I’ve been getting more serious about making recordings recently. I’ve learned more about Garage Band in the last week than I’ have in the last 7 years.. thank you! Ye Old Fart
This has helped me SO MUCH!! I've been wondering why my music was rendering "low" and now I understand why! Always knew to stay out the red but had broken a few rules lately in an attempt to get louder sound. NOW I'm on the right track! THANK YOU THANK U TANK YA!!!!
Just wanted to say this video was great. Most people would have to pay for a such a great tutorial. Finding content up to date with current Garageband software and offerings was a mission for me as mixing and equalizing was difficult for me to grasp. Thanks to you I quickly understood the highs and lows of equalizing and laying off the compression as much was possible to retain a more natural sound. Thanks!
I’ve just mastered my first ever song on GarageBand using this exact method! Boy what a difference! Invaluable information in this video Thankyou so much 🙏
I know it's been awhile since you posted this video but I wanted to let you know that you really helped me out. I was always getting poor results with Garageband until I watched your video and followed your advice. It made all the difference in the world. I thought about switching to another DAW until I implemented your mixing techniques and I'm still just in shock about how much better my songs are sounding. Thanks
Edward Wallace oh man I’m so glad to hear that!! I’m really happy that this old video could help you! Definitely check out all the new videos I have made! There is a lot of good information on here and thanks for watching!!
This is precisely what I was looking for , mastering a song in garageband with simple terms and a step by step description. Surely has helped my music project - my debut album of instrumental music.
This is very helpful, thank you very much. Very difficult to find a single video on UA-cam that simply demonstrates everything as well as you have! Thanks again.
Such a great tutorial! I loathed mastering, but that because I was mastering with Manual settings only. Thank you for this tutorial. It really helped me with the subtleties of mastering, and understanding what an awesome tool it is.
I spent a good part of my day today watching your videos. Absol amazing! New to Mac and new to recording (30 year guitar player) and I am having a blast. Thanks so much.
best series of videos on mastering I have seen great stuff as well as guitar mixes. Loved the one on exercising and food input so when you gett older in your 80s and 90s you still can do it.To be fair it was a 2017 vidoe that got me interested and I can't find it right now. PS I am 72
GaragebandandBeyond I need help , I made a track with my voice in it and made it sound different and I tried to merge it with a beat but when I merge them it takes off the effect I put over my voice and just sounds normal with the beat playing
Wow I’ve been looking for this for a while I knew something else was need it for my songs when I exported from GarageBand you help me a lot man blessings
Your theory on 'mastered' tracks is interesting considering it only applies to commercial music that one might hear on noisy radio stations demanding an even output of loudness (like adverts). Considering that the width of the signal is the amplitude of the overall recording you will notice that in some genres like classical and romantic music where dynamics play an important role in the quality and nature of the music it is actually a completely different ball game. Here you would want to see surges and changes in amplitude depending on how quiet (piano) or loud (forte) the piece is in relation to the performance dynamics of the overall piece which in these forms of music have a far greater range of softness and loudness volume-wise.
I'm really enjoying your video series and learning a lot. I'm new to Garageband, and have some questions, if I may. I think I may be missing something. Here's what I've been doing . . . I mix all my tracks, make sure nothing is in the red, and then I bounce the song as an aif file. I then pull the aif file into a new project, turn on the Master Track and use the mastering settings you gave in your other vid about mastering. But now here's where I'm confused. What happens after that? Do I just bounce the track again after applying the mastering settings? Do I bounce it as an aif or MP3 file? Is this the right order: 1. Mix tracks 2. Bounce song (with mixed tracks) as an aif file 3. Master the aif file (that was bounced) 4. ???????? (what next?) --- Do I finally bounce the song as an MP3 or aif file (if I want to share it with others and/or on UA-cam)? When I use the Master Track, I notice that it controls the overall volume of the track(s). Do I want to crank the Master Track all the way when I go to do the final bounce? After the bounce, it seems as though it makes no difference whether I crank it or not. Where should the aif file be volume-wise when I'm mastering it? I remember you saying that when mixing we should keep everything in the yellow, but I'm confused about where to keep the aif file (that I had bounced)-----should that also stay in the yellow? The red? My current results yield a song with very low volume. I had nothing in the red when mixing (and I kept it all in the yellow). My Master Track was living in the red. I've compared my "finished" song with other professionally mastered tracks and I'm not even close volume-wise. Sorry, Lewin . . . so many questions . . . Thanks in advance. Any/all help is most appreciated.
This is awesome. For Narration recording, (like podcasting or audio booking) would the mastering change a whole lot? Would you be willing to show those settings in another video? You rock, thanks again!
I’ve always used T-Racks, but now I just have GarageBand at my disposal, so I need to fix my previously exported instrumentals which weren’t premixed before exported. Agh. This will help. Thank you!
Hey Lewin, first of all I just want to say great video, it was really helpful and easy to follow! I just had a question about the master track, when you play both tracks at the beginning (one mastered and the other one un-mastered) you said that you could notice the difference in the waveforms because the lower sounds were brought up and the higher ones were drawn down. My question was wether this change was caused automatically because you clicked on show master track, or because you made these changes using the plug-ins from the master track. Thank you so much!
