You can turn all of the drums off and just use the fill slider. I use the hi-hats, cymbals, and fills only. You can also try another drummer with different fills and use the same drumkit, at least on the desktop version.
Felipe Leiva Thanks so much my friend. Appreciate your kind words. Feel free to check out the finished product here - songwhip.com/song/pete-johns/wasting-time
Nice! Another handy tip for editing drums: Instead of dragging to select a row of hits (like you do around 9:40), you can actually press and hold the instrument button on the left! Also, thanks for making all these iOS GarageBand videos. You and Dan Baker seem to be kinda the only ones giving it any real love. :)
Very cool! I shall give that a go! And thanks for your kind words. Yes, one of the main reasons I started making GB iOS tutorials is that I couldn’t find any good tutorials when I was first learning it!
I would have never thought of this! I have done a combo, but in reverse with the drummer just playing whatever and me doing my terrible fills - doing it this way would be so much better! Thanks Pete! ALSO - I bet as you increase the velocity of that snare (by the degree of increase), I bet you could increase the volume multiple times so they all eventually are maxed out, then decrease once to the actual level you wanted, effectively making them all the same.
Thanks for your feedback and glad that it was useful. And I like the idea of maxing the velocity of each sample and pulling them back - will definitely try this strategy in the future.
Hey there my friend. You will need to know the tempo (BPM) of the track you are importing to get this done. Just set the tempo in GarageBand to the tempo of the file you are importing and you will be good to go. Here's a video showing how to use the metronome and adjust tempo - ua-cam.com/video/i1yfmjEOdjM/v-deo.html
Really love the lyrics of your song. This is the first time I’ve heard them in their entirety and I’m wondering if you would feel comfortable sharing what motivated you to write this song? I think people would be interested in knowing your creative process in what inspires you to write a particular song. At least I really would be! Also really appreciate the tips on velocity which I think would make a great video on how to use velocity as an effect versus increasing or lowering volume. I think some get confused in thinking that volume and velocity are one in the same and it would be great to get some clarity on the distinction and how to use it in GarageBand to enhance our songwriting.
Hey there my friend. Thanks so much for taking the time to watch, listen and comment. I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. 😊 In relation to velocity, I have talked about this a little in the video linked below, but a “volume vs velocity” video is a great idea! ua-cam.com/video/_6prUCRkpvQ/v-deo.html
In relation to this specific song, I do explain a bit about it in a recent live stream here - ua-cam.com/video/iJL6o8QxqvY/v-deo.html Essentially, the song is about trying to help people who are struggling with ongoing addiction issues and the frustration of helping someone with the same thing over and over again, resulting in a feeling of helplessness. A bit heavy right? The ending is supposed to be somewhat positive, with a “don’t give up” message. I wanted to write this because often these situations are as hard for the person trying to help the other person who is suffering, but the addicted person is too focused on themselves to appreciate the suffering they are causing. This is my homage to those who spend their time and energy helping others, often only to see them fail or relapse and not shoe any appreciation. Sorry for the essay! Thanks for your interest in the lyrics. 👍
What a nice song man. Very helpful tips on the v drummer. I cracked up though- i think you and i both learned our 1st fills from the same place! I have an e-kit that i enjoy playing but I'm very rudimentary with it. For fills I'll try inviting the v drummer to collab 👍😊
Hey Pete, I’ve been watching some of your vids and appreciate the effort you’ve clearly put in to helping more aspiring musicians get familiar with and actually use GarageBand for bringing the music inside them to all of us. I’ve just started using GB myself as my computer is on the fritz and Cakewalk not an option temporarily and have to say, I’m loving it. Never realized this was so user-friendly and useful as a composing tool. Having a bit of a struggle on the drum side though - hence why I am watching your video on the subject. Will try to keep this succinct - I want to use the virtual session drummers to create the drum loops (their fantastic) but when it comes to editing them in piano roll after for some tweaks, just not getting there. I can only get back to the drummer UI page and that does not allow individual hit edits that I can find. I’m on an iPad mini 4 so in the iOS environment and maybe it’s just not possible here. So if I export project and bring into my wife’s Mac Air, can I then use that fuller version to do the editing required or is this limited there as well? One other thought I had was to use the session drummers to lay down the original loops and then converting those to the ‘drum’ sounds once I have them more or less the way I want them and doing the tweaks from there. Any thoughts on this?
