Chapter 5

Making Your Own Kind of Music with GarageBand

In This Chapter

arrow Recording your music

arrow Editing your recordings

arrow Saving your music

arrow Taking music lessons in GarageBand

When you mention that you use a Mac to a group of non-Mac users, one of the first things you hear is, “Oh, yeah, Macs are great for graphics.” And although that’s true, your Mac is a pretty terrific music-making machine, too — and we’re not talking iTunes here (although we do talk about iTunes at length in Book IV, Chapter 1).

With GarageBand, which is part of Apple’s iLife suite, you can record and compose music and ringtones, as well as presentations and speeches. In its simplest form, GarageBand provides instruments (such as drums, keyboards, and guitars) and prerecorded tracks that you mix up to create a virtual one-person band. You arrange the separate audio tracks and put them together to create your own songs.

GarageBand really sings (bah-dum-dum) when you record your own music. You have the option of using your Mac’s built-in microphone or connecting your instruments and hand-held microphone to your Mac ...

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