Great video, I've learnt a lot from this :-) one question, when you refer to track clipping I'm assuming your mean levels going into the red on the individual track monitor rather than the the recorded track input clipping in the wave form. Anyway, thanks again, I think you've solved a big problem for me, all my final mix exports have turned out to quiet overall.
…not to use too many technical terms…very funny, yet very helpful. Do you have any tips for recording Ukulele? Should I set up the same way like recording an acoustic guitar? Do you have any experiences? Greetings from Germany.
Hey Lewin, thanks so much for this video! I am musical director for solo artists and part of that title recently has been making MIDI hip/hop and R&B samples on Garageband. Your videos have helped me tremendously on the mixing and mastering side of things (something I previously had little experience with). I had one question about clipping issues that I have been having. After I've gone through and recorded all my tracks I find my drum mix (the MIDI Drummer) to always be giving me clipping issues in the master track. The individual track is fine, but in order to relieve the clipping on my master I normally have to go around to -5.0 through -6.0 dB on the drum track causing a lot of mixing headaches. Any ideas on how I could avoid that? Or do I just need to mix at that level, squeeze it tight and let the Multipressor boost it? Thanks! - James
+James Young Something has to be pushing the drums too hard if that's the issue. Possibly the compressor. Just use the stock GB drum compression settings an go from there.
Thanks very much for this. I had never even known what was capable until I started messing around with all the settings. Now that I've played with the EQ on my latest song, it makes my previous ones sound not so good.
Hi! I love your video, very well explained and straight to the point, thanks a lot! The only thing is i don't have this Modern selection in my garageband, so i use Pop instead. Any clue why? Cheers!
This is really well done. Thanks! One quick question, though...the "Modern" EQ setting you're using? I'm using GB 10.1.1 and I don't find it in the list you're showing of factory settings, or any setting for that matter. I've updated and reloaded all sounds and factory patches but no "Modern." I'd really like to get my hands on it. Can you tell me how to find it...or how to get it? Much appreciated.
Wade Sharp I didn't know this australian band, apparently in Italy they never arrived. Anyway, thanks for appreciation. To be honest I wrote it "all those years ago", right with that attitude of naivety, typical of the light-heartedness and of the pure love, when you're in love and so inexperienced..
This is my first time on GB. I wanted to bring the bass up on an old recording that has vocals and instruments all in one track. I lifted the left side of the EQ line up and it sounds pretty rich. Is this correct? Thanks. I really appreciate your professional and friendly style. Have a great Honeymoon.
This is great, thank you so much. Two-part question: how do you the unmastered stereo pair there as a track -- are you bouncing all the other tracks down to them? Or do you export the song to iTunes and then bring them back in as a pair, prior to mastering them? Second, sort of the same question, but about the mastered pair: how are you getting the mastered pair to appear there? I.e., once you make all the decisions about EQ, compression, etc., how do you actually get it to save the mastered pair here? Thanks again! I'm new to GarageBand after many years of recording and mixing on a Roland DAW, and I'm having to relearn a ton of stuff.
Can you do a video explaining some in-depth details of the channel eq? As far as explaining the frequency, gain and Q. As well as each individual symbol and the numbers on the left of the grid?
Great video very helpful. Just one question: you seem to be mastering the track in GB directly in the mix phase, but I heard you had to save the track and then re-open it as new project to do mastering.
Wow garage band looks so different now, have been using Logic Pro x since it came out so haven't used garage band in a while, now garage band looks nearly the same as logic and even has the same looking eq plugin. Great value for free software!
BRAND NEW MASTERING VIDEO OUT TODAY!! ua-cam.com/video/sYWxUw4RAlk/v-deo.html
Excellent tutorial! 7 years later I’m using it. Thanks
And.... This is the true purpose of UA-cam. Helping others with great information. Thanks so much.
I’ve been getting more serious about making recordings recently. I’ve learned more about Garage Band in the last week than I’ have in the last 7 years.. thank you! Ye Old Fart
YES THAT MASTERING AT THE BEGINNING IS EVERYTHING
You might also like to watch the video that came out last Friday on this subject.
GaragebandandBeyond I’ll check it out
This has helped me SO MUCH!! I've been wondering why my music was rendering "low" and now I understand why! Always knew to stay out the red but had broken a few rules lately in an attempt to get louder sound. NOW I'm on the right track! THANK YOU THANK U TANK YA!!!!
Just wanted to say this video was great. Most people would have to pay for a such a great tutorial. Finding content up to date with current Garageband software and offerings was a mission for me as mixing and equalizing was difficult for me to grasp. Thanks to you I quickly understood the highs and lows of equalizing and laying off the compression as much was possible to retain a more natural sound. Thanks!
I’ve just mastered my first ever song on GarageBand using this exact method! Boy what a difference! Invaluable information in this video Thankyou so much 🙏
Good morning: If a song is not mastered, it can't be published in the diff. platforms ? (spotify, etc). Do you know ?