Hey there. Yes, this is unfortunately a limitation of the GarageBand virtual drummer that you can’t convert it to MIDI to edit and use as regular drums. The folks over at the GarageBand Users Facebook group may have more tips and ideas around this so worth joining if you’re not already a member. studiolivetoday.com/gbu
@@PeteJohnsMusic Thanks for the lightning fast reply Pete. I’ll def check out the FB group later today. Just a heads-up - I’ve discovered that you can export a GB project, AirDrop it to a Mac Air, open in GB app there and then change the track from the virtual drummer to manual set (I think). New to this so still in progress but if I can match the same drum kit now but keep the performance I had from the iPad that may be a useful workaround for this. Will reply here again when I know for sure.
@@PeteJohnsMusic As promised, back to complete the thought. Yes is the answer. In the Mac version you can create a new software track and select the same drum kit. The go back to the imported track and copy the region you want to mess with. Copy that and paste it into the new track you’ve created and you can go ahead and edit that as you like. Bit long hand to get it done but at least it’s possible - and worth it in my humble opinion. Thanks again.
Hey Pete, have you tried pasting the drummer performance into your midi track, then editing the midi data to get the 'perfect' fill? In GB OS, I do as much as I can with the drummer, until I hit the 'randomness' wall, then copy paste the drummer track into a midi track (using the same kit), then split out the snare to it's own track so I can process it just so. Not sure if that works as well in OS, but it should ...
Hey there. This is very cool. I remember doing this once before but can’t remember how as I’m pretty sure you can’t copy and paste from Drummer to Drums?
Pete Johns Hi again. Sorry took me a second to get back to this. Just give it a try. Copy a yellow region from the drummer track, create a new midi track, set the instrument to the same kit that the virtual drummer is using, and hit paste. It will create the same information in a green midi track. If you try to copy from the midi track back to the drummer truck it will work, but it doesn’t create a drummer region, it just places the midi data in the drummer track, and you lose the ability to manipulate the feel, like the loudness / complexity.
Hey Prince, Steve here... you can simply “share” your “project” via email or Dropbox, or other file sharing programs. Make sure both your apps are both updated so they can be compatible with each other. There are some challenges to sharing iOS projects with a Mac OS user and vice versa... I think Pete has a video on collaboration if you search his channel.
I Notice you had one of the drummers graham from GarageBand in your song Are there copyright problems if one uses the drummers, let’s say hypothetically you just used only one solid loop from graham no editing from GarageBand? I ask because I use these drummers on my songs and someday want to release an album and trying to figure out the legal stuff. Thanks and keep it up! You do a great job
Good news! All loops and instruments in GarageBand are indeed royalty free. I have used Drummer, loops and samples from GarageBand in my songs and demos here on UA-cam as well as in songs on my albums and single with zero issues. As long as you are actually adding your own sounds on top of the drummer, you will be 100% fine. 👍
Hi again Pete. What do You think about drum sounds in garageband? I'm looking for an app with the best drums sounds/samples on ios. You are my UA-camr of the year. Thank You so much for doing Ur work. Best regards from Poland.
Hello there my friend! So I’ve dabbled with X-Drummer and mist admit that I lean heavily on the GarageBand drums to this day. I am finally checking out a very cool drum app called “EG Pulse” which has been recommended to me a lot and I will be reviewing here on the channel soon.
