Lesson 8. Mixing Music and Adding EQ Effects

Lesson Files

APTS GarageBand Book Files > Lesson 8 > 8-1 Rough Mix, 8-2 Finished Mix, 8-3 EQ Effect Starting, 8-4 EQ Effect Finished

APTS GarageBand Book Files > Lesson Bonus Projects > 8 RSD Bounced Loops, 8 RSD With Loops

APTS GarageBand Book Files > Additional Media > RSD The Step Off.m4v

Time

This lesson takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.

Goals

Evaluate a rough music mix

Pan guitar tracks and add EQ effect presets

Work with the master track presets

Automate volume and pan curves in a track

Reconnect a movie file to a project

Enhance the audio track of a movie clip

With GarageBand, you can record and create professional-quality music. However, to make your finished songs actually sound professional, you need to understand the fine art of mixing music.

Fortunately, the GarageBand interface includes an easy-to-use track mixer with controls for volume level and pan position. There is also a full complement of automation curves that you can use to create changes over the course of a song. They can be used to highlight certain tracks at a specific time, have a track pan back and forth between the left and right sides of the stereo field to create acoustic movement between speakers, or modify the amount of an effect applied to a track at a particular time.

If you have been following along with the lessons in this book, you have already worked with the volume levels in individual tracks, and you have even panned tracks. You have also gained quite a bit of hands-on experience adding effects to tracks, changing presets and patches, and even modifying the effects in the Smart Controls pane.

In this lesson you will focus on some advanced mixing techniques, starting with the EQ (equalizer) effect. This powerful new GarageBand tool allows you to dramatically optimize the sound of a track or the entire song. You’ll also work with the volume and pan automation curves, as well as explore the master track to add effects to the overall project.

Your goal in this lesson is to use the EQ effect to improve the sound of a video clip. Then you’ll take an arranged song to the next level to make it sound like a professional composition. To accomplish this, you’ll need to apply professional mixing techniques, including balancing volume, panning tracks, and adding automation to the volume and pan curves to finesse the mix. Along the way, you’ll also learn some handy shortcuts and mixing tricks.

You need to listen for three things:

Are the volume levels of the different instrument tracks blended (mixed) so that they work together?

Do any of the instrument parts stand out as being too loud or too quiet?

Do you hear instrument parts spread out in the stereo field between the left and right headphones/speakers?

In this exercise you’ll open the project and play it to evaluate the rough mix and fix any tracks that are too loud or quiet. Also, you’ll adjust the pan dials to separate some of the instruments in the panoramic stereo field.

1. Open the project 8-1 Rough Mix. Then save the project in your My GarageBand Projects folder on the desktop.

2. Play the project to evaluate the rough mix.

Could you hear that all the tracks are panned to the center—meaning the volume is the same out of both speakers? What did you think of the SoCal Cowbell loop that was added to the chorus and bridge sections of the song? It’s hard to miss because the volume level of the cowbell loop is overpowering. Let’s start by turning down the volume of the SoCal Cowbell track. After all, sometimes you don’t want more cowbell.

3. Turn on Cycle mode. There should be a cycle area over the chorus section of the song. Start playback. While listening to the cowbell part in the mix, drag the Volume slider on the SoCal track to lower its volume level until it sounds more like an accent to the drumbeat. When you are finished, stop playback and turn off Cycle mode.

I set my SoCal Cowbell to –8db. Feel free to set yours to whatever level you like. Other than that, there are a few high-pitched notes in the bridge section that I haven’t decided whether or not I like. I’ll decide after we add some automation and EQ to the master track. The nice thing about MIDI software instrument regions is you can edit them any time.

Next, let’s spread out some of the instrument parts in the stereo field.

The Pan knob controls the left-to-right placement of a track within the stereo field. The pan in Pan knob stands for panoramic. A panoramic photograph is an image that includes everything you can see without turning your head. A panoramic stereo field is everything you can hear from the far left to the far right, without turning your head.

By default, all the tracks in GarageBand start with the pan position set to the center (0). When at center pan position, a sound is heard equally out of both speakers as though it’s directly in front of you in the middle of the audio space.

