Lesson 6. Working with Electric Guitars

Lesson Files

APTS GarageBand Book Files > Lesson 6 > 6-1 Electric Guitar Starting, 6-2 Electric Guitar Multi-take, 6-3 WahKazoo Guitar

Time

This lesson takes approximately 60 minutes to complete.

Goals

Follow an electric guitar recording session

Explore default effects in the Smart Controls

Work with stompboxes in the Pedalboard interface

Listen to different electric guitar patches

Explore Amp Designer and build a customized amp model

Split and separate a guitar region for dynamic change

Copy and paste a multitake region to build guitar tracks for a song

Use the Amp Collection project template for recording guitar tracks

If you play electric guitar or know a guitarist you can record, you’re in luck, because GarageBand is packed with awesome features for electric guitar and bass. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to create an electric guitar track, explore different electric guitar effects presets (patches), and follow a recording session with both single-take and multitake electric guitar regions. You’ll also try different amps to change the sound of a recorded guitar riff, use Amp Designer to create a customized amp, and explore the Pedalboard. And, at the end of the lesson, you’ll be invited to record your own electric guitar parts.

Not only is Chad a guitar expert, but he started out songwriting and recording with GarageBand back when he was still in high school. Since then, he has moved up to Apple Logic Pro for his recording, so he was quite surprised to work with some of the awesome new GarageBand features.

Chad brought along his Two Ply body Stratocaster with a Warmoth walnut neck as well as his Fender Blues DeVille amplifier with an assortment of stompboxes (effects pedals). But since the point of this recording session is to explore GarageBand’s electric guitar presets, amps, and pedals, Chad had to leave all his extra gear in the lobby.

So, armed only with his custom electric guitar and a cable I supplied to connect it to my MacBook Pro, Chad started recording. Let’s open the project and save it to your projects folder.

1. Open the project 6-1 Electric Guitar Starting.

2. Save the project in your My GarageBand Projects folder on the desktop.

Here is a quick rundown of the project elements, in no particular order:

The Library is showing.

There are 14 tracks in this project.

All tracks containing regions are muted except the top track, called Guitar 14.

All of the audio track headers include Record Enable and Input Monitoring buttons.

The bottom track, called SoCal Kit, is a Drummer track.

The LCD display is in Beats & Project mode.

The project properties as shown in the LCD display include a 78 bpm tempo, the key of C major, and a 4/4 time signature.

Here is a quick recap of what we did to connect the electric guitar and prepare for recording this take.

To connect Chad’s electric guitar to the computer, we used a 1/4" to 1/8" cable connected to the Audio In port on my MacBook Pro.

To record a single take in the timeline, we created a new electric guitar track (named Guitar 14). In the Smart Controls inspector, we used the following settings:

In the Guitar 14 track header, the Record Enable button was turned on (flashing red) to indicate that the track was armed to record. Also, the Input Monitoring button was on (orange) so that Chad could hear the electric guitar through his headphones.

Chad did three things before recording: He tuned his guitar using the built-in tuner in the toolbar, he set the project tempo to 78 bpm, and finally, he practiced his riff to the click track.

In this exercise, you’ll follow along and listen to Chad’s riff just as it sounded when he practiced and recorded the first track.

1. Start playback and listen to the region in the Guitar 14 track.

2. As you listen to the riff, see if you can tap the 78 bpm tempo along with the metronome’s click track.

Trouble is, even wearing studio headphones Chad had trouble hearing the click track over the sound of his electric guitar as he practiced his riff before we started recording. Also, you may have noticed click tracks are fabulous musical timekeeping tools, but not very inspiring if you are trying to “feel” the tempo/rhythm while you record. When he asked if I could add a drum track for him to use, I suggested he try out one of GarageBand’s new virtual drummer tracks.

Needless to say, Chad was so blown away by the virtual drummers that we had to stop and listen to each of the rock drummers to find one with the hard-hitting edge he was looking for. Finally, we settled on Anders, who plays grinding beats on a massive-sounding kit. If you are working with the free install, Kyle the default drummer works well too.

