- GarageBand 10.1.1 for Macintosh OS X - GarageBand for Mac is a digital audio workstation (DAW) and music sequencer, with guitar amp and effects modeling and other added features. Download GarageBand 10.1.1 here. See user reviews. Post your comments.
- Each GarageBand track can be assigned any single channel, or pair of channels. Additionally, each channel can only be assigned to a single track at a time. So if you assign channel 1 to track 1, and also assign channel 1 to track 2, you will not be able to record on both tracks 1 and 2 at the same time.
The quantizer function is an incredibly useful feature in Garageband, and I use it on pretty much every track.
Dec 21, 2019 Download GarageBand 10.3.4 for Mac from our website for free. This free program was developed to work on Mac OS X 10.9 or later. The application is included in Audio & Video Tools. The most popular versions among the application users are 10.0, 6.0 and 5.1.
In this tutorial today, I'm going to show you how to use the Quantizer function to its best capability, not only for MIDI music but also for actual real-time recordings.
Explained simply, Quantizing is the method by which the sound is processed so it falls more in-line with the beat and the overall rhythm of the track.
In other words, it allows us to alter the notes after the fact, to make the music more 'on-time.'
To further illustrate what I'm talking about here, check out the two images that I've created below.
In the first one, we can see that the MIDI notes fall slightly off the grid, which means they're a bit off-time.
In the following image, we can see that the MIDI notes have been pulled exactly on to the grid. That, essentially, is what we're doing when we quantize music.
When I first started using this software, I used to go through each MIDI note, select it, and manually push it on to the grid line, until I discovered that with a few clicks of the Trackpad, you can just do it automatically without wasting so much time.
Without further ado, let's get right into it.
How To Use The Quantizer Function
The Quantizer function is in the bottom of the Garageband interface within the section of the DAW that's called the 'Smart Controls.' It's the section pointed out in the image shown below:
Let's say that you've created a track, whether it's MIDI or a traditional recording.
If you want to bring up the Smart Controls, including the part where the Quantizer function is visible, you can just double-click on the MIDI/Audio region and it'll bring up the Smart Controls in the bottom of the screen.
You can also hit the ‘B' part of your keyboard, or click on the dial in the top-left-hand corner of the DAW.
Once you've brought up the Quantizer, you can see the parameters, which there are two, the type of note and how strong you want the quantizer to function.
It's really not too complicated.
While the options are based on traditional musical notation, for instance, 1/16th notes, 1/4 notes, and 1/8th notes, etc, you don't have to have an understanding of music theory or standard notation to use the function.
When Quantizing Drum Tracks, I pretty much always have it set to 1/16 notes, and then I slide the meter all the way to 100 to pull the notes exactly on the grid.
Essentially, that's what the Quantizer does. It pushes the notes back or forward until they snap exactly to the grid.
The intuitive part of the Piano Roll is the fact that the grid-lines are split up so it matches, mathematically, the traditional time measurements of standard notation.
Explained in another way, if you look at how many grid-lines there are between the 1 and 2 in the Piano roll, you'll notice there are 16 grid lines.
If you set the Quantizer function to 1/16 notes, that means it's going to snap each note to the closest grid line exactly, which is much better if you have a ton of different notes in each bar.
On the other hand, if you only play one note per measure, the 1/16 function wouldn't be as useful. Let's say, hypothetically, there is one note per measure, and it's right near the beginning of the bar.
In that case, it would be best to use the 1/4 note function. However, with all of that said, I find that the 1/16 note option is pretty much always the setting you want to have it at, but I'm sure this depends on for what instrument you're using it for.
Using the example of 1/1, if you select this option, the Quantizer Function is going to snap each note so it falls exactly on the Grid Line for each new beat, (1, 2, 3, 4,) and not the grid-lines that fall between them. This looks like the image shown below.
If you use the 1/2 (Half-Note) function, it'll snap each note to the Grid-Line on every beat and the beat between each beat. Check out the picture below:.
Select the Quarter note function, 1/4, and it'll bring the notes to every quarter grid-line.
Select the 1/8 note function, and it snaps the notes to one of 8 of the closest grid-lines.
