GarageBand For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

Recording Vocals and Acoustic Instruments with a Mic

IN THIS CHAPTER

Choosing a microphone

Recording with microphones

Improving the sound of recordings

This chapter cuts to the heart of audio recording — using a microphone or microphones to record vocals and instruments. As usual, Apple has done much of the heavy lifting already by including several dozen presets that you can use to change the sound of your recorded vocals and acoustic instruments. You, as the recording engineer, don’t have to worry as much about what type of microphone you should use to record which instrument or how much echo to apply to a grand piano, for example. The presets do it all for you — and quite nicely I might add.

And so, when you record with GarageBand, you can use almost any microphone that you have handy and then apply a preset to get a more professional and polished sound out of it.

That said, the type of microphone you use does have an effect on the quality of your recording. And some mics work better for vocals and instruments than others. You can find details about choosing a mic in Chapter 2. In this chapter, you find out how to set up and position microphones for recording, followed ...