3. Click the Metronome button, or press K to turn off (kill) the metronome. Press C to turn on Cycle mode.

4. Then unmute the SoCal Kit track to hear the default Drummer track. If you have the full set of 18 Drummers and you’d like to unleash the rockin’ Anders track, select the current Drummer track header and open the Drummer Editor (press E). In the Drummer Editor, click the sketch of Kyle to see all six Rock genre Drummers. Select Anders as your new Drummer. Save your project.

Whichever Drummer you are using, both Kyle and Anders work infinitely better than the lowly metronome click track.

5. Start playback to hear the single-take guitar track with the drummer track. Very cool. And we are just getting started. Stop playback.

You have been listening to the guitar riff in a default electric guitar track.

Did you happen to notice that the sound of the electric guitar is very “clean” as far as electric guitar sounds go? “Clean” is another way of saying “without effects,” except maybe a touch of reverb. For many musicians, recording with a “clean” sound makes it easy to focus on their performance, tempo, and the feel of the rhythm tracks.

In the next exercise you’ll look at some of the effects you can add to your electric guitar tracks.

Stompboxes are so named because they’re placed on the floor within reach of the musicians, so that they can quite literally stomp on them to turn them on or off as needed. A light tap of the toe also works, but is much less dramatic on stage.

GarageBand amp models and Pedalboard plug-in effects sound and respond just like the real thing—no extra equipment, cables, or stomping required. You’ve seen a picture of a real amp and stompboxes; now let’s experiment with GarageBand’s digital electric guitar effects.

1. Select the Guitar 14 track, and take a look at the instrument and patch in the Library.

Aha. Didn’t I mention it sounded clean? The instrument category is Clean Guitar, and the patch is Brit and Clean. Doesn’t get much cleaner than that. In case you are curious what the default Brit and Clean amp looks like, see for yourself.

At the top of the Library you’ll see the track icon for the selected patch, which is an amplifier in the spotlight center stage. Not only do the GarageBand amp models simulate the sound of famous guitar amplifiers, they also look just like the real thing!

2. Press B, or click the Smart Controls button to see the default effect settings for the Clean Guitar, Brit and Clean patch.

If you look carefully at the screen controls (knobs and switches), you’ll see that all of the switches are turned off except for the spring reverb. That switch is turned on, but it’s set to a very light amount of reverb.

3. Start playback, and then drag up on the Spring Reverb knob to change the amount to 9 or 10. Then turn on the Echo switch and raise the amount on that one too.

You should definitely hear the change in the effects you just adjusted. Your settings may not sound good, but they will be audible.

If you want to compare your changes to the default preset settings, you can click the Compare button. When a preset has been modified, the button glows blue; when it is turned off, you see the default preset setting. Let’s try it.

4. In the upper-left corner of the Smart Controls pane, click the blue Compare button to show the default settings.

5. Click the Compare button again. When it glows blue, it shows your custom settings.

Next, you’ll add some distortion and compressor effects. But wait—don’t click anything yet.

You see, the effects grouped together on the left side of the Smart Controls are controlled by the amp model settings—in this case, the British Combo amp—whereas the controls grouped together in the middle are controlled by the Pedalboard plug-in. I won’t tell you where the reverb is coming from. You’ll discover that on your own shortly.

1. In the upper-right corner of the Smart Controls pane, click the Pedalboard button to show the stompboxes (pedals) that come with the default track.

There is nothing subtle about the Pedalboard or the effects it contains; it takes over most of the GarageBand window real estate. You can resize the Pedalboard in a minute, but for now we’ll dive in and see how Pedalboard plug-ins work. First, take in the realistic detail of the pedals and board. Notice the dent and scratches on the silver Squash Compressor. There’s even nonslip carpet in the Pedal area to cushion the stompboxes.

Pedal browser—Here you can see all of the pedal effects and utilities. You can drag pedals from the browser into the Pedal area as part of the effects signal chain.

Pedal area—Here is where you set effect parameters and determine which order the effects will be in the effects chain. You can add, remove, and reorder the pedals.

The button to stomp on or off is located near the bottom of each pedal, where it would be easy to reach with a foot in the real world—or with the pointer in GarageBand. If a stompbox is turned off, the effect switch in the Smart Controls pane will also be switched off.

2. Click the On/Off switches for both pedals. A red LED light indicates that the pedals are on. Also, the corresponding switches in the screen controls area of the Smart Controls pane are in the on position.