I hope you're able to get the picture from here. ***Keep in mind, each of these images is the same melody, just quantized differently.
It's really just as simple as that. The Quantizer function isn't very sophisticated, but it is extremely useful.
Using the Quantizer With Actual Recordings (Not MIDI)
This function is just as useful.
In fact, it's of incredible value. If you've recorded a performance and a note is just slightly off-time, you can go into Garageband's Smart Controls and push the note over just a tiny bit to make it perfect. It's pretty amazing.
Click on your Audio Region, the Blue Region, and then hit the Region button.
First things first, you want to check the box that says, 'Enable Flex.' This allows us to actually make changes.
Down in the Smart Controls, we can see the Quantizer function, and we'll set it, again, to 1/16 notes.
Once you've done this, you'll notice that Garageband will drop a bunch of different lines in the Smart Controls between the soundwaves that represent your recording.
From here, you can simply use your Trackpad and the cursor to manually move notes around.
Match up the beginning of the soundwave with the grid-line, as what's seen below, and voila, you've got a piece of music that is more on time.
Drawbacks Of Quantization
An important thing to note is that the Quantizer function, in the eyes of some musicians/engineers, can have the unintended consequence of eliminating the 'soul' of the music.
In other words, human performances of music will regularly have mistakes and imperfections, which is kind of what makes the music more human and impactful.
If every note is constantly on key and every note is exactly on time, the effect of this is that it doesn't have the same amount of humanity.
Whether or not you agree with this, I don't know, but it's something to think about.
Using the example of Punk Rock or even Jazz Improvisation, quantizing everything is likely going to make the music seem way less cool to fans of these genres.
With hip-hop and modern rock, and regular pop/dance music, this is less the case, as listeners of this music typically care a lot less about the production methods.
For other editing features, including pitch correction, check out my article on auto-tune and pitch-correction, as well as my post on editing tips.
In these articles, I run through how to use Garageband's pitch correction features, and in the editing article, I explain some of the most useful commands and editing functions Garageband has to offer.
If you need a video tutorial, I have one at the link shown below.
I run through the exact same principles laid out in this article, but you can hear how things sound after using the quantizing function.
YouTube Video Tutorial
Conclusion
I hope this short article was helpful to you. Do me a solid and share this on social media with your producer friends.
Changing the key signature and pitch in Garageband is pretty straightforward.
1) Open your GarageBand file.
2) At the top-center of the DAW, you should see four icons in order from left-to-right: the beat, the tempo, the time signature, and the key signature.
3) Typically, GarageBand has for its default setting the most common key signature in music, C Major, or as it's written in the DAW (digital audio workstation), 'Cmaj.'
4) Click on the Key Signature – 'C Maj.'
5) Change it to the desired Key.
6) The moment you switch the key signature and play the track, you'll notice it sounds higher or lower. It's that simple.
But the main problem with this simple method is that you'll change the key signature for other MIDI instruments in the song, and you may not want this.
For instance, if your drum tracks have been created using a MIDI-keyboard, changing the key signature will likely throw the drums completely off, changing kicks to snares, high-hats to cymbals, and snares to shakers.
Although, in some cases, it leaves your drum-kits alone, depending on what kit you're using.
If you're interested in changing the key signature for just one part of the song, check out the section below.
By the way, if you're new to GarageBand, it doesn't hurt to turn on the 'Quick Help Button,' that way you can you hover your cursor over whatever is in GarageBand, and the software gives you a quick run-down of everything. It's on the top-left-hand corner. For the vast majority of my 'How To Guides,' I'll be referencing the name of things as titled by GarageBand.
How To Change The Key Of One Track Without Altering The Others
1) Click on the music in your track.
2) Copy the file by double-clicking it, or using the two-finger method on your Mac.
3) Once you've copied your file, save it, and then open a new project.
4) Click on 'Software Instrument.'
5) Now, set your 'Software Instrument' to what you were using before.
6) Copy and paste your music into the track region.
7) Click the Key Signature, and then transpose the track into a new key.
Caffeinated 1 1 7. 8) Copy your new music.