I am having problems with the auto drummer and really the bass drum in general seems to be blowing speakers of mine out everywhere, what can I do because I started mixing everything a lot softer but it still makes almost no difference
Pete Johns same person here lol, yeah it’s like blowing speakers I drop the mix really low and even the volume on the live virtual drummer thing and even my AKG mixing headphones blew. We’ll beathawk I think blew them but all my other ones just these drummers. I like using them because I can’t figure out how to make ghost notes and stuff on here. I’m gonna eventually go back over it all if I can with real drums but yet again a whole album made on GarageBand (and if sounded cool) would be awesome! It’s simplicity really got me back into recording after many years taking a hiatus. Thanks!
My god, this is a spectacular track!! I didn’t see the title in the description, what do you call it?! .. did you put it out on lp or single to distro or Spotify? Don’t take this wrong, but I totally hear an alto females voice here, having said this, you did wonderfully too.. (Either way, I smell money, for you!!) Cheers , bro @Pete Johns - Studio Live Today
Thanks my friend. Yes this was released as a single back in the day. Here’s the complete song of you want to take a listen. ua-cam.com/video/VXtfqDRg3Uk/v-deo.html All my music is here - petejohns.com
I prefer using the drum machine, which you can customize the velocity, what drums you’re hitting, and surprisingly having the ability to use acoustic drums and not just electronic ones in the machine mode.
Pete Johns I’m talking about the beat sequencer. It’s pretty impressive because I was messing around with it and found that each beat can be made into triplets or more, effectively allowing things like extreme double bass drumming, or obviously in the case of trap, the super fast snare drum effect.
Awesome! Yeah, there’s a lot under the hood in there and it’s not just for EDM. You can ever vary the velocity to make ghost notes and use the random chance feature to change up the pattern to make it more “human”. Maybe I should use it in my next punk song and get some kickin’ bass drum action going on! 🤘
You can turn all of the drums off and just use the fill slider. I use the hi-hats, cymbals, and fills only. You can also try another drummer with different fills and use the same drumkit, at least on the desktop version.
Awesome! Thanks for the additional info. This is going to be my go-to method I’m thinking. Such flexibility!
Great tips Danny, thanks.
Nice song man, came here for the drums, ended up being a fan haha
Felipe Leiva Thanks so much my friend. Appreciate your kind words. Feel free to check out the finished product here - songwhip.com/song/pete-johns/wasting-time
Dude has that Peter Gabriel tone! Nice song!
👍🤘🙏
pete, you're awesome for doing these videos
Thvaks my friend. I hope you get value from the other videos on the channel and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. 👍
That was great Pete. I reminds me of a fuller sounding Crowded House and when the horns came in it reminded me of Chicago.
Thanks so much my friend! Appreciate the kind words. petejohns.com
This is sounding lovely
Thanks my friend. Check out my finished songs here. petejohns.com
Nice! Another handy tip for editing drums: Instead of dragging to select a row of hits (like you do around 9:40), you can actually press and hold the instrument button on the left!
Also, thanks for making all these iOS GarageBand videos. You and Dan Baker seem to be kinda the only ones giving it any real love. :)
Very cool! I shall give that a go! And thanks for your kind words. Yes, one of the main reasons I started making GB iOS tutorials is that I couldn’t find any good tutorials when I was first learning it!
U need that 1 mil bro for real so close now!!
🤘😎
Thanks for this very useful video Pete! I'd put the ride volume up a bit in the instrumental break.
Haha! I’m editing right now and literally just finished adding in extra ride volume in the bridge. 👍😊🤘
No way! Hahahaa.
😁
do you have now the guide chart to know what kit the drummers are using
I didn’t sorry. Someone made one a while back but not sure if it’s up to date.
hi pete, can we copy the track drumer and paste to drum kit track to make it as midi?
Not from a Drummer track sorry. Not in my experience.
drums sound nice and loose- thanks heaps for sharing
You’re very welcome. I hope you get value from the other videos on the channel and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. 👍
Great job Pete and credit to Danny too! I’m going to have a look at this today in one of my tunes!
