Lesson 7. Creating Drum and Percussion Tracks

Lesson Files

APTS GarageBand Book Files > Lesson 7 > 7-1 Groove Match, 7-2 Drummer Follow, 7-3 Recording Beats, 7-4 Beats for Loops, 7-5 Beats and Tempo, 7-6 MP Crazy Beat

Time

This lesson takes approximately 45 minutes to complete.

Goals

Control timing with a groove track

Have a drummer region follow the bass track

Record multipass drum beats

Trim and fix recorded regions to make them loop ready

Add loops to the Loop Library

Make tempo changes in a project with the tempo track

Drum and percussion tracks create the heartbeat of your music. In this lesson you’ll work with four types of drum and percussion tracks: a drummer track, a drum machine with arpeggiator, Apple Loops, and audio recordings of noninstrumental percussion such as stomps, claps, and the sound of a dog walking through leaves.

First you’ll create a drummer track and use it to instantly fix the groove (or timing) of all the other tracks in a song. Then you’ll use the Follow feature to make the drummer performance follow a bass track. In the third project, you’ll record your own hip-hop beat using a MIDI drum machine with the arpeggiator and multipass recording. Once your beat is recorded, you’ll fix the timing and turn it into a loop. When your loop is finished, you’ll use Flex Time editing to fix a recording of stomping and clapping and turn it into a loop as well.

The last two tasks you’ll explore are adding your loops to the Loop Library and creating a complex hip-hop beats project with your loops and automation with tempo control points on the tempo track.

What is groove matching? Well, it’s a more advanced form of quantizing the music that considers the groove (meter, pacing, and feel) of a selected groove track and matches the other tracks to it. Best of all, it works with both Software Instrument and Real Instrument recordings. In this exercise, you’ll use a drummer track to correct six other tracks that might otherwise be unusable.

1. Open the project 7-1 Groove Match, and save it to the My GarageBand Projects folder.

2. Play the project once.

You know the phrase “marching to the beat of a different drummer?” Well, in this case it sounds like each track was playing to a different drummer, or more likely no drummer at all. Even those of you without a musical background probably noticed that this song is a timing disaster.

Whether these parts were recorded with a click track or live drummer, none of them are in time with each other. Without a common groove, these tracks are unusable.

The good news is you can fix this musical disaster in three steps. You’ll start by creating a new drummer track to control the timing of the other tracks.

3. Select the lowest track if it is not already selected. Click the Add Track button, or choose Track > New Track. In the New Track dialog, double-click the Drummer icon to create a new drummer track.

A new SoCal drummer track appears below the Shaker track. The Drummer Editor and Library are also displayed. You won’t need the Library, metronome, or Drummer Editor for this exercise.

4. Press Y to hide the Library, press K to turn off the metronome, and then press E to hide the editor. Play the project to hear whether any improvement results in the SoCal Drummer track.

Nope. The drummer part is in perfect time, but the other tracks are still way out of the pocket.

In the old days, you might as well have rubbed a lamp and hoped for a genie to salvage those tracks. Otherwise, you had no choice but to re-record them. Fortunately, the groove tracks in GarageBand can perform their own magic—without the genie.

Before you continue, it’s a good idea to decide which track best represents the feel of your song. Drummer tracks are usually a safe bet, but you might also choose a track that could stand alone. Do you have a track that a vocalist could sing along to “unplugged”? In that case, the rhythm guitar or a lead piano part would work. For this song, the drummer track you just created is the only one that you would want to use to control the other tracks.

5. Control-click (or right-click) the SoCal track header; then choose Track Header Components > Show Groove Track from the shortcut menu.

6. Hold the pointer over the left edge of the SoCal track header. Click the star on the left edge of the track header to make that track the “star” from which the groove will be applied to other tracks.

You now see a gold star in front of the SoCal track. Also, the checkboxes next to all the other tracks are selected, indicating they will be matching the groove of the SoCal track. I’ll refer to these as the “match groove” checkboxes.

7. Play the project to hear the tracks with groove matching applied.

Can you hear the difference? The tracks now sound like musicians jamming together and having a good time.

