Editing a real instrument (part 2: using an external editor)

So you've recorded a real instrument part in GarageBand but you want to make some changes to it, changes GarageBand's simple editing features don't allow you to make.

For instance, if the part you recorded was too low in volume, you might want to Normalise it to a better volume, or you might want to edit out several pops and clicks that are just too fiddly to remove with the method covered in part 1 of this article. Alternatively, you might just be feeling experimental and wanting to play about with the sound reverse it, for instance in ways not possible using GarageBand.

How do you do it? You edit the part in an external audio editor.

Right. So how do you that?

Using an external audio editor

Most Macs come with an audio-file editor in the shape of Sound Studio, which is available, if you haven't got it, from http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio. There are other audio editors out there, ranging from the shareware Amadeus II to the very expensive likes of Peak.

For the purposes of this article, it doesn't matter which you use. What we're looking at is how you access the raw files behind GarageBand's recorded real instrument parts.

The first step is to locate the GarageBand Song file in the Finder. (By default, you'll find it in your Home/Music folder). GarageBand "files" are not really files at all, but Packages, which are basically folders that try to hide the fact they're folders. They're used to group together all the files needed to make one project of some sort in this case, a song into one neat package (hence the name).

To get inside a Package, right click (or control-click) it in the Finder and choose Show Package Contents.

The Finder will open a new window showing the contents of the GarageBand song. Among these you will find a folder called Media. Double-click on this and you'll see a series of files with .aif extensions: the real-instrument recordings for your song. In fact, they will be called Recording#01.aif, Recording#02.aif and so on though if you recorded several takes and deleted some, you'll notice gaps in the sequence.

This means, of course, that it won't be immediately obvious which file to edit, unless you know that you want to edit the latest recording, which will have the highest number. The easiest way to get a preview is to use the Finder's Get Info window (select a file and press -I), or, better yet, the Info window (press alt--i), which updates according to what you have currently selected at the moment.

Locate the file you want to edit, and drag it onto the icon of the audio editor you want to use to edit it, or right-click and use the Open With menu to choose an application. (Most audio editors don't allow you to browse into the contents of a Package to choose a file.)

Once you have the file open in your audio editor, you can edit it as you would any other audio file.

A few notes

If you use GarageBand's Count In feature, there will be a short silence (or whatever you played during the count-in) at the start of the audio file that isn't used. A bit of a waste of disk-space, really.

If you make some changes to the recorded part of a song while you have it open in GarageBand, you may not notice the changes immediately. In fact, you may have to close the song and open it again to hear the changes you've made. To improve performance, GarageBand evidently keeps some of the audio it's working on in memory it wasn't designed with the idea of people mucking about with its innards while it's working.

If you change the length of a recording, when you next open the song, you'll see a message like this:

GarageBand will then adjust the length of the parts using the recordings you've edited. Nothing more needs to be done.

Using an external editor opens up a lot of possibilities if you're experimentally minded, or just enjoy tinkering with things to get the effect you want. Get to know your audio editor, and remember, if you want to preserve a recording, you can always use your audio editor's Save As... function, then drag the edited file into GarageBand (where it will be copied into the Package) in order to use it in your song.

See also

Editing real instrument recordings (part 1)