If you are unsure which pedals correspond with which screen control you can always take a peek under the hood at the Router.

3. Move your pointer over the black horizontal panel above the pedals.

The Router is where you can see which screen controls correspond with each pedal. In this example, the corresponding effects are Distortion and Compressor. Notice that both effects are now on in the screen controls because you switched them on with the stompboxes.

If you want to remove a stompbox from the Pedal area, you simply drag it off the board. You can follow Chad’s lead on this one. He likes a clean spring reverb and light delay to thicken it up and give a little extra sustain. Also, typically he likes his sound a little bassier and pulls back the treble since he is the only guitarist in the band.

In other words, you’re going to toss out the Hi-Drive Treble Boost pedal.

4. Drag the Hi-Drive pedal from the board and release it. The remaining pedals fill in the space to the left on the board, and the corresponding controls disappear from the Smart Controls pane.

If you decide later to add the Hi-Drive treble boost pedal, it is still available any time in the Pedal browser.

5. In the Pedal browser, click the Category pop-up to see the different pedal effect categories. These categories include Distortion, Pitch, Modulation, Delay, Filter, Dynamics, and Utility. Choose Show All from the Category pop-up if it is not already selected.

You can use the Category pop-up menu to limit the pedals shown to a specific category, or choose Show All to reveal all of the effects pedals. The effects are also listed by effects category in the Smart Controls pane.

6. In the Pedal browser, select one of the stompboxes and drag it to the board. The new effect also appears in the Smart Controls pane.

Let’s resize the Pedalboard so you can get back to work in the timeline.

7. In the top-right corner of the Pedalboard, choose 50% from the View pop-up, or drag the edges to resize manually. To further reduce the size of the Pedalboard, click the disclosure triangle in the lower-right corner of the pedal area to hide the Pedal browser. Move the conveniently sized Pedalboard to the right side of the tracks area.

Ideally you will be able to see the Library, track headers, and Smart Controls pane while you test-drive four different electric guitar presets. Now that you’ve resized the Pedalboard, you can close or open it any time and it will remain at the current size until you change it again.

8. Start playback and listen to Chad’s guitar riff with your new pedal effect applied. Turn the pedals on and off during playback to hear the sound with and without the effect.

By now you probably noticed the big blue button in the upper-left corner of the Pedalboard that looks like a power button.

This is, in fact, the power button for the Pedalboard.

9. Start playback. In the upper-left corner of the Pedalboard, click the blue power button to turn it off. You can immediately hear the difference in the sound of the riff playing in the timeline. Also, visually the Pedalboard controls are dimmed on the screen controls to show they have been disabled (turned off).

10. Click the power button again to turn it back on.

You can close the Pedalboard for now, but whenever you want to see which pedal effects are in use or add a new pedal, you are ready to go.

11. Click the close button (x) in the upper-left corner of the Pedalboard to close it.

Now you know how to turn on/off, add, and remove stompboxes as well as resize, move, and close the Pedalboard. You’ve also seen firsthand the correlation between the screen controls and Pedalboard stompboxes. Chances are you will better understand and appreciate the different electric guitar sounds you can generate in GarageBand.

1. Select the Guitar 14 track header, if it is not already selected.

2. In the Library, select a different Clean Guitar patch, such as Amazing Tweed or Chicken Pickin’. Since you have a new instrument patch loaded, you might as well listen to it. Play a few bars of the riff with the new patch to hear the difference.

Whenever you select an instrument patch for a track, it changes all of the effects applied to that track accordingly.

3. Select the Brit and Clean patch to reset the effects to the original default settings. Play a few bars to hear the “clean” default guitar again.

The track should sound familiar. The only difference is that the track name has changed to Brit and Clean. As a new track default, the track comes with a generic name; in this project it was Guitar 14. Once you go through the trouble of selecting a patch and changing the sound, the track names update accordingly.

Let’s move the guitar region to some of the empty tracks to hear how the riff sounds with different guitar patches. If you select the track header for the new track containing the region, you’ll see the Smart Controls settings. Oh, and just for fun, one of the tracks has a bass guitar amp model and sound. You’ll figure it out, because it will be identified as such in the Library, and there won’t be a Pedalboard for the track.