8. Press C to enter Cycle mode. Play the project and experiment during playback with selecting and deselecting the match groove checkboxes on different tracks. Or you can click the star on the SoCal track to turn off groove matching, and then click again to turn it back on. When you are finished, be sure that SoCal is the groove track and the match groove checkboxes on the other tracks are selected. Save your project.

Now that you’ve seen how powerful a drummer track can be in controlling other tracks, let’s take a look at a subtle drummer feature.

1. Open the project 7-2 Drummer Follow and save it to the My GarageBand Projects folder on the desktop.

The project opens with four tracks: the SoCal Kit drummer track, the Rhythm Guitar L (left) and Rhythm Guitar R (right) tracks, and a bass track.

2. Select the drummer region if it is not already selected. As you can see in the Drummer Editor, Kyle will be the virtual drummer for this demonstration.

3. Play the project once.

Take a careful look at the waveform patterns of the guitar and bass tracks. The notes are all played on the same beat. Also there are noticeable rests, or pauses, between notes. Now look at the waveform in the drummer track. The waveform shows a consistent drum pattern over both the played notes and the pauses of the other instrument tracks.

4. In the Drummer Editor, select the Follow Rhythm checkbox (labeled “Follow”). The follow behavior affects the kick and snare portion of the beat, so the slider changes to the Follow Track pop-up menu. For this exercise, the bass track has been selected.

5. Play the project to hear the drum beat follow the bass track. Don’t worry if you can’t hear the difference (it is subtle unless you are a drummer or have a knack for listening to the kick and snare parts of a drum beat). While watching the drum region, deselect the Follow Rhythm checkbox to see the pattern change, and then select the checkbox again.

6. In the Presets list, select a different preset to hear how the kick and snare from that preset beat follow the bass part. Feel free to try as many presets as you like. To me, the follow behavior is most evident in the presets Half-pipe, Ocean Boulevard, and Paper Hearts. When you are finished, save your project.

In the previous exercise, you worked with groove matching, which is designed to salvage tracks by fixing the timing. What you just witnessed in this exercise is one of the little finessing details a music producer would use to add professional polish to a song.

This method of recording is also referred to as multipass recording. Your goal in the next series of exercises is to record a drum region that combines different drum sounds to create an original “beat.” Then you’ll create a second multipass region using the arpeggiator. Once you have recorded both drum regions, you’ll turn them into loops and add them to the Loop Library.

1. Open the project 7-3 Recording Beats and save it to the My GarageBand Projects folder on your desktop. The project opens with Cycle mode on and the Library displayed.

2. Press Command-K to show the Musical Typing window.

3. Select the SoCal Cowbell track if it is not already selected. Play the project. Watch the Musical Typing keyboard as the SoCal Cowbell region plays. The Y key lights up each time the cowbell sound is played. Pause playback.

This region is a simple, single-take recording of a cowbell part. The region is two measures (bars) in length and was recorded using the Musical Typing keyboard and the Y key. You’ve heard my recording of the beat-busting analog superhero of the 70s, the cowbell. Now it’s your turn to play it.

4. Press the Y key on your computer keyboard, or click the Y key in the Musical Typing window to play the cowbell sound.

Perfect! You’ve successfully demonstrated the percussive potential of an ancient bovine tracking device. Clearly, you have just the drum skills needed to record an overdub recording with multiple drum sounds.

5. Mute the SoCal Cowbell track.

In a few minutes, you’ll turn the pre-recorded cowbell region—and some regions of your own—into loops and add them to the Loop Library For now I just wanted you to see an example of a simple single-take drum part and boost your confidence in playing a percussion instrument on your computer keyboard.

If you recall, when you recorded multitake Software Instrument regions in Lesson 4, you first needed to deselect the Cycle Recording checkbox in GarageBand’s General preferences. Both multitake and multipass (overdub) recordings use a cycle area to determine the length of a recording. It is the Cycle Recording checkbox that specifies whether a Software Instrument performance using a cycle area is going to be a multitake or an overdub recording.

1. Choose GarageBand > Preferences.

2. In General preferences, select the Cycle Recording checkbox.

Excellent. Now let’s make sure the cycle area is the correct length for your overdub recording and you’re good to go.