9) Now close this file and open up your other file from which you copied your track.
10) Open a new 'Software Instrument,' and post your transposed music into it.
11) And voila, you've successfully changed the key of one track in your DAW.
If you want to change the pitch of ONE and not several 'Audio,' tracks, whether it's a guitar or microphone recording, and without altering the key signature of your other tracks, you have to do it another way, through a plug-in.
Important Things To Note
By modifying the key signature of your music in GarageBand, the pitch of the music will change either up or down, in accordance with a particular key signature. There's a difference between changing just the pitch and the key signature.
Assuming you're new to musical concepts, pitch refers to how low or high the note sounds. A high note means the sound wave is vibrating very fast, and a low sound means that it's vibrating very slow. This is why when fast-forwarding a tape, the pitch of the sound is higher rather than lower.
Altering the key signature of a song transposes the music into a different key, so the music will sound the same, just at a higher or lower pitch, depending on to what key you've migrated. But if you switch music from a major key into a minor key, the tonality will shift from a happy-sounding to a sad-sounding piece of music.
Transposing music means to change the overall position of the music, thus, changing its sound.
Adjusting the pitch, on the other hand, is a slightly different beast. Changing the pitch of every note in a musical passage by one semi-tone, for example, will likely create dissonance.
Dissonance is a fancy word for, 'it just won't sound quite right.'
This is the case because the distance between notes changes depending on the key signature. For example, C to D is different by a full-tone, whereas E to F is just one semi-tone.
Looking at the keyboard above, going from C to C# is one semi-tone, (a half-step), whereas going from a C to a D is a whole-tone (full-step).
Thankfully, GarageBand comes with the ability to change the key of a specific passage when adjusting music from a MIDI keyboard or your laptop's keyboard, rather than just adjusting the pitch.
How to Change The Key Signature (Pitch) Of An Audio Track
1) Double-click on your 'Track Header,' and bring up where it shows your plug-ins down below in the 'Smart Controls' settings.
2) Now go into your Plug-In options and choose the one that says, 'Pitch.'
3) Choose 'Pitch Shifter.'
4) Now you can select how by many semi-tones your 'Audio' recording is either increasing or decreasing.
5)Make sure you turn the 'Mix' option, up to 100%, that way it minimizes the original notes playing, and accentuates the pitch-corrected version.
The big problem with this, I find, is that it doesn't sound nearly as good. It's an imperfect transposition, because it changes every note by exactly a semi-tone or a full tone, rather than changing the notes so it fits in a particular key signature.
In other words, some of the notes will sound dissonant.
Another thing you can do is change the pitch using the 'Pitch Correction function.'
How To Change The Pitch Using Pitch Correction
1) You do that by sliding the 'Pitch Correction' bar to either the right or the left, depending on whether you want it to increase or decrease.
Furthermore, there are other tools available, such as Celemony's Melodyne, which you can read more about here.
Another Way For Changing the Key (Pitch) Of Vocals.
1) Double click on your 'Audio' vocals in GarageBand.
2) Open up a new 'Track Header,' that says, 'New Track With Duplicate Settings.'
3) Now go into where it says, 'Voice,' on the left-hand side.
4) Click on, 'Compressed Vocal.'
5) Now go into your 'Smart Controls,' and select the option in the top of the bottom-right-hand corner that says, 'Pedals Button,' when you hover over it with your 'Quick Help Button' turned on.
It's kind of hard to see, but I have the 'Pedals Button,' circled with a black circle. It's on the top-right-hand corner.
6) This will bring up a whole bunch of Analog-style pedals that people use when doing Analog rather than digital recordings.
7) Click on the Drop-Down Menu where it says, 'Manual.'
8) Go down to 'Pitch,' and change the pitch of the song to what you want. For the sake of an example, we'll choose 'Octave Up.'
9) That will make your vocals a lot higher, or you can choose one from the other 14 options listed.
That's how you change the key signature or the pitch of your recordings in GarageBand. For the sake of clarification, I wrote a brief explanation of what key signatures exactly are, and how to go about using them.
It's just an introduction, but it should help if you're confused.
