If you want to make the chord a minor, you use a flat on the third, which makes it a minor third. Now, it’s C, Eb, G = a C minor chord.
There are literally three notes in the entire chord progression in my song, “Gunshots.”
Assuming you’re an absolute beginner, you can play around with that chord to get a handle on the sound.
If you wanted to change it to a minor sound, you would just raise the Eb to instead, an E, which looks like this on the keyboard.
The great thing about this is that you can actually move these chords around all over the keyboard.
Additionally, once you’ve learned a couple of different shapes, you can create entirely different sounds just by modifying the formula a little bit.
3) Additional Melodies To Fill Things Out
After I’ve built the foundation of a melody, which is usually some kind of chord or chord progression I love, I move on to filling out the melody with other instruments.
In this case, I used two Steinway Grand Pianos for additional melodies. You’ll notice that adding another melodic line to a simple chord like that is already enough for a melody. Building a cool sounding melody really doesn’t have to be rocket science, however, if you do want to get more sophisticated in your use of the piano, you can’t go wrong with PianoForAll from their site which is probably the easiest and cheapest way of learning.
After making a simple C Minor chord as my melody, I used a Steinway Grand Piano and fooled around until I found something else that sounded cool, which just happened to be a C, but a much higher C note (2 Octaves higher).
Once I established a nice 3-note melody over top of the simple C Minor chord, I basically just messed around on the Steinway Grand Piano until I created something good, while keeping in mind the notes I used in the chord as a basis for the rest of the song.
In the case of this track, I played through a C Minor scale over top of a C Minor chord.
C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb.
However, the C Minor scale had a raised ‘A’ – a raised sixth degree of the scale, Which means that it’s actually the C Dorian mode, the Bb Major scale with its tonal center on the C, over top of the C Minor Chord.
If you took a chance and listened to the song I created, you’ll notice it has that jazzy sound, courtesy of the Dorian mode.
b) On the C Minor scale, I used a 12-Stage Phaser which you can set up in the plug-ins down in the smart controls. I set it to 71% feedback.
The picture below shows the Piano Roll for the Piano melody as well, not the three-note melody, or the Chord Progression, but the arpeggio that plays in the background.
4) Hi-Hats, Cymbals, and Shakers
Creating the hi-hats is probably the easiest part, due to the fact they’re so mathematical and precise in trap music.
For instance, you could easily just create each hi-hat exactly on the grid-line, or every other grid-line, and it’ll sound decent.
In this track, in particular, there is a hi-hat on every other grid-line. You’ll quickly pick up on how the hi-hats work in trap music. Also, you’ll see the two notes that are at a different level, those are the cymbals.
In other words, the hi-hats are on the eighth note, and the cymbal is every fourth beat.
Once you’ve
For example, rather than having a hi-hat on every other grid line, you could have one short part where there is a hi-hat on every single line, and then it goes back to just every other-grid line, which means that it’ll have that machine gun sound.
It’s hard to explain, but producers do it quite a lot in Trap music. The hi-hats are kind of like the way Metallica plays the main guitar riff of “Battery,” off of Master Of Puppets.
5) Creating the Kick and Snare
When creating the kick and snare, for me, it’s honestly as simple as making a beat the same way you would tap on your desk along to a song, or play the mock drums while in class like I always did in high school.
By that, I mean that most people can think of a beat right away just by banging on a table. It’s pretty intuitive and comes naturally to most people.
First things first, make sure your Trap Door kit is loaded up.
b) Have the octave set at ‘C1’ so you’re actually playing notes
c) The ‘A’ key on your keyboard is the Kick, and the ‘S’ key, is the snare. Just fool around with those two keys until you’ve created a cool kick and snare combination, hit the “Record” button, and then record it.
After you’ve created the rhythm section, you can go back manually and push the notes over closer to the grid-line.
There’s a much better way of doing this called the Quantizer function, however, it will change every note by a certain degree through automation.
I use it sometimes, but not always.
The truth is that the quantizer function can make everything sound a bit mechanical because everything is just a bit too perfect, or alternatively, the automation will make the beats not fall in line the way you wanted.
