Improve Garage Band Export to i-tunes

[Big Steve]

Hello guys i am a newbie to Taxi, I am not sure if my little recording tip would help anyone working with Garage Band but I thought I would share just in case. First off, as an artist and Mac user, I love Garage Band because of the ease of use and quality. I know their are many very cool "other" pro applications, but for me I like it cause like I said it's easy sounds pro if you play and write well, and I can concentrate on the music not a million buttons.

I have always been bummed out when sending my finished song to i-tunes. Once in i-tunes, then burning the tune on CD it never had the loudness or punch as pro CD's. One of the tips I read is (once finishing the song you them master it while in G/B adding compression, effects and presets) This does help but it still does not have the volume when exporting to i-tunes.

This was really bumming me out! But today I tried the following and it is the best I have ever herd for a a finished CD (at least for me)

1. When the songs is mixed the best you can get it, then go to the mastering icon (in (G/B) and while playing the song and try hitting the presets while the song is playing to hear the various sound changes. This will automatically add compression, bass boots and so on. If you don't like those auto settings add your own by scrolling to the bottom of that list and there are the compressor, EQ and other settings you can add manually. Play your song and try those and see how your song sounds. If it still sounds better with nothing on it, leave it alone at this point.

2. Now send to i-tunes (listen to it) it will sound good but still not loud enough.

3. Now open a "new G/B" app and import (drag) the i-tune song you just placed in i-tunes (back) into G/B

4. Here the best part I found and love. To boost that song so it cranks when sending it (back) to i-tunes to burn a CD again, Go to (Track) top of screen in G/B and hit "duplicate". A new track will be seen under your one main track. Now "copy" that one "main track" and "paste" it in under the main track. So now you have two tracks of the same song, Now listen to it, it's way louder and it cranks. Now when you send it/export it to i-tunes this time it will be as loud as you want. You can also re-master these 2-tracks again for fine tweaking.

I have done this sometimes with 3 stacked tracks, EQ ing each one a little different and (to me) it makes a world of difference. Hopefully it will help one of you, it has improved my output/export to i-tunes and then burned CD's 100% if anything to just get a nice loud mix without distortion. and to match the loudness of pro songs. Yes their are many other ways of doing it with other software, other mixers, expensive outboard gear and so on, but this is free, and it really helps!

Hopfully my explanation is not to confusing
Thanks Big Steve

[orest]

Hi there and welcome to the forum!
I have never worked with Garageband regarding my own song, only some student projects.
I mainly use Logic 9.
There's a free program called "Audacity" that can do this job for you as well.
Just drag the song into that program and boost it -0.1 dB.
More than that will only add distortion to the song.

Audacity is available for Mac and Windows.

[mojobone]

Yes. Multiple in-phase copies of the same program material has the same effect as a digital gain increase. Normalization is the simplest, most direct method of accomplishing this; it does approximately the same thing, the caveat being that you need to leave at least a full decibel of headroom, if you intend to convert the file to an MP3. Otherwise, there may be audible artifacts related to the data compression. If you're shaving that close to OdBFS, it's probably a good idea to use a brickwall limiter at the end of your mastering chain, just to ensure there are zero intersample peaks. (another form of audio gremlin that can give an MP3 converter fits)