Real World Digital Audio

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Loop ingredients:

Shaker > Shaker 01, Shaker 02

Slide Guitar > Acoustic

Slide 06, 01, 02

Slide Guitar > Acoustic

Picking 21

Guitars > Country > Folk

Mandolin 02

Kits > Country > Southern

Beat 02

Bass > Country > Southern

Bass 02, 03

Kits > Rock Blues > Ensemble >

Percussion Combo 08

GarageBand tools:

Loop placement and stretching

Tutorial 2: Create a Basic Arrangement

One loop repeating indefinitely is a long way from a full song. By dragging

additional loops from the Loop Browser to new tracks, we’ll create new

parts and add some musical structure to our song. This will mimic the

entrances of live musicians.

1. Extend the loop: If you position your mouse over

the upper-right edge

of the Acoustic Vamp 1 region,

your cursor changes from an arrow to a

loop. Drag to the right, and you can seamlessly repeat the audio. Too

many repetitions can become boring, so repeat it just once, ending it at

m. 9. (You can see where a loop repeats by observing where its edges

curve, as at m. 5.)

2. Add another instrument: Staggering the addition of new sounds

helps shape the song, so before we bring in our drummer, let’s get the

groove going with just a shaker: try Shaker 01. Drag it into the empty

area below the guitar track to create a new track, lining up the shaker

entrance two bars after the guitar at m. 3.

3. Mix it up: Since real musicians (we hope) don’t play exactly the same

part ad infinitum, we’ll add some variation: Drag to repeat Shaker 01

once more (ending at m. 7), then add a bit more intensity to the end of

the guitar phrase by adding Shaker 02 (mm. 7–9), then add Shaker 01

once more (mm. 9–11). The acoustic guitar can switch patterns, too.

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Get the song rolling:

mm. 13–20:

Southern Beat 02,

Folk Mandolin 02, Acoustic

Slide 01

mm. 17–20:

Southern Bass 02

mm. 20–24:

Acoustic Slide 02

Thicker ensemble—

all in mm. 24–28:

Percussion Combo 08

Acoustic Picking 21

Folk Mandolin 02

Southern Bass 03

Place Acoustic Slide 06 at m. 9 next to the previous loop. We’ll leave

two bars of silence in the shaker part; a drummer also playing shaker

would need time to pick up her sticks.

4.

Get the song rolling: Adding multiple instruments gives us the sense

of an ensemble and makes this piece start to sound like music. Create

new tracks by adding and extending drums and mandolin parts. Add

another Acoustic Slide region to the existing acoustic guitar track. Since

we can shape the music as much by what we leave out as what we put

in, create a bass track but have the bass enter four bars later than the other

parts. Then add more musical variety by giving the acoustic guitar a solo:

add a different Acoustic Slide at m. 20, dropping out the other parts.

5.

Thicker ensemble: After the guitar break, we’ll thicken things up a bit

with more instrumental layers in measures 24–28. For a fuller percus-

sion pattern, we’ll add a new percussion track to the bottom (Percussion

Combo 08 needs its own track because it’s an audio region, not MIDI,

like the Drum Kit track). We’ll also have the guitarist switch to picking

and bring back mandolin and bass (switching to Southern Bass 03 for

variety). Now click the leftmost transport button (single left-pointing

arrow) to return the track to the beginning, then click Play to hear the

results. (The arrangement will end a bit abruptly, but it’s a start!)