1. Start playback and drag the single-take region down one track to hear the Modern Stack sound.

There will be a slight delay after you move the region to a new track before the sound switches to the new effects preset.

2. Click the track header for the Modern Stack track to see its screen controls and the preset in the Library.

3. Drag the region to the third stack called Clean Studio Stack; then click the track header to see the related patch and controls. You may have noticed it also sounds very clean. It should—all of the effects are turned off, and it is, after all, called Clean Studio Stack. You can modify the sound later, but for now, keep going to the next track.

4. Drag the region to the fourth track called Surfin’ in Stereo, and click the track. Totally tubular, dude! The patch transformed Chad’s riff right into a vintage surf movie soundtrack riff.

Check out the screen controls. The only effects that are turned on are Tremolo and Reverb. That means the surf sound is coming from some gnarly stompbox effects.

5. Click the Pedalboard button in the Smart Controls. Continue playback. Hover your pointer over the Router panel to see the Router effects in the chain.

Interesting. There are three stompboxes, but only Tremolo is turned on, as indicated by the red LED light. That means the other pedals are in place to further enhance the surf sound as needed.

6. Click the on switches for the Overdrive and Delay effects to hear all three pedals in action. Definitely a much edgier surf sound. Close the Pedalboard.

7. Start playback if needed and move the region to the last test track, Wide Wide Wah. Now that’s a serious heavy metal sound that Anders the virtual drummer would appreciate.

A sound that big must have a massive amp. Take a look at the Track icon in the Library.

Wait...that little thing creating such a monster sound? Really? So the amp must be getting a lot of help from the Pedalboard.

8. Open the Pedalboard. Okay. That explains a lot. Four stompboxes. Yes, there are four—you have to drag the horizontal slider at the bottom of the pedal area to see them all.

9. Stop playback and close the Pedalboard.

Now that you’ve had a taste of the electric guitar patches and stompbox sounds you can generate in GarageBand, let’s look at the last piece of the effects puzzle: the amps.

When Chad is performing with his band, he typically travels with two different guitar amplifiers: a ValveTrain Trenton and a Fender Blues DeVille, depending on the size of the event.

In this exercise you’ll explore the Amp Designer interface so you’ll understand the various parameter areas and know how to change or customize amp models.

1. Drag the single-take riff you’ve been working with to the top track, now called Brit and Clean. Select the Brit and Clean header if it is not already selected.

2. Take a look at the Brit and Clean amp icon in the Library. You are about to get a much closer look at the default amp.

3. In the top-right corner of the Smart Controls pane, click the Amp Designer button. Amp Designer opens with a much larger, and realistic, version of the current Brit and Clean amp model. Feel free to resize the Amp Designer interface as needed.

Hello, British Combo! What you are looking at is the British Combo complete amp model used for the default Brit and Clean sound. Each complete amp model includes an amp, a speaker cabinet, an EQ preset, and a microphone that re-creates a well-known guitar amp sound.

The Amp Designer plug-in has the following parameter areas:

Model parameters—These are the pop-up menus in the black bar at the bottom of the Amp Designer interface that are used to choose a complete amp model, including an amplifier, a cabinet, an EQ type, and a microphone.

Amp parameters—You’ll find these knobs on both ends of the knob section; they are used to set an amp’s input gain, presence, and master level.

Effects parameters—These are in the center of the knobs section and control the integrated effects.

Microphone parameters—You’ll find these parameters on the right side of the interface. You can use them to select the type of microphone and the position of the microphone that captures the amplifier and cabinet sound.

Output slider—This slider in the lower-right corner of the interface controls the final volume level for the Amp Designer’s output. This is not the same as the Master Control knob on the amp, which is used for both sound design and controlling the level of the amp section.

Let’s try some of the different parameter areas to see how they work together to complete the overall sound of the amp model. You can choose different complete amp models in the Model pop-up menu in the lower-left corner of the Amp Designer interface.

4. Start playback to hear the Brit and Clean default sound.

5. Click the Model pop-up to see all 25 complete amp models. Select the Boutique Retro Combo to see a completely different type of amp model.

Nifty look and sound. Next.

6. Select a different amp model, or go ahead and try them all. When you are finished, select the Large Tweed Combo and stop playback.

