Spring Break
Apple's "GarageBand" gives amateurs pro sounds
Jared Silfies
Issue date: 2/3/08 Section: Campus Life
A garage band traditionally lets musicians record their own music and master their creativity.
Apple's GarageBand software, part of the iLife suite, gives digital musicians and podcasters an outlet for their creations.
The software adds recorded or programmed instruments, voices or effects to a multi-track mixer. Users edit, loop, stretch and splice the digital tracks together to craft a finished program.
Small errors, from "ums" and sneezes to stammers and stutters, vanish from the track by digitally magnifying the recording and cutting the unwanted selection out.
Volume controls ensure that voices or soloing instruments are heard over backing tracks.
Users export the finished projects as .mp3 files. Uploading these files to a Web site creates a podcast or a music file that others can listen to or download.
NCC Radio Workshop students use this recording and mixing process to create programming for the college radio station.
The iMac computers in the Radio/TV lab serve as the production equipment.
Audio recordings start in the recording booths located in the lab. After the files are recorded onto a CD they are imported to the iMacs and the students start mixing, adding loops and effects and editing the tracks to polish the programs.
Once the finished .mp3s are exported they're added to a continuous playback loop that listeners tap into by clicking on the WNCC link on the college Web site under the Around Campus menu.
Apple's GarageBand software, part of the iLife suite, gives digital musicians and podcasters an outlet for their creations.
The software adds recorded or programmed instruments, voices or effects to a multi-track mixer. Users edit, loop, stretch and splice the digital tracks together to craft a finished program.
Small errors, from "ums" and sneezes to stammers and stutters, vanish from the track by digitally magnifying the recording and cutting the unwanted selection out.
Volume controls ensure that voices or soloing instruments are heard over backing tracks.
Users export the finished projects as .mp3 files. Uploading these files to a Web site creates a podcast or a music file that others can listen to or download.
NCC Radio Workshop students use this recording and mixing process to create programming for the college radio station.
The iMac computers in the Radio/TV lab serve as the production equipment.
Audio recordings start in the recording booths located in the lab. After the files are recorded onto a CD they are imported to the iMacs and the students start mixing, adding loops and effects and editing the tracks to polish the programs.
Once the finished .mp3s are exported they're added to a continuous playback loop that listeners tap into by clicking on the WNCC link on the college Web site under the Around Campus menu.
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