where can I find this song?

🙌🏼 thank you!

That’s amazing, Christophor! That’s truly why I do this. 🙌🏼

It’s not! I switched to Logic from Pro Tools a few years ago and realized how similar GarageBand has become and how if you just learn the tools you could totally make pro music in GB! Hence… the channel. Committed to empowering every GB user

We thank you Colin @@TheBandGuide

🙌🏼 thank you!

Hey, thanks!

🙌🏼🙌🏼 Thank you!

Thank you! You'll hear it a lot in this series... haha

🙌🏼🙌🏼

That's awesome! Keep it up, man!

Thanks, Sergio!

Amazing! You’re welcome 🙌🏼

Garageband for 30 years? 🤣

Man, I was so shocked. That lie’s not straight

That’s amazing! I’m excited to hear what you do with it!!

@@TheBandGuide i would like to actually ask you. Im recording my vocals to karaoke instrumental base which are pretty good ( not as good as they should be though). How would you mix it? Or would you touch the karaoke instrumental or would you focus just on the vocals? I dont know how the curved line should look. Im lost 🥵🥵🥵 I would like to see what you would do with my raw recording and learn it from you, what, where and how would you do it 😍😍😍 now Im feeling like Im sinking in a pond of so many info

Thanks, Romil! I'm still a fairly new channel! I would say you are okay at those levels, but keep an eye on it. If you start to see it going much higher as you work through the other steps, I would add a gain plugin (Utility>Gain) after your compressor on your master track and just turn the signal down at that point.

@@TheBandGuide Thanks a lot for your quick reply. I'm going through your other tutorials, they're awesome, very easy to understand for a newbie like me.

Great question! Think of those effects as part of the recording phase and separate from the mixing phase. You might adjust levels in the mixing, but don't think of them as effects. They are just part of the "drum sound." I hope that helps!

Oh nice! Absolutely, same principles no matter what DAW you want to use

That's exactly right. You want to leave headroom for the mastering stage. It's also good practice to leave at least -3db (-6db would be even better) peak in early mixing stages to make sure you aren't clipping (-0db) if you need to bring up the volume of anything in later stages.

I would definitely only use the YouleanMeter for mastering. The VU meter is a much better tool for mixing and uses much less computer processing power!

Great question! I do. If I need more or less volume, I always adjust it on the device- preferably interface, but if I'm just using my computer I'll adjust the computer volume

Try Rosetta for Mac.

Thank you! This video should show you how to fix that kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jb5jdNGQyc6rZWg.html

Hey Kim! That’s GREAT to hear! And a great question. It’s not a problem at all as long as there isn’t any peaking! I sometimes start with drums too, actually. I’m stoked to hear your song!

Hey. Did you restart your computet?

Hi Didier- It's true- a lot more goes into it than most people realize! There are 2 ways I could see addressing this: 1) Assuming you can see the waveforms well enough to move around in your session, I would just add gain with a gain plugin (under utility in the plugin list) at the start of your signal chain. 2) If you can't see the waveforms and therefore don't know when different sections are playing on each track, I would probably re-export your tracks as you mentioned To avoid this in the future, I would recommend just checking levels on a meter. I talk about that in this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eqiPeN1hsZ6tloE.html An accurate meter is the most surefire way to know you have consistent volumes. That being said, if you are always recording/mixing in the same place with the same setup, finding ideal monitoring levels is a great idea and can be a timesaver in the long run. I hope this helps!

@@TheBandGuide Thanks Colin, I appreciate you've taken the time to comment. This is very helpful, I'll try the gain plugin first, and bear in mind the meter in future!!

I just set it on the master track, set the peak standard preset, then keep it up and keep my eye on it to make sure I never go over -3db as I’m setting my volume levels

@@TheBandGuide Thanks!