What Are Key Signatures And How Do I Use Them?
A key signature is a collection of all of the accidentals (sharps and flats) within a scale.
For example, a scale has seven notes. We'll use the C Major Scale to illustrate the point.
The C Major Scale has 7 notes, beginning from C: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then C again.
From left to right, the scale is pictured below:
Assuming you're a total beginner, the notes on top are the official musical notation, whereas, the numbers below are guitar tablature. There are serious advantages to learning how to read music as well as tablature if you're a guitar player.
Garageband 10
(I can't lie to you, however, I'm a lot better at reading tablature, as I'm sure a lot of other people are).
Beside the treble clef, you'll notice there aren't any sharps (#) or flats (b). In the Key of C Major, there are none, but, if we were to transpose the key up to E Major, it would change.
In Key Of E Major, there are four sharps: F, C, G, D.
From the order of left to right, you can see there are four sharps, F, G, C, D. The scale below is an E Major scale written in the corresponding tablature for the guitar.
Technically, this piece of music is written so that it's still in the Key Of C because there aren't any sharps and flats written beside the Treble Clef, which is the thing that looks like a sophisticated G on the left side of the 4/4 symbol (time signature).
Izotope ozone 8 advanced for mac free download. Now, I'm going to write the music so it's in the Key Of E Major. Beside the Treble Clef in the image below, I've put a circle around the four sharps, which indicate this piece is in the Key Of E.
Whenever you see 4 sharps before a piece of music, you know it's in the Key Of E.
Also, you can see that you don't have to write the sharps beside the music notes anymore. There's no need for that because the music reader knows we're in the Key Of E, therefore, anytime you play an F, C, G, or D, those notes have to be played one semi-tone higher.
Newsletters templates for pages 1 1 download free. There's nothing overly sophisticated about a Key Signature. Essentially, it's just a way of communicating the range in which the pitch of the song lies.
In other words, you know how high the song is on your guitar fretboard, or you know how high it is up on the piano keyboard.
What Is The Purpose Of A Key Signature
The purpose of a key signature isn't to confuse up-and-coming musicians, although, I know it can feel that way.
Garageband 1.0
The purpose of the key signature is, essentially, to minimize the number of sharps (#) and flats (b) written in a piece of music. If there were no key signatures, a composer would have to write a sharp and flat on many of the notes, which would be pretty time-consuming.
Conclusion
Match up the beginning of the soundwave with the grid-line, as what's seen below, and voila, you've got a piece of music that is more on time.
Drawbacks Of Quantization
An important thing to note is that the Quantizer function, in the eyes of some musicians/engineers, can have the unintended consequence of eliminating the 'soul' of the music.
In other words, human performances of music will regularly have mistakes and imperfections, which is kind of what makes the music more human and impactful.
If every note is constantly on key and every note is exactly on time, the effect of this is that it doesn't have the same amount of humanity.
Whether or not you agree with this, I don't know, but it's something to think about.
Using the example of Punk Rock or even Jazz Improvisation, quantizing everything is likely going to make the music seem way less cool to fans of these genres.
With hip-hop and modern rock, and regular pop/dance music, this is less the case, as listeners of this music typically care a lot less about the production methods.
For other editing features, including pitch correction, check out my article on auto-tune and pitch-correction, as well as my post on editing tips.
In these articles, I run through how to use Garageband's pitch correction features, and in the editing article, I explain some of the most useful commands and editing functions Garageband has to offer.
If you need a video tutorial, I have one at the link shown below.
I run through the exact same principles laid out in this article, but you can hear how things sound after using the quantizing function.
YouTube Video Tutorial
Conclusion
I hope this short article was helpful to you. Do me a solid and share this on social media with your producer friends.
Changing the key signature and pitch in Garageband is pretty straightforward.
1) Open your GarageBand file.
2) At the top-center of the DAW, you should see four icons in order from left-to-right: the beat, the tempo, the time signature, and the key signature.
3) Typically, GarageBand has for its default setting the most common key signature in music, C Major, or as it's written in the DAW (digital audio workstation), 'Cmaj.'