Does this amp model look familiar? There is a picture of an actual amp just like this (the Fender Blues DeVille) at the beginning of the lesson.

Let’s reduce the size of the interface to focus on the Model parameters and knobs area of Amp Designer. Then you can try out some of the parameter areas to see how they work together to complete the overall sound of the amp model.

7. Click the disclosure triangle at the bottom of the Amp Designer, just to the left of the Mic pop-up. The Amp Designer window reduces to just a small interface with all of the essential parameters and controls, without showing the amp, cabinet, and mic position.

Compare the knobs area in Amp Designer to the knobs on the top of Chad’s amp. Same tweed, same cabinet, same knobs (just in different placement).

The Amplifier parameters are:

Gain—This knob sets the amount of preamplification that is added to the input signal. Basically, it raises the level of the guitar sound on its way from the guitar into the amp. Hence the name preamplification.

Presence—This knob adjusts the ultra-high frequency range that is above the range of the Treble control. The Presence levels affect only the Master output as controlled by the Master knob.

Master—You can turn this knob to set the output volume of the amplifier signal sent to the cabinet.

8. Drag the reduced Amp Designer so it is directly above the Smart Controls pane.

9. Change the Model pop-up to British Combo. The Amp Designer knobs area matches the screen controls for the track. Coincidence? I think not. Clearly they are meant to go together like two presets in a pane. Click the big blue power button to turn off Amp Designer.

The Gain and Reverb screen controls are disabled (dimmed). Now you know where the touch of reverb was coming from in the default electric guitar patch.

10. Click the power button on Amp Designer again to turn it back on.

Now that Reverb is back on, why not try a few of the different reverb sounds available in Amp Designer?

11. Above the center of the knobs area on Amp Designer, click the word REVERB to see the Reverb pop-up menu.

12. Start playback and try each of the choices in the Reverb pop-up. When you are finished, set the Reverb pop-up back to Simple Spring.

13. Click the EQ pop-up menu (above the Bass, Mids, and Treble knobs) to see the various EQ presets.

14. Start playback and try each of the different EQ presets in the EQ pop-up to hear how they sound with the current amp model. When you are finished, set the EQ pop-up back to British Bright. Stop playback.

15. Click the disclosure triangle next to the Mic pop-up menu to display the entire Amp Designer interface.

As you can see, Amp Designer is an exciting way to get the look, feel, and sound of well-known amps.

The processed sound of a particular electric guitar and amp combo adds character and personality to a song and can be almost as important as the performance itself. Since the introduction of the electric guitar in 1931, popular bands from all genres and generations have developed their signature sounds around their electric guitars in addition to their lead vocals.

If the preset amp models let you sound like famous guitar players from your favorite bands, why would you want to change anything? Sometimes, sounding like everyone else makes it difficult to get noticed—regardless of your level of talent. Creating a fresh sound is one way to separate your music from everyone else out there. Keep in mind, a fresh sound should also work with your music, not against it.

In this exercise you’ll start with a complete amp model; then you’ll use pop-up menus to change the amplifier, cabinet, EQ type, and mic placement. When you are finished, you’ll save your custom amp model so that you can use it on future projects or other tracks in this project.

1. In the Model pop-up choose an amp model to start with. Choose whichever model you like; just remember it will look and sound completely different when you are finished customizing it.

Now you are going to totally rebuild it into a custom amp.

2. Choose an amplifier from the Amp pop-up. If you’d like to hear how the various amps sound, start playback and listen to their sounds.

3. Choose a cabinet from the Cabinet pop-up. The cabinet will determine the number and type of speakers as well as the size of the amp.

4. Click the Mic pop-up menu to show the seven types of microphones available.

Although there are seven mic models, there are only three primary types:

Condensor microphones—These have a fine, well-balanced sound and are often used in high-end studio recording.

Dynamic microphones—These mics sound brighter and more cutting with boosted mid-range and softer low-mid frequencies. They are popular for rock guitar tones to help the sound stand out when mixed with other tracks.

Ribbon 121—This is a type of dynamic microphone that delivers a bright yet warm sound. It’s popular for rock, crunch, and clean guitar tones.

5. Make a choice from the Mic pop-up menu. Move the pointer toward the mic image (above the Mic pop-up area) to see the mic placement grid. Drag the white dot—representing the mic—in the grid to change the mic placement in front of the speaker.

