GarageBand's software instrument generators

You have more software instruments than you think...

If, so far, when creating a new software instrument track, you've been content to simply pick one from GarageBand's predefined list, you may be surprised to learn that there are a host of other software instruments lurking just out of sight, waiting to expand your musical palette.

I'm not just talking about adding chorus, flange and phaser effects to the piano! Each of GarageBand's software instruments is created using one of a set of 20 generators — super-software-instruments which are used to create the ones you use. Most of these generators have additional presets — effectively, additional software instrument sounds — ready for you to use, and certainly all of them can be tweaked to create slightly or wholly different sounds.

So how do you find them?

Create a new software instrument track. Choose the Synth Basics group of software instruments and select Modern Prophecy, but don't click the Create button just yet. Instead (if it isn't already expanded), click the Details... triangle at the bottom to fully expand the New Track window.

You can now see the settings for this software instrument, including the effects and equaliser settings that together make its characteristic sound. At the top of this details section you will see the name of the Generator used to create the Modern Prophecy sound (Analog Basic). Click on this popup menu and you will see a list of all available generators the 20 provided with GarageBand, along with any other Audio Unit synths you've installed on your system.

Next to the Generator menu is a second menu, of the generator's presets. Analog Basic comes with 12. Choose a few and hit a key on your keyboard (or press K to bring up the on-screen keyboard and click it with your mouse) to hear how they sound.

Going beyond the presets

Of course, presets are just saved settings. So how do you access the settings of these generators to tweak them and make your own presets?

You do this by hitting the Edit (pencil) button next to the presets menu. However, when you first create a software instrument track, this button is greyed-out (along with all the effect edit buttons). So, click the Create button then immediately bring up the Track Info window (hit I). You can now click the edit button, which brings up Analog Basic's settings window.

At the top of this settings window is a menu containing the same presets you saw on the Create Track window. Go through them this time, however, and you'll see the various sliders change with each preset. Dive in and move the sliders yourself to create your own sounds.

Creating and saving your own software instruments

Let's make a new preset for the Analog Basic generator and save it.

Muck around with the sliders till you get a sound you like (mine are pictured below), then close the Analog Basic settings window. Now muck around with the other Track Info settings — adding and adjusting effects as you like — till you've got a sound you can use.

Now click Save Instrument... right at the bottom of the Track Info window. Up comes a dialog asking you to name your sound. Think up a name and click Save. Now, whenever you create a new track, your sound will be available as a software instrument. (Create a new track now and, from the popup near the top of the New Track window, select My Settings. Instantly, all of GarageBand's software instruments disappear leaving only your own.)

You can share the presets you make by sharing the file in which they're saved. GarageBand saves instrument presets in the ~/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library/Track Settings/Software folder, but if you've given your new instrument a unique name, you can find it quickly using Spotlight or Sherlock. (It will have a .cst file extension.)

You can download the instrument I created for this article below. Unzip it, then move it to your ~/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library/Track Settings/Software/Synth Basics folder alongside the instrument you created.

Download the Fish People software instrument.

GarageBand's 20 generators come with a combined total of 172 presets. Compared with GarageBand's 120 software instruments, that means there's a lot of new sounds waiting to be discovered.