4) Click on the Key Signature – 'C Maj.'
5) Change it to the desired Key.
6) The moment you switch the key signature and play the track, you'll notice it sounds higher or lower. It's that simple.
But the main problem with this simple method is that you'll change the key signature for other MIDI instruments in the song, and you may not want this.
For instance, if your drum tracks have been created using a MIDI-keyboard, changing the key signature will likely throw the drums completely off, changing kicks to snares, high-hats to cymbals, and snares to shakers.
Although, in some cases, it leaves your drum-kits alone, depending on what kit you're using.
If you're interested in changing the key signature for just one part of the song, check out the section below.
By the way, if you're new to GarageBand, it doesn't hurt to turn on the 'Quick Help Button,' that way you can you hover your cursor over whatever is in GarageBand, and the software gives you a quick run-down of everything. It's on the top-left-hand corner. For the vast majority of my 'How To Guides,' I'll be referencing the name of things as titled by GarageBand.
How To Change The Key Of One Track Without Altering The Others
1) Click on the music in your track.
2) Copy the file by double-clicking it, or using the two-finger method on your Mac.
3) Once you've copied your file, save it, and then open a new project.
4) Click on 'Software Instrument.'
5) Now, set your 'Software Instrument' to what you were using before.
6) Copy and paste your music into the track region.
7) Click the Key Signature, and then transpose the track into a new key.
Caffeinated 1 1 7. 8) Copy your new music.
9) Now close this file and open up your other file from which you copied your track.
10) Open a new 'Software Instrument,' and post your transposed music into it.
11) And voila, you've successfully changed the key of one track in your DAW.
If you want to change the pitch of ONE and not several 'Audio,' tracks, whether it's a guitar or microphone recording, and without altering the key signature of your other tracks, you have to do it another way, through a plug-in.
Important Things To Note
By modifying the key signature of your music in GarageBand, the pitch of the music will change either up or down, in accordance with a particular key signature. There's a difference between changing just the pitch and the key signature.
Assuming you're new to musical concepts, pitch refers to how low or high the note sounds. A high note means the sound wave is vibrating very fast, and a low sound means that it's vibrating very slow. This is why when fast-forwarding a tape, the pitch of the sound is higher rather than lower.
Altering the key signature of a song transposes the music into a different key, so the music will sound the same, just at a higher or lower pitch, depending on to what key you've migrated. But if you switch music from a major key into a minor key, the tonality will shift from a happy-sounding to a sad-sounding piece of music.
Transposing music means to change the overall position of the music, thus, changing its sound.
Adjusting the pitch, on the other hand, is a slightly different beast. Changing the pitch of every note in a musical passage by one semi-tone, for example, will likely create dissonance.
Dissonance is a fancy word for, 'it just won't sound quite right.'
This is the case because the distance between notes changes depending on the key signature. For example, C to D is different by a full-tone, whereas E to F is just one semi-tone.
Looking at the keyboard above, going from C to C# is one semi-tone, (a half-step), whereas going from a C to a D is a whole-tone (full-step).
Thankfully, GarageBand comes with the ability to change the key of a specific passage when adjusting music from a MIDI keyboard or your laptop's keyboard, rather than just adjusting the pitch.
How to Change The Key Signature (Pitch) Of An Audio Track
1) Double-click on your 'Track Header,' and bring up where it shows your plug-ins down below in the 'Smart Controls' settings.
2) Now go into your Plug-In options and choose the one that says, 'Pitch.'
3) Choose 'Pitch Shifter.'
4) Now you can select how by many semi-tones your 'Audio' recording is either increasing or decreasing.
5)Make sure you turn the 'Mix' option, up to 100%, that way it minimizes the original notes playing, and accentuates the pitch-corrected version.
The big problem with this, I find, is that it doesn't sound nearly as good. It's an imperfect transposition, because it changes every note by exactly a semi-tone or a full tone, rather than changing the notes so it fits in a particular key signature.
In other words, some of the notes will sound dissonant.
Another thing you can do is change the pitch using the 'Pitch Correction function.'