In this exercise you’ll pan the two guitar tracks to separate them left and right.

1. Solo the top two tracks. Play the soloed tracks to hear them in the stereo field. At the moment you can hear the tracks equally out of both speakers (or headphones). So they sound as though they are coming from the exact same acoustic space in the stereo field. Continue playback while you adjust the Pan knobs for the tracks.

2. In the Acoustic Guitar L track header, click the Pan knob and drag down slowly until the Pan overlay says –40 (40 left). Drag up slowly on the Acoustic Guitar R Pan knob until it says +40 (40 right).

You probably could hear the perceived position of the guitar tracks move left and then right as you adjusted the Pan knobs. However, since both guitar tracks have identical regions and instrument patches, it’s hard to hear the separation between parts. To make the tracks sound like two different guitars in different acoustic placement, you need to change the sound of one of them. This is a perfect job for an EQ effect preset.

GarageBand’s all new EQ (equalizer) effect is incredibly useful for optimizing the sound of your tracks and projects. It includes eight independent EQ bands arranged from low (bass) to high (treble), presets created for different uses and instruments, and the Analyzer, which shows the frequencies of the track as it plays to help you decide which ones to boost or cut.

You’ll find the EQ controls in the Smart Controls pane. In this exercise you’ll add a different EQ effect preset to each of the guitar tracks.

1. Unsolo the Acoustic Guitar R track. Select the Acoustic Guitar L track header if needed and make sure it is still soloed.

2. Press B to show the Smart Controls pane. Click the EQ button in the middle of the Smart Controls menu bar to open the Graphic EQ display.

3. Start playback from the beginning of the song. In the Smart Controls inspector (the left side of the Smart Controls pane), click the EQ Preset pop-up menu and choose Guitar > Acoustic Guitar.

The light blue area in the Graphic EQ display shows which frequencies were raised (over the center line) and which were lowered (below the center line) to create the Acoustic Guitar EQ preset. Can you hear the difference in the sound?

You can definitely hear that the track is panned to the left when it is soloed.

4. Click the EQ power button on and off during playback to hear the Acoustic Guitar L track with and without the EQ. You should be able to hear a slight improvement in the sound with the EQ. Unsolo the Acoustic Guitar L track and solo the Acoustic Guitar R track.

5. Select the Acoustic Guitar R track. Start playback from the beginning of the song. In the EQ Preset pop-up menu choose Guitar > Ultra Bright Guitar.

The Graphic EQ display updates accordingly. You can clearly see and hear a difference. The lower frequencies have been lowered considerably, whereas the higher frequencies are raised to create the “bright” sound.

6. Unsolo both of the guitar tracks and listen to them in the mix (with the other tracks).

The mix sounds really good. Now that the volume levels are balanced, the tracks are panned as needed, and you’ve added some EQ effects to the guitar tracks, let’s add a little EQ to the entire project.

1. Choose Track > Show Master Track. The master track appears as the lowest track in the timeline. Double-click the master track header to see the master effects patches available in the Library.

The master effects patches are combinations of EQ and compressor effects. You can turn the effects on and off, or modify them by clicking the Output button (next to the EQ button) in the Smart Controls menu.

2. Start playback from the beginning of the song. In the Library, select the Top 40 patch for the master track. Click the Output button to see the output controls for the master track.

Hello, Top 40! The difference in the overall sound is incredible. This little ditty almost sounds like a Top 40 hit. (Well, maybe Top 400, but still, what a difference a master effect patch can make on the overall sound.)

3. In the Library, try some of the various master effect patches to compare them. Feel free to toggle back and forth between the Output and EQ displays in the Smart Controls pane to see which effect settings and equalizer frequencies are used to create such dramatically different sounds. When you’re finished, select the Top 40 master preset.

4. Hide the Library and the Smart Controls pane. Save your progress.

Excellent! The mix is done. Let’s check the output volume level to make sure it is good.

The master track volume and master output volume both control the combined output volume level of the tracks. The difference is that the master track volume can be automated with volume control points on the master track volume curve, whereas the master output volume is the level that goes out of GarageBand to the computer. This output level determines the level your song will have when it is exported or shared—for example, when it is output from GarageBand to iTunes.