1. Select the empty SoCal Kit track header at the top of the tracks area. This is the track where you will record your first overdub region.

2. In the Musical Typing window, click the Y key. It should still trigger the MIDI cowbell sound.

Each key on a MIDI keyboard represents a different sound in the SoCal drum kit. You can change octaves using the Z and X keys to play different sounds for the same instrument.

3. Press the Z key on your computer, or click the Z in the Musical Typing window to lower the octave range from C2 to C1.

4. Press or click A to hear the Kick drum (MIDI note C1). Press or click S to hear the snare (MIDI note D1).

5. Start playback. Make sure Cycle mode is turned on and that the cycle area extends from the beginning of bar 1 to the beginning of bar 3. Practice playing the following pattern: (A) kick, (S) snare, (A) kick (A) kick, (S) snare. Repeat that pattern to the click track. Try to play it to the click track and get through the entire pattern in one measure. Then repeat the pattern again for the second measure.

Before recording, experiment with some of the other kit sounds available in the C1 octave range. Once you successfully record your kick and snare pattern, you’ll add a few more sounds. Take a moment to come up with two more sounds that you can add to the kick and snare. If you aren’t sure what to try, the E key has a nice clap sound, and the black keys T, Y, U, O, and P are all cymbal variations that make a good accent to the kick and snare. Remember, this is just a recording exercise, so whatever you come up with is fine.

For the first pass, you will play only the kick and snare pattern. Choose a second drum sound, pattern, or part for the next pass. Each time you finish recording a drum part, switch to a different sampled drum sound (a different key on the keyboard) to add a new part.

Keep in mind that your drum pattern will be two measures in length, making it a total of eight beats, four per measure.

Let’s try recording.

6. Press R or click the Record button to start the overdub recording. Let the cycle area play through once and listen to the metronome click track to get a feel for the tempo. Count to get your timing ready, and then start playing your beat. Keep the recording going until you have recorded a pass with at least four different drum sounds.

The region turns green at the end of a pass and red whenever you are actively playing (recording) an instrument part. You can take as many passes as you need between recording parts. The key (pun intended) to making this work is that you can’t stop recording until you’ve added all the parts. If you stop recording, the overdub option is over. If you try to record in that region again, you’ll erase the previous recording.

7. When you finish, press the Spacebar to stop recording.

8. Play your region to hear how it turned out. If you like everything but the last pass, you can press Command-Z to undo the last pass. Press Command-Z again to delete another pass. If you want to toss the recording and try again, select the region you just recorded and press the Delete key. Click Record and create a new overdub recording.

9. When you are finished, save your project.

You’ve successfully created a single MIDI region that contains the merged performances from each cycle pass. So, how did it go? Recording drum loops takes a lot of practice and patience. If your region is close except for the timing, you can fix that in the Piano Roll Editor before turning it into a loop.

If you had a rough time creating your overdub MIDI drum kit recording, there’s good news. GarageBand includes dozens of pre-recorded drum loops from which to choose. For those of you who like creating your own beats, you now have the tools to do it.

1. Hide the Library. Press B to show the Smart Controls pane. Mute the SoCal Kit track. Move the Musical Typing window to the top right of the tracks area, where it is out of the way of the track headers, cycle area, and Smart Controls pane.

2. Mute the SoCal Kit track. Select Track 2, which is the first Boutique 808 GB track.

3. Press or click any of the Musical Typing keys to hear the Boutique 808 kit sound for that key.

Since the arpeggiator is turned on, each key triggers a pattern based on the arpeggiator setting and the Mix controls in the Smart Controls area. Take a moment to click all of the black and white keys to hear each of the sounds available in the C1 octave keys for the Boutique 808 drum machine.

You can adjust the level of each kit instrument in the mix by raising or lowering that sound in the Mix controls.

4. Press and hold the O key. You should hear a synth bass along with a pronounced cymbal. While you listen to the O key’s sound, click and drag down on the Cymbal knob in the Mix controls to turn down the amount of cymbal sound in the mix. The 10:00 position on the Cymbal dial should leave in enough cymbal to be audible, without the distraction.