Absolutely! I often hear a "final" mix and go... dang... this guitar part or this tambourine would add a lot here... so I add them! I definitely don't start over- I just find the space they need to fit in the mix

I figured it out. It looks like the pre-gain knob was accidentally dragged to -4.0 db when I changed it to Peak Standard. My question now is does that knob on the meter affect anything but gain? Theoretically I can adjust all of my track volumes by 4 db and nothing will change with the other parts of the mix like compression?

First of all- thank you! 🙏🏼 I had a hunch that might be it! It depends where it is in your signal chain- if it’s the last plugin, it won’t impact any of the plugins before it. If it’s earlier in your plugin chain, it will impact any plugins after it (from top to bottom)

Great question! We are using mvmeter to watch the overall volume of our mix as we bring up the volume of all of our tracks to make the sure the entire mix of all the tracks never gets too loud. There's no "right" level for any given track (you have to decide that with your ears), but the overall volume of all the tracks combined should never exceed -3db

Great question! I would leave on anything that is creating the "sound" as you want to hear it.

@@TheBandGuide Thanks, really appreciate the response! I reckon this process has the potential to work wonders!

Did u download Mc meter on MacBook? I can’t seem to get it for my iPad and my GarageBand layout looks very different than his too.

Thank you! This is a great question and something I plan to cover more in the future. It's probably more than I can sufficiently answer here, but in short... I always set BPM before I start recording and record as close to the click as possible. My recommendation for getting a good BPM is recording a quick demo (often just guitar and vocals) of the chorus and listening back a few times to see if you feel like it's the right tempo. Sometimes I'll even try this at a couple different tempos. To quantize... it depends on exact components. If you are using live drums, your best bet is to get the best take in terms of timing and performance possible, then quantize to that as opposed to the grid. This is trickier, but can work. This is because there is no way to group tracks, so there is no way to edit all the drum mics at the same time (maybe the biggest limitation of GB). If you aren't using drums or are using GarageBand drummer, your drums will be perfectly quantized and you can edit to the grid. Flex timing can be awesome for this for a lot of sources as long as it's small adjustments. I know that was a lot.. and TBH I'm just scratching the surface. But I hope that gives you a good starting point!

@@TheBandGuide Thanks, this is what I figured, but would love to see a video on it. Another question I am working through: I use drum machines like something from the Arturia series or a BeatStep Pro controlled old Boss DR. Rhythm (way more awesome than one would imagine). I'll often record a minimal modular set in which everything is midi clocked, but of course there is sometimes slight drag, likely cause by cable length, etc, and the bpm will often be ever so slightly off from GarageBand's, requiring some tedious fixing. Anyways, looking forward to the rest of the series.

Great question! It will affect the volume for the entire song. It's not uncommon for the song to need some volume automation to be at the ideal level at different points in the song

Great question- by a vocal rider, do you mean a plugin that is riding the volume of the vocals?

Great question! I personally prefer to convert everything to audio to help separate my "writing/recording" phase and my "mixing" phase. Otherwise, I can't help but keep tweaking the midi instruments or parts. Having healthy dynamic range (-3 to -6) on the output gives most flexibility during mastering. It also leaves a little space for accidental volume increase when EQing and compressing or if you just find later something needs to come up 2db more. If you don't leave space, you'll have to figure out how to turn down every other track... and that's a huge pain. You can always turn up the volume after with a limiter- which I recommend before exporting to listen in a car, sending to a friend, etc anyway!

@@TheBandGuide Thanks Colin, that is very helpful. I love the idea of 'freezing' the tracks... so, I guess every musician out there has to do a 'last' tweak to the composition :)

@@DidierSajnoWebDesign Absolutely. Committing is huge.

Hey Lena! I've noticed sometimes plugins and plugin features load fully after I restart my computer. You should also be able to access the presets by clicking the top middle of the plugin where it says "Init" and going down to factory>Peak Standard. I hope that helps!

Absolutely!