Now that you understand the various volume controls, let’s look at the master output volume to see whether it needs adjustment.

1. Play the project and watch the master volume meter in the top-right corner of the GarageBand window.

The lower the volume, the shorter the solid-colored bars. If the color is green, the level is within a safe range and isn’t too loud. If the color turns from green to yellow, that means caution—your sound is bordering on being too loud. If it turns red, you need to stop and turn down the volume immediately. If you don’t, the sound could become distorted.

You should see the meters turn red around the end of the verse and stay there through the chorus and the rest of the song.

2. Play the chorus (the loudest part of the song) and slowly drag the Master Volume slider to the left until the meter shows solid green bars with a bit of solid yellow at the top.

Terrific. The song is ready to share. Unless...you want to add a few mixing tricks to bring out the cowbell part in the mix. Why not?

Your goal in this exercise is to use control points to create a fade on the volume curve of the SoCal Cowbell track so that the cowbell sound doesn’t end so abruptly. Then you’ll add control points to the track’s pan curve so the cowbell sound roams back and forth between the left and right speakers during the song.

To make changes to an automation curve, you first need to show the track automation curves in the timeline.

1. Press A (for automation), or click the Automation button in the tracks area menu bar. All of the tracks in the timeline expand to accommodate automation curves. Each track header also includes an Enable Automation button and an Automation Parameter pop-up menu. The default setting in the Automation Parameter pop-up is the Volume curve.

2. In the SoCal Cowbell track header, click the Enable Automation button.

A yellow volume automation curve appears above the regions in the track and runs the length of the project.

3. Select the second SoCal Cowbell region in the track. Adjust the horizontal zoom level in the timeline so that you can clearly see the entire selected region in the tracks area.

4. In the SoCal Cowbell track, double-click the volume automation curve (line) at bar 37 to add a control point. (Hint: There is a notch where the loop repeats at that same position.)

5. Add another control point at the end of the region (bar 38). Drag the second control point down to the lowest level.

You just created a fade in the volume curve. Now let’s automate a panning curve over this same region.

6. In the SoCal Cowbell track, select Pan from the Automation Parameter pop-up menu.

A green pan curve appears in the track. For pan curves, the center of the automation area is panned center (0), above the line it’s panned left, and below the line it’s panned right. The farthest you can pan left is –64; the farthest right is +63.

7. Add control points to the beginning, middle, and end of the region.

8. Drag the middle control point down to a level of +50 (panned right +50). Drag the first and third control points up to a level of –50 (panned left –50).

9. Solo the SoCal Cowbell track and play the track from bar 33 to bar 38 to hear the automated panning of the cowbell and the fade-out between bar 37 and 38.

Now let’s add panning automation to the first cowbell region.

10. Scroll the tracks area until you clearly see the first SoCal Cowbell region. Add five control points: one at the beginning, one at the end, and one at each notched area where the loop repeats. Raise or lower each control point so that the sound alternates between the left and right speakers. How much you pan each time is up to you.

11. When you are finished, play the region to hear your panoramic automation. Then unsolo the track and listen to the automated cowbell in the mix. When you are finished, press A to hide track automation and save your progress.

If you didn’t finish all the exercises in this lesson and want to hear the finished mix, open the project 8-2 Finished Mix.

Congratulations. You’ve finished mixing the project, and you’ve added a few advanced tricks with automation and effects to enhance the project. Now you can apply these mixing techniques to your own projects. And your newly trained ear will hear all kinds of mixing and panning automation hidden in your favorite music.

In the next section you’ll add an EQ effect to the audio track of a video clip to enhance the sound.

1. Open the project 8-3 EQ Effect Starting. A warning dialog appears to let you know the movie is missing.

If you read the path of the movie file in the dialog, you’ll note that it is the same location as the movie file on your computer. So all you need to do is show GarageBand where to find it.

2. Click the Locate File button. When the Locate File dialog opens, navigate to Desktop > APTS GarageBand Book Files > Additional Media Files > RSD The Step Off.m4v.