I would have never thought of this! I have done a combo, but in reverse with the drummer just playing whatever and me doing my terrible fills - doing it this way would be so much better! Thanks Pete! ALSO - I bet as you increase the velocity of that snare (by the degree of increase), I bet you could increase the volume multiple times so they all eventually are maxed out, then decrease once to the actual level you wanted, effectively making them all the same.
Thanks for your feedback and glad that it was useful. And I like the idea of maxing the velocity of each sample and pulling them back - will definitely try this strategy in the future.
Great video and good song!
Thank you!
Thanks my friend. Appreciate it. I hope you get value from the other videos on the channel and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. 👍
Beautiful song!
Thanks my friend.
VERY nice!! I’m just in awe of this track, that’s why I’m down here looking for the title 😎
Pete, how to sync garage band drummer with imported file, (song, )how do we connect both at the same tempo?
Hey there my friend. You will need to know the tempo (BPM) of the track you are importing to get this done. Just set the tempo in GarageBand to the tempo of the file you are importing and you will be good to go. Here's a video showing how to use the metronome and adjust tempo - ua-cam.com/video/i1yfmjEOdjM/v-deo.html
What a brilliant idea! Good video as always pete!
Thank you my friend. Yes, had to jump on this once I hear about it!
Really love the lyrics of your song. This is the first time I’ve heard them in their entirety and I’m wondering if you would feel comfortable sharing what motivated you to write this song? I think people would be interested in knowing your creative process in what inspires you to write a particular song. At least I really would be!
Also really appreciate the tips on velocity which I think would make a great video on how to use velocity as an effect versus increasing or lowering volume. I think some get confused in thinking that volume and velocity are one in the same and it would be great to get some clarity on the distinction and how to use it in GarageBand to enhance our songwriting.
Hey there my friend. Thanks so much for taking the time to watch, listen and comment.
I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. 😊
In relation to velocity, I have talked about this a little in the video linked below, but a “volume vs velocity” video is a great idea!
ua-cam.com/video/_6prUCRkpvQ/v-deo.html
In relation to this specific song, I do explain a bit about it in a recent live stream here - ua-cam.com/video/iJL6o8QxqvY/v-deo.html
Essentially, the song is about trying to help people who are struggling with ongoing addiction issues and the frustration of helping someone with the same thing over and over again, resulting in a feeling of helplessness.
A bit heavy right? The ending is supposed to be somewhat positive, with a “don’t give up” message.
I wanted to write this because often these situations are as hard for the person trying to help the other person who is suffering, but the addicted person is too focused on themselves to appreciate the suffering they are causing. This is my homage to those who spend their time and energy helping others, often only to see them fail or relapse and not shoe any appreciation.
Sorry for the essay! Thanks for your interest in the lyrics. 👍
I like this method best. Thank you I will try it
It is very cool and working well on this track.
nice tricks pete! can u copy that drummer fill to a drum midi track? for more editing?
I don’t believe so. I haven’t explored it a lot however so it may be possible.
What a nice song man. Very helpful tips on the v drummer. I cracked up though- i think you and i both learned our 1st fills from the same place! I have an e-kit that i enjoy playing but I'm very rudimentary with it. For fills I'll try inviting the v drummer to collab 👍😊
Hit those Toms 4 times each.... fill done! 😄
@@PeteJohnsMusic haha right? Git er done! Thanks again for all the great tips. Every time I've searched your channel has the answer, thus new sub! 👍👍
These videos are so helpful! Thank you so much, we are so so grateful :)
You’re very welcome my friend. I hope you get value from the other videos here on the channel and consider subscribing. 👍
@@PeteJohnsMusic Maybe you should try teaching about other applications like muse score , would be cool. I'm subscribed!
Sounds great. Well done.
Cheers Robert. Appreciate it my friend. 👍
Good video. Very useful for me to see your experimentation process and moving things around.
That's a very good song man...and thats how i do my drum parts too...