5. Press and hold the G key. This time it is the cowbell that is a bit too strong in the mix. In the Smart Controls pane, drag down on the Cowbell knob to lower it to your own taste.

6. Continue playing and adjusting the mix for different keys (sound patterns) on the Musical Typing keyboard. You will use these sounds to record an overdub drum region.

7. Make sure Cycle mode is on and that the cycle region is between bar 1 and bar 3. Practice playing your drum machine pattern; with each pass, you’ll add a new arpeggiated note. You can hold the note for the entire recording, or play it several times—it’s your party.

8. Press R or click the Record button to begin recording. When you are finished with all four passes or parts (whichever comes first), press the Spacebar to stop.

I’m guessing it was much easier to record the arpeggiator-induced beat than the one you had to play manually.

9. Play your newly recorded region. Save your project.

Excellent. Next you’ll learn how to turn your own recordings into loops and add them to the Loop Library.

1. Close the Musical Typing window and hide the Smart Controls pane.

2. Turn Cycle mode off. Turn off the metronome. Then adjust the horizontal zoom in the timeline until you can clearly see all the regions. There are no regions beyond bar 5.

3. Solo the RSD Stomp Claps track in the middle of the tracks area.

This track includes six audio regions taken from a digital video clip of an award-winning hip-hop dance duet. You’ll get to work with the actual video clip and audio track in the next lesson; for now, you’ll just create loops from a few snippets of the audio track.

4. Play the project to hear the different regions. Each has musical potential with a little cleanup.

The paired regions in the bottom two tracks are before-and-after versions of the stomps and claps regions that you will be editing shortly. You can use them as a guide if needed. The Lexie Cadence track is an audio recording of my dog walking through leaves.

5. Unsolo the RSD Stomp Claps track and solo the SoCal Cowbell track.

You have now prepared the project and are familiar with the project contents.

In the next series of exercises, you will make minor adjustments to the regions in this project to prepare a variety of regions ranging from your own drum beat region to a recording of dancers stomping and clapping their own hip-hop beat. Along the way, you’ll learn a few new tricks for editing music.

How do you know when a region is loop-ready? One test is to see how it sounds in Cycle mode. Let’s start with the SoCal Cowbell.

1. Turn on Cycle mode and play the project. The SoCal Cowbell region repeats. It sounds like a loop. This region passes test number 1.

The second test is to see if the notes within the region start on beats or ticks in the ruler. You can zoom in and use the grid in the tracks area to determine that.

2. Press Command-Right Arrow to zoom in to the timeline as needed until the ruler shows a decimal point for each beat of the first two measures. Within each beat you will see four tick marks. The grid in the timeline matches the zoom level, so there is a grid line for each tick mark.

3. Take a look at the SoCal Cowbell region. Do each of the notes within the region start at a grid line? If so, it passes test number 2.

Hint: It will pass, because I used the Time Quantize feature in the Piano Roll Editor to fix the timing right after I recorded it.

Now let’s test one of the multipass drum recordings in the top two tracks. Keep in mind that your recordings may not match the examples shown in this book.

4. Unsolo the SoCal Cowbell track. Solo SoCal Kit track (track 1). Play the track. Does it sound like a loop when repeated? Do the notes align with the grid? Chances are they aren’t in perfect time—yet.

5. Double-click the region in the SoCal Kit track to open it in the Piano Roll Editor. Adjust the horizontal zoom in the editor so you can clearly see the entire region and all beats as well as ticks between beats.

Each measure is four beats, with four ticks per beat—4 × 4 = 16. So you’ll quantize the timing to the nearest 16th note.

6. Choose 1/16 Note from the Quantize pop-up menu. Instantly all of the notes snap to the nearest gridline. That was easy.

7. Play the track to hear the fixed timing. It should sound much better and is now loop-ready.

8. Unsolo the SoCal Kit track and solo the Boutique 808 GB track. The track may already be in perfect time. If not, set the Time Quantize pop-up menu to 1/16 Note. Stop playback and save your project.