3. Double-click the RSD The Step Off.m4v file to open it. Then save the project in your My GarageBand Projects folder on the desktop.

Now that the project is open and the movie file connected, you’re ready to add some EQ.

Movie audio tracks always appear in the top track and have the same name as the movie file. In this project, you’ll notice there are also three other muted tracks. We’ll get to those shortly. In the interest of saving time, and to avoid reteaching things you’ve already learned, I set up this project like a cooking show with some of the ingredients already prepped and ready to add to the mix (pun intended).

The award-winning dancers in this video are Lauren Diaz and Brooke Bingham, both teenaged dancers from the Ready Set Dance competition team in Gotha, Florida. The gentleman at the end of the video clip is William Blair, the choreographer for this dance. He specializes in mainstream pop, hip-hop, and music-video dance choreography. When I first saw this a cappella (without accompanying instruments or music) portion of Lauren and Brooke’s dance, it caught my attention as a powerful example of noninstrumental percussion for this book. Plus, it’s a cool dance to watch that lends itself well to audio enhancement—not to mention the potential for making audio loops from the soundtrack, which you already worked with in the previous lesson.

For now, let’s watch and listen to the movie and its audio track. Don’t be surprised if the stomps and claps in this hip-hop dance routine sound familiar. Some of the loops you created in the previous lesson came from the RSD The Step Off movie’s audio track.

1. In the movie track header, click the minimized movie window to expand it. Feel free to resize the movie window by freely dragging one of its corners.

2. Move the movie window to the empty space at the bottom of the tracks area. Then play the project.

What do you think? To me, the visual part of the hip-hop dance performance is exciting and captivating. However, the audio of their dramatic stomps and claps is so lackluster it detracts from the overall experience. When the dancers perform in an auditorium on stage, the stomps and claps pack a lot more punch. Since this video was shot at the Ready Set Dance Studio on a cushioned floor designed for tumbling, the acoustic power of this performance has been significantly reduced. Your goal in the next exercise is to use the EQ effect to reshape the sound to make it worthy of the awesome dancers in the video.

Now that we have determined that the sound for this clip should be louder, let’s listen to the track doubled to hear if that gives it a boost.

3. Select the Doubled Audio track header. Press M to unmute the track. Play the first part of the project again and listen to it with the doubled audio tracks. As the project plays, toggle the Mute button on and off by pressing the M key to hear it with and without the doubled track. When you are finished, make sure the Mute button is turned off.

Did you hear a difference with the doubled track? It definitely sounded louder with the second track. You may be wondering why I doubled the track instead of just cranking up the track’s volume in the track header. A rule of audio mixing is that if you have to drag a volume slider all the way up to properly hear a track, you should find another way to raise it. Why? Because when you add other effects or tracks to the mix, you have nowhere to go. You can only turn the level down—you can’t give it a little extra volume later if needed. Audio is cumulative, so adding a track to itself boosts the amplitude (volume) instantly, while giving you room to still raise the level further later.

Clearly, just doubling the track isn’t enough. Time to break out the GarageBand EQ effects and bring this soundtrack to life.

How do you know what frequencies you need to boost or reduce? You use the built-in Analyzer. First you’ll solo the track and use the Analyzer to see the frequency curve for the track. Then you’ll use the Graphic EQ to boost the frequencies that enhance the stomps and claps.

1. Select the Doubled Audio track, if it is not already selected. Then press B to display the Smart Controls pane and press Y to show the Library. Move and resize the movie window as needed so you can see the Smart Controls pane.

2. In the Smart Controls menu, click the EQ button. If you look at the Library you’ll see that the Natural Vocal patch has already been applied to the track.

Let’s solo the Doubled Audio track so it will be easier to hear the changes in the EQ as you make them. Also, this is a good time to turn on Cycle mode so that you can continuously hear the dance sounds while you experiment with the EQ.

3. Press S to solo the Doubled Audio track. Press C to turn on Cycle mode. You should see a cycle area from around 5 seconds (0:05) to around 50 seconds (0:50). If for some reason you don’t already have one of that length, create it now. The length of the cycle area doesn’t need to be precise; it just has to be long enough to cover the majority of the dance.