Assuming you want to use it, I’ll briefly explain to you how to use it here:
How to Use the Quantizer Function
By using the Quantize function – by the way, I have an entire tutorial on this – you can actually have Garageband fix all of the imperfections for you. The Quantize function is in the Piano Roll in the bottom section of the Smart Controls.
Click on the drop-down menu that has “Time Quantize” over top of it, and set it to 16th notes or 8th notes, depending on just how much work you want Garageband to do for you.
What this does, is it brings all of your MIDI notes exactly on the grid-line, that way everything sounds synchronized. The same thing can be done with more advanced software like Melodyne 5 from Plugin Boutique, however, the way Melodyne 5 does it is way more detailed and exact.
6) Creating the Bass with 808s/Deep Sub Bass Synth
In Garageband, you basically have a couple of different options for writing a bass-line using stock plug-ins and software instruments. We have Boutique 808s, 808 Bass, as well as the Deep Sub Bass synthesizer.
I’ll typically create one bass-line with an instrument and then copy and paste it into another software instrument track, just to see which one sounds better, the Deep Sub Bass, 808 Bass, or the Boutique 808, however, these days, I’ll use Initial Audio’s 808 Studio II Synth from Plugin Boutique instead which is probably the best 808 plugin I’ve used.
Remember above when I said that we used a C Minor chord for the main foundation of the song?
That will come in handy later on when I’m writing the bass-line. For instance, I’ll usually test out the notes of the chord on the bass-line, just to see how it sounds.
So, in this case, I’ll play the root note, C, as the primary bass-line to see what that sounds like, and then I’ll mess around with the notes of the chord, (C, Eb, and G) until I’ve found something that sounds cool.
You can see from the picture below that the bass-line isn’t overly complicated.
The notes of C Minor are thus: C, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D. Playing any one of those notes with your bass-line over a C Minor chord will work and sound alright.
Of course, you don’t have to JUST use those notes. It’s just a basic guidelineso you have an idea of what can be played.
b) Lining up the Kick and Bass
Once you’ve played about the bass-instrument, and crafted something you’re into, make sure to line up some of those notes with the Kick drum, to make sure you get that hard bass sound that people love to blast in their cars.
Explained in another way, you want to make your bass-line notes, or at least some of them, start on the same grid-line as the kick.
The reason for this is that it combines the attack of the kick with the bass-line and literally makes the track pump and bang.
7) EQ, Compression, Mastering, and Finally Uploading The Track
After you’ve made yourself a simple trap beat, following the guideline I laid out for you above, it’s time to mix and master everything. Like a lot of things in life, people love to over complicate things.
I’m not sure if it’s a type of procrastination or what, but personally, I’ve found that the less I mess around in this phase the better. Then again, I’m not a mixing master, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.
a) First thing I normally do, I head over to the master volume output meter and I set to +0 dB.
I’ve heard people say this level doesn’t matter, but I’ve found that when I have it cranked when I put it through the mixing and mastering process afterward, my mix ends up distorted, so I always make sure to turn it down.
b) Next thing I do, is I listen closely to the track together. I don’t listen to each track individually, I listen to everything as one song, as one unit. Turning up and down each VU metre as I see fit.
Bonus Tip: The Mixing and Mastering phase will likely make your hi-hats “hiss” too much, especially if you’ve increased the hi-end of your mix.So keep in mind that you want to turn down the loud drum parts a bit more than others.
c) Start playing the song, and pay close to attention to the colour of each individual track’s VU meter. At no point, ever, should the Green bar turn into Red.
You want the VU meters to hover in the green for most of the song, but during the loudest parts, the meter can go into the yellow.
d) EQ the Deep Sub Bass/Boutique 808 as well as the Kick. For the bass line, I’ll always drop the high frequencies because there’s no reason for them to be there.
*To access the EQ for individual Track Regions, double-click on the Track Region, and typically, there will be two options, “Control,” and “EQ.”
You can see from the image below, that I’ve given a little boost at 145 hz, and 35 hz, usually by around +3.5-4.0 dB.