The MIDI regions are loop-ready. It’s time to work on the audio regions.

The first region is going to be a one-shot sound effect, so you don’t have to worry about timing—you just have to clean up the end with the Trim tool. The second region is a well-executed percussion pattern, but it isn’t in perfect musical time. That can be fixed with Flex Time. The third set of regions you will first merge into one region. Then you’ll use Flex Time to tweak the timing. Let’s get started.

1. Unsolo the Boutique 808 GB track. Select and solo the RSD Stomp Claps track. Turn off Cycle mode.

Adjust the horizontal zoom in the Audio Editor until you can clearly see the first region in the RSD Stomp Claps track.

2. Play the region. You can clearly hear a double clap (two people clapping together) and a partial stomp at the end.

Your goal is to trim the right edge to remove the partial stomp after the clap. Fortunately the audio waveform in the Audio Editor shows you exactly where the clap ends and the stomp begins. There is even a convenient silent section (flat line with no waveform) just before the stomp. How did we get so lucky to have such a perfect waveform to work with? Flex Time is turned on.

3. Deselect the purple Flex Time button in the upper left of the editor to hide Flex Time from the waveform in the Audio Editor. The waveform reverts to the original recorded waveform; it’s still editable but determining exactly where to trim is not as easy. Click the Flex Time button again to turn it back on.

4. In the Audio Editor, drag the right edge of the region toward the left to trim off the stomp portion of the waveform. Flex Time added a convenient vertical line for musical timing purposes, which you can use as a guide to see where to trim.

5. Play the trimmed region to hear it. If you only hear the clap without the stomp, mission accomplished. If you still hear stomp, trim more from the right edge.

6. Select the second region in the RSD Stomp Claps track. Adjust the zoom level as needed to focus the visible area in the Audio Editor on the second region.

7. Turn on Cycle mode and create a cycle area from bar 2 to bar 3. You can drag the top part of the ruler in the timeline or in the ruler in the Audio Editor to create the cycle area.

8. Play the cycle area to hear whether the region sounds like a percussion loop.

It actually sounds pretty good on its own. But if you look carefully, you’ll see that most of the visible claps and stomps in the waveform do not match up with the grid lines. This means if you tried to use this region as a loop in a musical piece, it would always be slightly out of time with everything else. Another thing to note is that the region isn’t exactly one measure in length. Part of the region is beyond the cycle area. Remember the first rule of loop-making is regions have to be the right length.

9. Trim the right edge of the region until it ends exactly at bar 3. The trim overlay will show a new length of exactly one measure (1 0 0 0).

Don’t worry about the little bit of stomp sound remaining at the end of the loop. If you listen to playback it actually works, with the stomp at the beginning of the region making it loop seamlessly. The real issue for this region is the timing.

1. In the Audio Editor, toggle the Flex Time button off, then on again, while looking at the selected region in the editor. You’ll see that when Flex Time is showing, the region darkens and the waveform brightens to make it easier to see. Also, the grid lines show up nicely for easier alignment.

2. Move the pointer slowly across the waveform without clicking. If you look carefully, you’ll see the pointer has turned into a Flex pointer that looks like three bars most of the time but changes from three bars to what looks like three playheads whenever you pass over a transient (a peak in the waveform).

Clicking on the waveform at or near transients will create a flex marker. The cool thing about flex markers is that you can drag them to the nearest beat or tick in the ruler to fix the timing of that note (or in this case, clap). Flex markers can be moved to manipulate music or to act as barriers so that changes don’t ripple down the line and affect earlier notes by mistake.

3. Click the flex pointer just before the first large clap in the waveform at around 2.1.2 in the ruler. Drag the flex marker to the left to the 2.1.2 grid line. The flex markers are attracted to the beats and tick lines in the ruler like magnets, so the marker will snap to the ruler or grid line once you are close enough.

4. Move down the next major peak in the waveform, around 2.2. Click over the waveform peak, and then drag the flex marker left slightly to the 2.2 mark in the ruler.

5. Continue working your way down the waveform, fixing the timing of the largest peaks using flex markers. If the waveform has a thick section with several lower peaks combined, you can align the middle, beginning, or end with the nearest mark in the ruler depending on how you want it to sound.