@@TheBandGuide Otherwise may I ask you how do I turn a midi file into audio file? I tried to look for tutorial but I don’t find any for GarageBand 🥲

Thank you! I wouldn’t merge the tracks so I can maintain control over them. If you merge you won’t be able to process them separately and cut out/highlight anything that’s not sounding great in each individual track. If the vocal EQ is part of the ~sound~ I say leave it on. If it’s EQ to help it sound better in the mix, I would turn it off until you’re in the EQ step!

@@TheBandGuide ok great, well I used your steps would you like to here what I made?

Hey Tom! Excited for you to dive in. Yes- the faders on all the tracks should all be set to 0 so you’ll have to mix each track up to start hearing volume

@@TheBandGuide ty

Hey Kim! I promise you every single mix engineer has been there. This far into mixing, it would be totally fine to just turn down the output on the meter to get it back in that -6db to -3db range. I actually just had to do this on a mix yesterday!

Oh and happy new year!

@@TheBandGuide awesome, that’s a relief to hear! Happy New Year to you too!

Hey Matthew- not totally sure why this would be happening. Could be CPU processing with your computer. I often find restarting my computer resolves these kinds of issues... I hope that helps!

@@TheBandGuide Thanks! I'll give that a try.

I figured out what I was doing wrong. This was a song that I'd "mixed" before watching your videos. I deleted plug ins and turned of eq on individual tracks but did not undo previous eq adjustments. This made my static mix without eq lower than with eq on. I made the adjustments and I'm off to step 2. I really appreciate guidance. Your videos are the best.

Awesome, Jamale! Appreciate the kind words. This is EXACTLY why I have this channel! To answer your first question- the EQ is “on” there but there isn’t any actual EQ processing on it yet. I definitely wait to do eq until after I’ve set my static mix. And don’t forget you can use the volume slider on the far right of the EQ to balance the EQ volume after making EQ adjustments!

Same problem for me man. Did you ever figure it out? Please let me know.

@@miketaylor1665 There are two dropdowns. The below one which is on the right side of TBProAudio logo has the presets.

Hey Jason- did you download it from the link the bio? Once it’s installed, you might need to restart your computer for it to show up. It will be in “audio units” at the end of your plugin list. If it’s still not showing up at that point, try going into your settings and making sure audio unit (AU) plugins are enabled

Hit the loop icon. When the bar turns yellow, grab and drag it from each side to the spot you want looped

Dude, same with me. Did you ever find out how to fix it? Please let me know.

@@miketaylor1665 Yes. If you select "Init" there's another little window just below that and to the right, it will say "Init" as well but there are left and right arrows next to the window. You can scroll with the right arrow until you get to "Peak Standard."

yes do you know how to fix it?

@@a-1151 Actually I realized if I just c < > arrows slowly, allowing a few seconds between clicks it changes properly.

Hey thank you so much! Glad it was helpful. Love this mix you did!

@@TheBandGuide cool to hear that! I'm applying your tips to my own song and there seems to one part that sometimes flips the meter way above -3, around -1.5. I say 'sometimes' because, for some reason, the meter you've shown is not consistent on my M1 Mac mini. I'd blame not mixing exported, static stems but a project with dynamically added FX to track for that. To the point: how bad is that if the rest of the song sits at around -4.5db? Could I automate the part afterwards, so that it doesn't drop its load on my ears, or is it some fatal flaw that I have no way to get around other than leveling the volume down until it's in the range?

Would love to!

@@TheBandGuide Great! How do I send you the file? :D

You can email to bandguy@thebandguide.com!

Hey Sean! I'm glad to hear they have been so helpful to you! This track is great and I think you did a great job with the mix- it really captures the right vibe for the song. Sounds like live drums too?? Very impressive, sir.

@@TheBandGuide Thanks a lot, Colin. Appreciated. Yes, a real drummer. But he had just one mic for the whole kit. So, copied it 3 times, isolated low, mid and high and did my best to bring out kick, snare and cymbals. Anyways, thanks for the encouragement! (obviously, I'm a subscriber)...cheers...

@@TheBandGuide Hey there Collin, I am struggling to get the peek standard is there a way to get it