There’s no reason to go too far ahead of +4 dB because you’ll end up just messing up your mix. However, if you think increasing the frequency by +15dB somewhere sounds good, give it a whirl, and tell me how it turns out.
e) Where you boosted the sound of the kick, subtract from the bass, to make room for that hard kick sound. This part isn’t that necessary for a beginner, so I won’t go into much detail.
f) Add a bit of distortion on the Boutique 808/Deep Sub Bass to make it sound a bit dirty.
To find distortion, just go into the plug-ins and find it in the drop-down menu. You can see it in the image I posted below:
The key to using distortion is to not use it too much. It’s kind of like a spice, like cayenne pepper.
You can see from the image below, that I have the Distortion set at +1.5 dB, and then the Output is turned down to -6.0dB.
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The output is turned down because distortion makes the bass so much louder.
Basically, I just turned down the distortion to the point where the volume doesn’t change, but the gritty sound as a consequence of the distortion has stayed the same.
Now that you’ve adjusted everything to your liking, it’s time to Export the track to your Desktop.
8) Export As An AIFF File
- To do this, click on the Tab in the top toolbar that says, “Share.”
- Then, go down where it says, “Export Song To Hardrive.”
- Make sure you choose the option, AIFF.
- Export it to your desktop, that way you have a much easier time finding it.
9) Open A New File – Drag And Drop AIFF File Back Into Garageband
Once you’ve dragged and dropped the file back into Garageband, you can start adjusting the EQ, Compressor, Multipressor, and so on and so forth.
For the sake of this tutorial, I’m only going to show you what adjustments I made to my track, before finally exporting it into Music.
There are literally tons of things you can do during this phase, and all of it is far beyond the scope of this brief tutorial. For that reason, I’ll just show you the three things that I did in this phase, and then we’ll call it a day.
Once you start the mastering process, you’ll notice that you have the options, “Track,” or “Master.”
You want to click on the button that says, “Master.”
Once the plug-ins show up, start modifying from there.
a) Compressor
Usually, I compress the file first using the Compressor plug-in down in the smart controls (more on the compressor in my guide).
In the past, I almost always used the Platinum Analog Tape preset, and it worked great, however, as I learned a lot more about the compressor, I decided to start using my own settings.
I set it to the settings below for “Gunshots.” Ignore the name of the preset.
b) EQ
As I’ve mentioned many other times before, less EQ is usually more.
There’s no reason to mess around with it too much, otherwise, you’ll just end up throwing something out of whack, and while it’ll sound good
I’ll usually drop the low-end a bit first, and then the high-end a bit, boost the mid-lows by 3-4 dB and then bring up the highs from 1000khz to 10,000khz by about +2dB.
I find that EQ adds a bit of brightness to the music, which I really enjoy.
You can check out the picture below to see for yourself.
c) Limiter
Go back into your plug-ins and then bring up a limiter.
No reason to get too sophisticated with this plug-in, just turn the gain up by around +1.5dB and turn down the output level to -0.5dB.
d) Finale
Give your final track a listen, and then go into the tool bar and click, “Share,” and share it to your iTunes or SoundCloud after filling out all of the information.
Uploading your music to iTunes first is usually the way to go, because then you get a quick judgment on the final product through an alternative platform, rather than just through Garageband.
Important Things to Consider
1) Make sure you’ve gone into the Garageband Preferences, into the Advanced Settings, and then uncheck the box, “Export At Full Volume,” as I’ve explained before.
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If this option is turned on, it’ll bring the total volume significantly down, to the point where it’s practically no good, because your music will be so much quieter than the competition.
2) Another disclaimer I have for people, just for the sake of avoiding confusion, is that I actually don’t use much music theory when I’m composing something.
Music theory is just a way of analyzing what you’ve created and then communicating that with other musicians, artists, and producers.
I may use basic theory, like understanding what the chords are in a key signature, but for the most part, I actually don’t use too much theoretical stuff. I just mess around until I’ve created something.
I could’ve gone into detail of the exact musical technical terminology to describe this stuff, but it wouldn’t be a beginner’s tutorial, so I tried to keep it as easy as possible.
Regardless, if you want to learn more about theory, I suggest checking out Mark Sarnecki’s book from Amazon including the Answer book which is an absolute must.
Conclusion
Anyway, I really hoped this helped you out. I’ll be releasing a video to go along with the rest of the content sometime soon. I know having a video would be immensely helpful.