Now all we have to do is figure out which frequencies need adjusting in the Graphic EQ. Luckily, the Analyzer can show us.

4. Start playback. In the lower-left corner of the Graphic EQ display, click the Analyzer button.

The Analyzer displays the frequency curve for the selected track. The light blue shaded areas in the EQ show the frequency curve applied to the track by the Natural Vocal patch. If you watch the live frequency curve from the Analyzer you’ll see that it conforms to the frequency boundaries imposed by the Natural Vocal patch.

The Analyzer shows frequency activity between 100 and 500 Hz every time the girls stomp, and around 5000 Hz (5K) for the claps.

5. In the Graphic EQ display, hover the pointer over the 200 Hz range. The area becomes shaded yellow and a yellow control point appears in the middle.

6. Drag the yellow EQ handle (point) down to hear what happens when you remove the 200 Hz frequencies. The stomps are barely audible. Drag the yellow handle up to around 20 on the graph. Drag it left and right between 100 Hz and 500 Hz to hear which range works best for the stomps. Toggle the EQ power button on and off as needed to hear the track with and without the modified EQ.

Once you are satisfied with your improvements to the stomps, it’s time to fix the claps.

7. Hover between 2k and 5k. The area becomes shaded blue. At the bottom of the EQ display, the exact frequency the handle is set to appears (2500 Hz). Drag the blue handle down to remove the frequency, then up, left, and right until you find what sounds best for the claps. You can see my choice of 3450 Hz in the screenshot.

8. Click the Smart Controls inspector button (i) if the inspector is not showing. Toggle the EQ power button off and on to hear the difference you’ve made to the EQ. Feel free to experiment with the Graphic EQ before moving on to the next step. If you want to reset the EQ, choose Recall Default from the EQ Preset pop-up menu.

Now that you have greatly improved the sound of the performance, let’s hear it with all the tracks.

9. Press C to turn off Cycle mode. Click the Analyzer button to turn it off. Unsolo the Doubled Audio track and unmute the bottom two tracks. Play the end of the performance to hear the last two tracks. See if you can guess what sound was used for the region in the Guitar 1 track.

The guitar track region is actually just the impact sound of Lauren and Brooke’s feet when they landed after their spectacular backflips at the end of the performance. I copied and pasted that part of the region into a guitar track so I could add some echo, reverb, and other guitar sound effects. The final track is my daughter saying “Awesome” from her Wah Kazoo recording session. I added plenty of electric guitar and amp effects to modify her voice.

The final step is to add an EQ effect preset to the master track. You don’t even have to display the master track in the timeline.

10. In the Smart Controls inspector, click the Master button. In the Library, choose a Factory preset for the master track. Feel free to experiment with different presets or the Output controls in the Smart Controls. When you are finished, solo the top track to hear the original sound with no effects, then unsolo the track to hear your finished version. If you’d like to hear my finished version of the project, open 8-4 EQ Effect Finished.

Mixing audio tracks and adding effects get easier the more you practice. Now you have the mixing and effects skills to greatly improve the sound of your own projects.

Have fun. I’ve included two examples in the Lesson Bonus Projects folder. The first is called 8 RSD Bounced Loops. Open this version if you are working with the 500 original loops that came with GarageBand 10. In this project, I exported the tracks with added loops into one file that I then added to a different version of the project. This process is also called “bouncing” audio. If you have the full set of 2,000 Apple Loops that come with the one-time download, open the project 8 RSD With Loops to see and hear the project with the added loops. In each project, you will need to locate the movie clip in the Additional Media folder.

2. How can you apply effects or automation to an entire project?

3. How do you create changes over time to a track’s volume level or pan position?

4. Where do you find the EQ effect presets for a track?

5. What does the Analyzer in the Graphic EQ do?

2. The master track lets you apply effects or automation to an entire project.

3. Enable Automation on the track, select a parameter to automate from the Automation Parameter pop-up menu, and add control points to the track’s automation curves.

4. You can choose EQ Effect Presets from the pop-up menu in the Smart Controls inspector.

5. The Analyzer shows the frequency curve in the Graphic EQ display of the selected audio track as it plays.