Many of your flex edits will be barely noticeable out of context—when you’re just listening to the region. But if you plan to add the region to a musical piece as a percussion loop, the timing is crucial.

6. When you are finished flex editing the region, play the region. Then save your project.

Voilà! Not only did you just complete a bit of waveform timing magic, but you also have a basic understanding of how to use Flex Time to fix individual notes in the Audio Editor.

Now that you have used flex editing to fix the timing of the second stomp and clap region, it’s time to work with the last set of regions in the track.

1. In the timeline, create a new cycle area from bar 4 to bar 5. It should be exactly one measure in length (1 0 0 0).

2. Play the cycle area to hear the audio regions together. Click the empty space in the tracks area to deselect all the regions in the RSD Stomp Claps track.

To merge the regions, they need to be together (which they are) and selected.

3. Click the empty space just before the group of clips and drag a marquee around the four RSD The Step Off regions.

Now only the regions you plan to merge are selected in the track.

4. Choose Edit > Join Regions. A dialog appears warning you that noncontiguous audio regions require that you create a new audio file. Click Create.

A new blue audio region called “RSD The Step Off merged” appears in place of the other regions. If you look at the merged region in the Audio Editor, you’ll see that the transients (claps and stomps) still need to be aligned with the ruler marks. Also notice the Enable Flex checkbox is selected in the Audio Editor inspector. This option must be selected in order to use Flex Time editing on blue or purple audio regions. The previous regions were orange, which means they were considered imported nonmusical regions, and selecting this checkbox was not necessary.

Take a few minutes to fix the timing of the last region. Then we will add the regions to the Loop Library.

When you are finished, hide the editor and unsolo the RSD Stomp Claps track. Then save your progress.

In this exercise you’ll add seven different regions to the Loop Library, starting with the SoCal Cowbell. Since you already know what the regions sound like, there is no reason to solo the tracks or play them at this time.

1. In the tracks area, select the SoCal Cowbell region. Choose File > Add Region to Loop Library. The Add Region to Apple Loops Library dialog opens.

Here you can name the region, as well as specify whether it is a loop or one-shot. You can also choose instrument descriptors and mood buttons appropriate for your new loop.

2. For this cowbell loop, keep the name as is. Under Instrument Descriptors, choose Percussion > Cowbell. Then select the Single, Clean, and Acoustic mood buttons. When you are finished, click Create.

That’s all there is to it!

3. Now you can add the remaining regions to the library as follows:

SoCal Kit—Name: SoCal Beat; Type: Loop; Instrument Descriptors: All Drums > Beats; mood buttons: Acoustic, Dry, Part

Boutique 808 GB—Name: Boutique 808 Beat; Type: Loop; Instrument Descriptors: All Drums > Beats; mood buttons: Electric, Grooving, Part

1st region in RSD Stomp Claps track—Name: RSD Clap; Type: One-shot; Instrument Descriptors: FX > People; mood buttons: Single, Clean

2nd region in RSD Stomp Claps track—Name: RSD The Step Off Beat 01; Type: Loop; Instrument Descriptors: Other Inst; mood buttons: Clean, Acoustic, Grooving

3rd region in RSD Stomp Claps track—Name: RSD The Step Off Beat 02; Type: Loop; Instrument Descriptors: Other Inst; mood buttons: Clean, Acoustic, Grooving

Lexie Walks cadence—Name: Dog cadence; Type: One-shot; Instrument Descriptors: Other Inst; mood buttons: Clean, Acoustic

4. Press O to display the loop browser. Click the Loops pop-up menu at the top of the browser and choose My Loops.

Your loops appear in the list at the bottom of the browser. Now you can search for them and use them in projects just like other loops and one-shots.

5. Save your project.

Well done. You have the skills needed to turn any of your recordings or edited audio regions into loops and add them to the Loop Library.