How To Change The Pitch Using Pitch Correction
1) You do that by sliding the 'Pitch Correction' bar to either the right or the left, depending on whether you want it to increase or decrease.
Furthermore, there are other tools available, such as Celemony's Melodyne, which you can read more about here.
Another Way For Changing the Key (Pitch) Of Vocals.
1) Double click on your 'Audio' vocals in GarageBand.
2) Open up a new 'Track Header,' that says, 'New Track With Duplicate Settings.'
3) Now go into where it says, 'Voice,' on the left-hand side.
4) Click on, 'Compressed Vocal.'
5) Now go into your 'Smart Controls,' and select the option in the top of the bottom-right-hand corner that says, 'Pedals Button,' when you hover over it with your 'Quick Help Button' turned on.
It's kind of hard to see, but I have the 'Pedals Button,' circled with a black circle. It's on the top-right-hand corner.
6) This will bring up a whole bunch of Analog-style pedals that people use when doing Analog rather than digital recordings.
7) Click on the Drop-Down Menu where it says, 'Manual.'
8) Go down to 'Pitch,' and change the pitch of the song to what you want. For the sake of an example, we'll choose 'Octave Up.'
9) That will make your vocals a lot higher, or you can choose one from the other 14 options listed.
That's how you change the key signature or the pitch of your recordings in GarageBand. For the sake of clarification, I wrote a brief explanation of what key signatures exactly are, and how to go about using them.
It's just an introduction, but it should help if you're confused.
What Are Key Signatures And How Do I Use Them?
A key signature is a collection of all of the accidentals (sharps and flats) within a scale.
For example, a scale has seven notes. We'll use the C Major Scale to illustrate the point.
The C Major Scale has 7 notes, beginning from C: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then C again.
From left to right, the scale is pictured below:
Assuming you're a total beginner, the notes on top are the official musical notation, whereas, the numbers below are guitar tablature. There are serious advantages to learning how to read music as well as tablature if you're a guitar player.
Garageband 10
(I can't lie to you, however, I'm a lot better at reading tablature, as I'm sure a lot of other people are).
Beside the treble clef, you'll notice there aren't any sharps (#) or flats (b). In the Key of C Major, there are none, but, if we were to transpose the key up to E Major, it would change.
In Key Of E Major, there are four sharps: F, C, G, D.
From the order of left to right, you can see there are four sharps, F, G, C, D. The scale below is an E Major scale written in the corresponding tablature for the guitar.
Technically, this piece of music is written so that it's still in the Key Of C because there aren't any sharps and flats written beside the Treble Clef, which is the thing that looks like a sophisticated G on the left side of the 4/4 symbol (time signature).
Izotope ozone 8 advanced for mac free download. Now, I'm going to write the music so it's in the Key Of E Major. Beside the Treble Clef in the image below, I've put a circle around the four sharps, which indicate this piece is in the Key Of E.
Whenever you see 4 sharps before a piece of music, you know it's in the Key Of E.
Also, you can see that you don't have to write the sharps beside the music notes anymore. There's no need for that because the music reader knows we're in the Key Of E, therefore, anytime you play an F, C, G, or D, those notes have to be played one semi-tone higher.
Newsletters templates for pages 1 1 download free. There's nothing overly sophisticated about a Key Signature. Essentially, it's just a way of communicating the range in which the pitch of the song lies.
In other words, you know how high the song is on your guitar fretboard, or you know how high it is up on the piano keyboard.
What Is The Purpose Of A Key Signature
The purpose of a key signature isn't to confuse up-and-coming musicians, although, I know it can feel that way.
Garageband 1.0
The purpose of the key signature is, essentially, to minimize the number of sharps (#) and flats (b) written in a piece of music. If there were no key signatures, a composer would have to write a sharp and flat on many of the notes, which would be pretty time-consuming.
Conclusion
This is just a very brief introduction to key signatures in music theory. If you want to learn more basic theory, I recommend heading over to musictheory.net, as well as picking up a copy of Mark Sarnecki's book, The Complete Elementary Rudiments, which you can read about in my post of all my most recommended products.
I believe it's the last entry in the list. I have other books on music production as well in my recommended gear page.
