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Fun with Apple’s GarageBand

So, last November I started messing around with GarageBand again. My first attempt before that was really messy. For one thing I tried singing on it. I think that caused a lot of problems. Not the least being my “singing” voice. Also, that first time, I tried covering V.O.L.’s “Version of the Truth”.

Anyway, the next time, in November, I just started messing around on the guitar. I came up with a very basic riff. I used one of the GarageBand drum loops and played the guitar over and over for the amount of time I thought would allow for some tweaking later. After the basic track I added a bass line using my computer’s keyboard and midikeys, a MIDI program. I don’t own a actually MIDI keyboard, but midikeys worked fine for my needs. I then took the MIDI data for the bass line and put it with some of GarageBand’s other synthesizers to fill in the background. These synths were cool because they took my basic one-note-at-a-time bass line and added this cool digital effect. It’s hard to explain, but cool to hear. Next, I went through and would turn down various instruments during different parts of the song. For example, around the middle of the song I turn down the guitar part so all you hear is the synthesizer. Then toward then end I turn down everything but the guitar, so you have that nice ’80’s sounding guitar riff with a “tick tick tick” of the closed high-hat. I also went back and added a lead guitar part (the first time I think I’ve tried to do any type of lead guitar, and it sounds even more ’80’s-ish.).

Ah well, I had fun. You can take a listen if you’d like:

My song