Your amp model is nearly complete. All that’s left is to adjust the Reverb and EQ settings.

6. On the amp knobs area, click the EQ pop-up menu and select an EQ style that fits your customized amp model.

7. Choose a type of reverb from the Reverb pop-up. Remember, this is the default guitar track you are modifying, so the reverb may be limited. Drag the Level knob in the reverb area in the middle of the knobs area on the amp.

8. When you are finished, stop playback.

Time to save your customized amp model. You can save your amp settings in the Settings pop-up menu in the top left of the Amp Designer interface.

9. Click the Settings pop-up menu and select Save As. Do not select Save As Default or your setting will be the new default setting—not that it isn’t good enough, but for now, let’s just save the setting so you can use it in future projects.

10. In the Save Setting As dialog, type your first name and something that describes the amp. In this example the cabinet I used was called Sunshine 1x12 so I couldn’t resist including Sunshine in the name. Do not change the location for the saved settings. As long as they save into the Amp Designer folder, you will be able to recall them any time you are using Amp Designer on the current computer. Click Save.

The Settings pop-up menu at the top of the interface now shows the name of your custom amp model.

11. Click the Settings pop-up menu to see your saved amp model in the list near the bottom of the menu.

You can use this menu to load any of the electric guitar instrument patches from the Library. The patches are organized in three submenus—Clean, Crunch, and Distorted—just like the Library. Select a patch from one of the submenus to load it in Amp Designer.

The amp model for whichever patch you selected automatically loads in Amp Designer and is ready for playback.

12. Start playback to hear the new patch; then close Amp Designer. Stop playback, and press B to hide the Smart Controls pane.

The amp model for the patch you selected is loaded in Amp Designer and ready to play. Now that you’ve experimented with electric guitar amps, screen controls, and stompboxes, it’s time to get back to the timeline and put the electric guitar effects to work.

1. Drag the single take of Chad’s riff to the Clean Studio Stack track.

2. Option-drag the same region down one track to the Surfin’ in Stereo track.

3. Start playback.

The two sounds work well together. You can try different patches later; the idea is that you have created a different sound by doubling the guitar part. This technique also works well with an acoustic guitar patch and electric guitar patch for the two tracks.

To separate the doubled tracks so that they sound like two different players, you can drag the pan dial up, to pan the sound left—or down, to pan the sound right. A little panning goes a long way. You’ll learn more about panning tracks in Lesson 8, “Mixing Music and Adding EQ Effects.”

4. In the Clean Studio Stack track header, click the Pan knob and drag down slowly until the Pan overlay says –25 (25 left).

5. Drag up slowly on the Surfin’ in Stereo track Pan knob until the overlay shows +25 (25 right).

6. Play the tracks to see if you can hear the acoustic separation of the instruments now that one is more to the left and the other more to the right. Stop playback.

As you can see, it takes only a few minutes to double a guitar track, but it can make a big difference in the overall sound in a finished mix.

In this exercise you’ll split the guitar riff region and place half on one track and half on the other so that the dynamic jumps from one sound to the other. Then you’ll extend one region so that the two guitar parts overlap to make the edit less abrupt.

So what kind of dynamic change are we going for? Let’s follow Chad’s lead and create a dynamic he likes to use on stage. In his words, he likes to make the dynamic go from fun and light-hearted to kicking in the door.

Let’s play the finished version to hear Chad’s dynamic change.

1. Solo the Chad W’s Tweed track. Then, solo the Chad W’s Maelstrom track.

2. Play the project and see if Chad achieved the dynamic change he was going for.

What did you think? I’d say mission accomplished. Now it’s your turn to create the same effect.

3. Unsolo both of the tracks you just listened to. Directly below those tracks are two empty tracks with the same guitar patches. Solo the empty Amazing Tweed and Maelstrom tracks.

Let’s move the empty tracks that you’ll be working with up to the position above the Wide Wide Wah track. To reposition a track, you drag the empty space in the track’s header.

4. Drag the empty Amazing Tweed track up to the position above Wide Wide Wah. Drag the empty Maelstrom track up to the position above Wide Wide Wah.