Nice! Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
Hey Pete, I’ve been watching some of your vids and appreciate the effort you’ve clearly put in to helping more aspiring musicians get familiar with and actually use GarageBand for bringing the music inside them to all of us. I’ve just started using GB myself as my computer is on the fritz and Cakewalk not an option temporarily and have to say, I’m loving it. Never realized this was so user-friendly and useful as a composing tool. Having a bit of a struggle on the drum side though - hence why I am watching your video on the subject.
Will try to keep this succinct - I want to use the virtual session drummers to create the drum loops (their fantastic) but when it comes to editing them in piano roll after for some tweaks, just not getting there. I can only get back to the drummer UI page and that does not allow individual hit edits that I can find. I’m on an iPad mini 4 so in the iOS environment and maybe it’s just not possible here. So if I export project and bring into my wife’s Mac Air, can I then use that fuller version to do the editing required or is this limited there as well? One other thought I had was to use the session drummers to lay down the original loops and then converting those to the ‘drum’ sounds once I have them more or less the way I want them and doing the tweaks from there. Any thoughts on this?
Hey there. Yes, this is unfortunately a limitation of the GarageBand virtual drummer that you can’t convert it to MIDI to edit and use as regular drums.
The folks over at the GarageBand Users Facebook group may have more tips and ideas around this so worth joining if you’re not already a member. studiolivetoday.com/gbu
@@PeteJohnsMusic Thanks for the lightning fast reply Pete. I’ll def check out the FB group later today. Just a heads-up - I’ve discovered that you can export a GB project, AirDrop it to a Mac Air, open in GB app there and then change the track from the virtual drummer to manual set (I think). New to this so still in progress but if I can match the same drum kit now but keep the performance I had from the iPad that may be a useful workaround for this. Will reply here again when I know for sure.
@@PeteJohnsMusic As promised, back to complete the thought. Yes is the answer. In the Mac version you can create a new software track and select the same drum kit. The go back to the imported track and copy the region you want to mess with. Copy that and paste it into the new track you’ve created and you can go ahead and edit that as you like. Bit long hand to get it done but at least it’s possible - and worth it in my humble opinion. Thanks again.
Your channel has helped me so much!!! I know your most not likely to read this but thank you! It's i beautiful song! I wish I could do a cover!
Hey there my friend. Always happy for folks to cover my tunes. And info try to read all comments
@@PeteJohnsMusicyou got it!
Great Hack, Nice song too... Thank You...! B-)
Thanks my friend. I hope you get value from the other videos on the channel and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. 👍
Hey Pete, have you tried pasting the drummer performance into your midi track, then editing the midi data to get the 'perfect' fill? In GB OS, I do as much as I can with the drummer, until I hit the 'randomness' wall, then copy paste the drummer track into a midi track (using the same kit), then split out the snare to it's own track so I can process it just so. Not sure if that works as well in OS, but it should ...
Hey there. This is very cool. I remember doing this once before but can’t remember how as I’m pretty sure you can’t copy and paste from Drummer to Drums?
Pete Johns Hi again. Sorry took me a second to get back to this. Just give it a try. Copy a yellow region from the drummer track, create a new midi track, set the instrument to the same kit that the virtual drummer is using, and hit paste. It will create the same information in a green midi track. If you try to copy from the midi track back to the drummer truck it will work, but it doesn’t create a drummer region, it just places the midi data in the drummer track, and you lose the ability to manipulate the feel, like the loudness / complexity.
Hey Pete I was wondering is there a way of sending my songs to a fellow GarageBand user?
Hey Prince, Steve here... you can simply “share” your “project” via email or Dropbox, or other file sharing programs. Make sure both your apps are both updated so they can be compatible with each other. There are some challenges to sharing iOS projects with a Mac OS user and vice versa... I think Pete has a video on collaboration if you search his channel.
