MusicRadar

If you've bought a Mac recently, you'll have the latest version of GarageBand already.

View in gallery

GarageBand is arguably the most user-friendly music-making application on the market, but unlocking all of its secrets can still take time. To help you speed up the learning process, MusicRadar has put together an exhaustive A to Z guide to the software - we'll cover both basic and advanced features and explain how they all work.

The guide is divided into four parts, and we'll kick off, naturally enough, with part 1, which covers the letters A-G. Part 2, part 3 and part 4 are also available.

A is for Apple

GarageBand is Apple's entry-level music-making application. Available as part of the company's iLife suite – it also ships with all new Macs – it lets you create professional-sounding songs, instrumental pieces, remixes… anything you can think of.

GarageBand is what we call a sequencer, or, to be posh, a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). DAWs let you record audio tracks of your own via a microphone, while also providing access to a whole series of internal sounds that you can record with. GarageBand is no different – it's a virtual recording studio simply awaiting your input.

If you don't have the most up-to-date version of iLife, it's available for a mere £55, giving you music, film, photography and DVD applications that will help you fulfil all your creative dreams, whatever they may be.

B is for bitcrusher

Any track within your GarageBand arrangement can be passed through a bitcrusher, as can your whole mix. The bitcrusher is one of GarageBand's many effects processors. It takes your pristine audio and deliberately lowers its resolution so that it becomes retro, lo-fi, glitchy and crunchy. It's a really popular effect, favoured by experimental electronica and rock producers alike, as it adds grit, a bit like distortion.

Of course, if it's distortion you're after, GarageBand does that too, which will be of particular interest to guitarists.

GarageBand also comes with an extensive range of amp simulators. Simply connect your guitar directly to an audio interface and record a 'clean' signal, then try a range of virtual guitar treatments and choose your favourite.

C is for compression

Compression is what's known in the industry as a 'dynamics processor'. This is because it affects the dynamics, or volume, of a particular instrument, track or note. Compression can be used to even out dynamics by reducing the volume of over-loud parts, while boosting parts that are too quiet. The advantage of compression is that it helps maintain a sense of balance by keeping recorded parts 'level' in the mix.

This can also be achieved with automation. GarageBand's automation tracks let you literally draw volume changes so that you can make parts fade in or out, or push up or reduce the volume of a particular note or phrase in a track. Automation isn't restricted to volume, either - you can also easily automate panning (the balance between the left- and right-hand sides of any given track). If you want to get fancy, you can even automate individual parameters from your effects plug-ins.