5. Drag the region in the Surfin’ in Stereo track down into the empty Amazing Tweed track.

You can split an electric guitar region in the timeline the same as you split an audio region in Lesson 5. Just remember, to split a region in the timeline it has to be selected, and the playhead needs to be in the position where you’d like to make the split.

6. Select the region in the Amazing Tweed track, if it is not already selected. Move the playhead to bar 5. Press Command-T.

The region splits at bar 5.

7. Drag the second region in the Amazing Tweed track down to the Maelstrom track.

8. Turn off Cycle mode. Listen to your edit to hear the dynamic change at bar 5.

9. Drag the right edge of the region in the Amazing Tweed track and extend it one measure to bar 6. Solo the Heavy Kit drummer track and listen to your finished edit.

10. Save your project.

That’s it. You have successfully split an audio region and moved the second half to another track to create an interesting dynamic.

1. Unsolo the Amazing Tweed and Maelstrom tracks.

2. Unsolo the drummer track.

3. Solo the Razor Face track. It contains a region called Chad W Riff Multitake2.

4. Press Y, or click the Library button to hide the Library.

5. Adjust the horizontal zoom level in the timeline as needed using the slider (or by pressing Command-Right Arrow/Command-Left Arrow) until you can see from bar 1 to bar 26 in the ruler. You can display beyond bar 26 if you like, but just make sure bar 26 is included in the visible portion of the tracks area.

Perfect. Now the project is ready for the next exercise.

For this exercise you will first listen to both takes of the guitar riff. Both takes sound great; they’re just different variations of the same riff. That means to build the guitar track for a song, you will simply copy and paste the multitake region and alternate takes. Along the way you’ll also double, overlap, and split some of the multitake regions to create the finished electric guitar tracks.

1. Start playback and listen to Take 1 of the multitake guitar region in the Razor Face track.

You probably noticed that Take 1 is a different riff than you have been working with, but it still follows the same groove and feel.

2. Select Take 2 from the Takes menu in the Chad W Riff Multitake2 region. Listen to the track.

This ought to sound familiar. Take 2 is a different recording of the riff you were working with in the previous exercises. Because the takes are different riffs, you can alternate them for different parts of the song, or you can combine them to create a more complex guitar section for the song.

1. Select the Razor Face track header. This will select both the track and the multitake region in the track. Press Command-C, or choose Edit > Copy.

2. Move the playhead to bar 9 and press Command-V or choose Edit > Paste.

The multitake region is pasted into the selected track starting at the playhead position (bar 9). Notice that the playhead is positioned at the end of the newly pasted region. That means you can immediately paste another region without the need to move the playhead.

3. Press Command-V or choose Edit > Paste.

There should now be three identical multitake regions arranged back to back in the Razor Face track.

4. Save your progress.

Now the track is ready to edit, and you can create a varied electric guitar track for a song.

You have two tracks to work with: the Razor Face track, which contains the multitake regions, and the empty guitar track below.

Start by using a full take for the first two 8-bar regions. For the last 8 bars, split the multitake region to alternate parts once or twice. Also, feel free to double the part at the end for a big finish.

Feel free to use the edited multitake tracks as a guide. The edited version is in the two tracks directly above the drummer track.

When you are finished editing the guitar parts, solo the drummer track to hear how the virtual drummer varies the drum track to go with the different guitar parts.

Finally, if you’d like, you can change the guitar patches for one or both of the multitake tracks to change the overall sound.

When you are finished, listen to your finished tracks; then save your project.

1. Open the project 6-3 WahKazoo Guitar and save it to your projects folder.

The project opens with five tracks. The first three tracks are electric guitar tracks with heavy processing effects. The fourth track is a Natural vocals track. The fifth track is a drummer track playing along to the mystery guitar performance.

2. Play the project to hear the faux-guitar tracks.

3. Solo the bottom two tracks to hear the Clean - Wah and Kazoo track with the SoCal Kit. Play the project again to hear the clean recordings.

It’s okay to laugh—I did. The musician, my seven-year-old daughter Katie, took her recording very seriously. As you can see in the pictures, she performed these (and many other) guitar parts using a $1.25 kazoo and her voice singing “Wah and Wow” sounds.