Clearly Epic thanks will do
Love this video and the song sounds goood👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks Danny. Always appreciate your support and kind words. 👍🙏🤘
I Notice you had one of the drummers graham from GarageBand in your song Are there copyright problems if one uses the drummers, let’s say hypothetically you just used only one solid loop from graham no editing from GarageBand? I ask because I use these drummers on my songs and someday want to release an album and trying to figure out the legal stuff. Thanks and keep it up! You do a great job
Good news! All loops and instruments in GarageBand are indeed royalty free. I have used Drummer, loops and samples from GarageBand in my songs and demos here on UA-cam as well as in songs on my albums and single with zero issues.
As long as you are actually adding your own sounds on top of the drummer, you will be 100% fine. 👍
Hi again Pete. What do You think about drum sounds in garageband? I'm looking for an app with the best drums sounds/samples on ios. You are my UA-camr of the year. Thank You so much for doing Ur work. Best regards from Poland.
Hello there my friend! So I’ve dabbled with X-Drummer and mist admit that I lean heavily on the GarageBand drums to this day.
I am finally checking out a very cool drum app called “EG Pulse” which has been recommended to me a lot and I will be reviewing here on the channel soon.
Oh and thank you for your support and kind words. 👍
I am having problems with the auto drummer and really the bass drum in general seems to be blowing speakers of mine out everywhere, what can I do because I started mixing everything a lot softer but it still makes almost no difference
Hey there. What some folks do is record the drums manually and then mix the kick drum separately. Might help if it’s punching through too loud?
Pete Johns same person here lol, yeah it’s like blowing speakers I drop the mix really low and even the volume on the live virtual drummer thing and even my AKG mixing headphones blew. We’ll beathawk I think blew them but all my other ones just these drummers. I like using them because I can’t figure out how to make ghost notes and stuff on here. I’m gonna eventually go back over it all if I can with real drums but yet again a whole album made on GarageBand (and if sounded cool) would be awesome! It’s simplicity really got me back into recording after many years taking a hiatus. Thanks!
Gracias! 😍🥰
You’re very welcome my friend. I hope you get value from the other videos here on the channel and consider subscribing. 👍
Want to dive deeper in to Drummer? - ua-cam.com/video/XyhcXjqPkiM/v-deo.html
My god, this is a spectacular track!!
I didn’t see the title in the description, what do you call it?! .. did you put it out on lp or single to distro or Spotify?
Don’t take this wrong, but I totally hear an alto females voice here, having said this, you did wonderfully too..
(Either way, I smell money, for you!!)
Cheers , bro
@Pete Johns - Studio Live Today
Thanks my friend. Yes this was released as a single back in the day. Here’s the complete song of you want to take a listen.
ua-cam.com/video/VXtfqDRg3Uk/v-deo.html
All my music is here - petejohns.com
I prefer using the drum machine, which you can customize the velocity, what drums you’re hitting, and surprisingly having the ability to use acoustic drums and not just electronic ones in the machine mode.
Nice one! Are you talking About the beat sequencer or smart drums? I haven’t used either for a while but I must get back to trying them again soon. 👍
Pete Johns
I’m talking about the beat sequencer. It’s pretty impressive because I was messing around with it and found that each beat can be made into triplets or more, effectively allowing things like extreme double bass drumming, or obviously in the case of trap, the super fast snare drum effect.
Awesome! Yeah, there’s a lot under the hood in there and it’s not just for EDM. You can ever vary the velocity to make ghost notes and use the random chance feature to change up the pattern to make it more “human”.
Maybe I should use it in my next punk song and get some kickin’ bass drum action going on! 🤘
Dope stuff. I usually prefer the drummer tracks. LOL..
Yeah, I use Drummer on almost every track these days.
I just started using it as backing tempo for church 😳 lol
a ghost drums are like a spoon full of sugar.... it helps the medicine go down :)
🙏
im sorry did you say "daddy elliot" or is that just me
Dannyeliot. It came from two books on my desk shelf back when I first came up with a username.
Haha! Nice one. It just have just been my accent and nasally voice. 😊