I talked with professional independent hip-hop artist and songwriter Colby Stiltz to get his take on what makes a great hip-hop beat. His advice in a nutshell: “Find the easiest way to modify a sound from its original vibration to a new creation.” To him, tempo is a big deal. He likes projects around 80 bpm, but it all depends on the song. It could be 120 bpm and you could half-time the beat and rap half as fast so it’s like a slow flow. Or if it’s closer to 70 bpm, you could double-time the beat and rap really fast. Every tempo has its place somewhere. In other words, if the beat is slow you can rap twice as fast to mix it up, or if the beat is fast you can rap half the speed. Of course you also have the option to rap at the same speed as the beat, but what’s the fun in that?

Let’s dive into a very basic hip-hop beat in progress and add changes in the tempo to make it more interesting.

1. Open the project 7-5 Beats and Tempo and save it to your projects folder.

The project opens with one Software Instrument, Steinway Grand Piano track, and six different beat tracks from various Apple Loops. Notice that Groove Match is showing in the track headers, and the piano part is being controlled by the Blueprint Beat 01 track.

2. Play the first half of the project. Listen for the pause in the piano part around bar 13. This was created deliberately to make room for a dramatic tempo change.

To add or edit tempo changes within the project, you need to use Tempo track.

3. Choose Track > Show Tempo Track. The Tempo track appears at the top of the timeline just below the ruler.

The project is currently set to Colby’s favorite hip-hop tempo, 80 bpm. In the tempo track, tempo changes are represented by control points on the tempo curve. Believe it or not, the straight line in the tempo track is called the tempo curve. Each parameter that can be automated is represented by a curve (line) that can be bent or curved using control points. At the moment there are only two tempo control points—one at the beginning of the track (bar 1) and one at the end of the track. To add tempo control points, you double-click the tempo curve.

4. Adjust the horizontal zoom in the timeline as needed until you can see a number in the ruler for each measure (bar). Double-click the tempo curve at bar 13 to add a control point at that position. Double-click the tempo curve at bar 22 to add another tempo control point.

5. Click the tempo curve (straight line) between the two tempo control points that you just added to select that section of the curve. Drag the selected curve between your control points upward to a tempo of 120 bpm.

The tempo curve for the project now clearly shows a tempo of 80 bpm at the beginning and end of the song, with a section at 120 bpm in the middle.

6. Play the middle of the project to hear the tempo change and see how it affects both the beats and the piano part.

Works great. Now let’s add one more set of control points. This time you’ll make the transition from one tempo to the next more gradual (curved).

7. Double-click the tempo curve at bar 26 to add a control point. Move to bar 28 and Control-Option-Command-click the curve. A field appears to enter the new tempo value. Type 65 in the field and press Return.

The new control point appears and is in position at 65 bpm at bar 28. To curve the transition between the control points, you can drag the upper control point at bar 28 to turn it into a handle that bends the curve.

8. Click the upper control point at bar 28 to turn it into a curve handle. Drag the handle up and to the left to make it a more gradual curve.

9. Play the project to hear the dramatic tempo changes in the music. Save your progress.

Clearly, tempo changes can be a powerful tool in making a musical piece more dramatic.

If you want to see and hear the crazy beat I made using all the loops we created earlier, plus a few other odds and ends, open the project 7-6 MP Crazy Beat.

In this project, you’ll notice that all of the tracks have green locks in the track headers. This project includes a lot of heavy processing effects. Locking tracks protects them from accidental change by “freezing” the tracks and creating files with the effects already rendered.

2. How do you change the beat in a drummer region so that it is influenced by a specific instrument track?

3. Which GarageBand checkbox must be selected for overdub recording with Software Instruments?

4. What are the two most important criteria a region must have to be a good musical loop (loop-ready)?

5. How do you add a region to the Loop Library so that it can be accessed in the loop browser?

2. Select the Follow checkbox in the Drummer Editor, and then choose a track from the Follow Track pop-up menu.

3. The Cycle Recording checkbox in GarageBand General Preferences must be selected for Software Instrument multipass (overdub) recording.

4. Regions must be trimmed so they start and end exactly at the beginning of a measure or beat within that measure. Also, the timing of the performance within the region needs to be in musical time aligned with beats, or divisions of beats.

5. Select the region and choose File > Add Region to Loop Library.