If you set it too high, you won’t get the “breathing” effect, especially noticeable in the high hat.įor even more control, you can use the AUMultibandCompressor to set different compression levels on different frequencies. For the pumping effect, you want the attack to come through before the compressor kicks in. If you set it too low, it will start compressing the initial attack, and the bass drum will sound a lot quieter.
Set the Attack Time so you can hear it clamping down on the bass drum.I generally set the ratio high and the threshold low and leave it at that. If the ratio is set relatively high, moving the threshold closer to zero can have some very strange repercussions. Suffice to say that if the Expansion Ratio is set to 1.00, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do with the threshold control. Expansion Ratio and Expansion Threshold are fairly enigmatic, and honestly, I’m not sure quite what they do.I like to set it so the Comp Amount only fills about halfway. If the entire bar consistently fills with blue you’re maxing out the compression-in other words, you aren’t giving yourself any headroom. You can almost set this slider visually-play with the slider while you watch the Comp Amount readout. You probably want it fairly high or all you’ll hear are the initial attacks of each drum hit. Head Room affects how “hard” the compression is.At the same time, if you set it too high you won’t end up compressing anything and you won’t hear the effect. However, if you set it too low you’ll squelch everything. The Compression Threshold should be fairly low for the effect to work.Play with the sliders to get the effect you want. Here are some compressor settings to get you started (see Figure 1):įigure 1: Starting settings for the “pumping drums” effect. What this effect basically does is to overuse an Audio Units compressor in such a way that it only allows the main body of each drum hit through before immediately clamping down and squelching the sound for a moment.Then the compressor enhances the quieter parts, emphasizing the quiet high-hat hits and the tail of the snare drum sound.įor this example I used the AUDynamicsProcessor, the loop Modern Rock Drums 02, and a tempo of 120 BPM. One cool trick is to create a super-funky “pumping” drum effect. Both ebooks have been updated to cover GarageBand 2.0.
If you don’t, check out two ebooks I’ve written to get you started: Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand covers GarageBand basics, using loops and introductory song composition the latest, Take Control of Recording Music with GarageBand, is loaded with information on recording Real and Software Instruments and the basics of using GarageBand effects. I’m assuming at the outset you have some experience with GarageBand and its effects. You can create these effects using both GarageBand 1 or 2. This article will help you create three of these less obvious effects: pumping drums, ping pong delay, and a comb filter. But the wonderful thing about audio effects is the vast range of things you can do with them, many of which you probably wouldn’t stumble upon just by randomly moving sliders. GarageBand ships with plenty of fantastic effects and several useful presets for those effects. NAMM 2006 Show News Advanced Audio Effects in GarageBand
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