Katie used the built-in microphone to record both the kazoo and vocals. Kazoos make excellent faux-electric guitars because of the vibrations and range of the sound. If you don’t have a kazoo, a fine-toothed comb and a piece of paper will also do the trick.

4. Unsolo the lower tracks and mute the Clean - Wah and Kazoo track. Play the project once more just to hear the difference.

This may not be a perfect performance, but I’ve heard adults record vocal guitar parts that were spot-on to famous guitar riffs and solos. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that you can indeed fake electric guitar parts as needed. You can always re-record with a real guitar later. This is also useful if you just want to record a basic guitar track so you can practice with effects later.

1. Open GarageBand. If it’s already open, choose File > New.

2. In the Project Chooser, click the New Project button to see a list of project templates.

3. Double-click the Amp Collection button to automatically open the project template.

4. Save the project as My Electric Guitar to your My GarageBand Projects folder.

The project opens with 15 electric guitar and bass tracks ready to test-drive with your electric guitar. Notice that the first track is the default electric guitar patch Brit and Clean.

5. If you are planning to record your guitar, connect it to the computer now. If you are going to record the guitar using the built-in microphone, you’re all set.

6. Select the Brit and Clean track header, if it’s not already selected.

7. In the Smart Controls pane, click the Inspector button (i).

The track inspector shows the different recording information you need to set prior to recording to that track.

8. In the Smart Controls inspector, click the Monitoring button to turn it on. It will glow orange once turned on. The Monitoring button in the track header is on now as well.

If GarageBand detects feedback, you’ll see an alert dialog with the option to change the current setting. This alert is part of the built-in feedback protection that is the default whenever you monitor recordings.

9. Select the Feedback Protection checkbox in the inspector.

10. Turn off the Input Monitoring button if you are not planning to record a guitar part at this time.

While you are looking at the inspector, take a moment to set your Input Source and Recording Level settings.

11. Click the Mono/Stereo button (it looks like a circle) to change the track input from mono to stereo (it looks like two circles linked).

12. Click the Mono/Stereo button again to change the input back to mono.

13. Click the Input pop-up and select the appropriate input for your guitar: built-in, audio-in port, or an audio interface that you have connected to the computer.

14. If you have an electric guitar or microphone connected to the computer, play a few notes and adjust the Recording Level slider as necessary.

If you’re going to be recording to more than one track, you’ll need to use the Record Enable button.

15. Choose Track > Track Header > Show Record Enable Button.

The Record Enable button appears in all the track headers. The selected track will show a red dot to indicate that track is selected.

16. Click the Record Enable button. It will flash red to show it is armed and ready to record to that track.

The last two steps are tune and tempo. You need to tune your instrument and set the project tempo.

17. Click the Tuner button in the toolbar next to the Cycle button.

The built-in tuner window works just like a standalone digital tuner. If the note is too sharp or too flat, it will be orange. Green means the note is in tune.

18. When you are finished tuning, close the tuner window, or click the Tuner button.

19. Start playback and listen to the click track. Drag up or down on the tempo in the LCD to raise or lower it accordingly. You can also double-click the tempo in the LCD display and type in a new tempo.

That’s it. Your track is armed, your instrument tuned, and the tempo set, and you are ready to record. For single-take recording, click Record or press R to start recording at the playhead position. For recording multiple takes, set a cycle area for the length of the takes, and then start recording.

Remember, you can always change the track’s instrument patch and add effects after you record.

2. In which part of the GarageBand window can you access the screen controls, Pedal board, and Amp Designer?

3. How do you know if a stompbox on the Pedalboard is turned on?

4. What are the four things that make a complete amp model in Amp Designer?

5. If you change a song’s dynamic, what did you change?

6. Where is the tuner in the GarageBand window?

7. What button must be turned on in the track header to hear your instrument as you record?

2. In the GarageBand window, you can access the screen controls, Pedalboard, and Amp Designer in the Smart Controls pane.

3. When a stompbox on the Pedalboard is turned on, the LED is red.

4. A complete amp model in Amp Designer includes an amplifier, cabinet, EQ preset, and microphone.

5. Dynamic changes in a song are changes in the volume level.

6. In the GarageBand window you can show or hide the Tuner by clicking the Tuner button in the toolbar.

7. To hear the track input as you record, you need to turn on the Monitoring button.