I know it's been awhile since you posted this video but I wanted to let you know that you really helped me out. I was always getting poor results with Garageband until I watched your video and followed your advice. It made all the difference in the world. I thought about switching to another DAW until I implemented your mixing techniques and I'm still just in shock about how much better my songs are sounding. Thanks
Edward Wallace oh man I’m so glad to hear that!! I’m really happy that this old video could help you!
Definitely check out all the new videos I have made! There is a lot of good information on here and thanks for watching!!
THANK YOU! for months I've been trying to figure out why my songs were so quiet on sound cloud, you helped so much! you have my subscription!
This is precisely what I was looking for , mastering a song in garageband with simple terms and a step by step description. Surely has helped my music project - my debut album of instrumental music.
+Jorge Costa I'm glad you liked it and that it helped! There's a bunch of newer mastering videos on my channel now too!
Dude there's so much ambiguity in the mixing and mastering process and this just gave me so much clarity. I'm two years late but--THANK you so much!
Hey that's awesome!! I'm so glad I could help. Definitely check out the newer videos, I've made a few others! ;)
This is very helpful, thank you very much. Very difficult to find a single video on UA-cam that simply demonstrates everything as well as you have! Thanks again.
Lewin you are the man! Your videos are straight forward and detailed. I'm enjoying my journey thru GB because of your efforts. Thank you!
Such a great tutorial! I loathed mastering, but that because I was mastering with Manual settings only. Thank you for this tutorial. It really helped me with the subtleties of mastering, and understanding what an awesome tool it is.
Thank you so much, I finally feel like I’m going towards the rights direction
Thanks for taking the time to do these, they've helped me progress a lot faster with GB!
Watching in 2019 and this video has really helped me!!! Thank you so much!
Thanks man! this made me realize that the newer garage band can handle such detail
Dude! Tutorial was great and super helpful. But you're absolutely killing it with that song tho! Love that modern Beatles touch.
I spent a good part of my day today watching your videos. Absol amazing! New to Mac and new to recording (30 year guitar player) and I am having a blast. Thanks so much.
You're very welcome!!
Thanks man! It's helped me a lot! I was wondering why low sound after exporting, you just gave me the answer! Thanks! God bless you!
Thanks. This is an exceptional video for mixing down with GB. Really appreciate you taking the time to put it together.
My first lesson in mastering! Thanks so much!!!
Thanks for the great tips and tricks and wish you a happy and enjoyable honey moon.
Thank you for this man, a great help to putting the final touches to my track :) all the best!
"Now as for the limiter, the most important part of the Headmaster is, as i will show you-" *screen freezes and fucks up my life*
Same, now I don't really know what to do...
Same, now I don't really know what to do...
LOLOLOLOL didnt get this at first had to finish the video haha so funny
best series of videos on mastering I have seen great stuff as well as guitar mixes. Loved the one on exercising and food input so when you gett older in your 80s and 90s you still can do it.To be fair it was a 2017 vidoe that got me interested and I can't find it right now. PS I am 72
I truly love your GB videos. I have learned so much from you! Thank you.
Great job mate. Really enjoyable and informative. Hope the honey moon was a blast
man this video helped me so much my tracks sound so much better
Once again, so very useful... so much to the mastering that I didn't realize. Lifesaver! Going to put this into use.
Absolutely great video. Great presentation skills. Learning something more every time I watch it.
Thanks for this . . .
Game changer for me this video, thank you eternally.
Extremely helpful. Very valuable. Thanks so much for taking the time to create this video
Thank you. Just started with GarageBand. Will give it a try.
I loved this video! it helped so so much!
Zach Lancaster So glad I could help!
GaragebandandBeyond I need help , I made a track with my voice in it and made it sound different and I tried to merge it with a beat but when I merge them it takes off the effect I put over my voice and just sounds normal with the beat playing
This is an eye opener that we can do mastering in GB. Thank you Lewin :)
Wow I’ve been looking for this for a while I knew something else was need it for my songs when I exported from GarageBand you help me a lot man blessings
OMG THANK YOU MY LIFE HAS BECOME MORE LIVEABLE NOW!
Lol you're welcome!
amazing straightforward and detailed video! Youre amazing thank you!
Thanks for the help. It answered several questions/problems i had with volume
Thanks for the great video!! I had been wondering about the volume issue. Super helpful.
I love your channel man! You have helped me tremendously! Thanks and keep up the great work!
Thank you!! Please subscribe!
Thank you, my friend. This is very helpful. Congratulations on your marriage!!!!
My stuff sounds so much better now!!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!
This was very very helpful! I learned so much! Thank you for posting!
Your theory on 'mastered' tracks is interesting considering it only applies to commercial music that one might hear on noisy radio stations demanding an even output of loudness (like adverts). Considering that the width of the signal is the amplitude of the overall recording you will notice that in some genres like classical and romantic music where dynamics play an important role in the quality and nature of the music it is actually a completely different ball game. Here you would want to see surges and changes in amplitude depending on how quiet (piano) or loud (forte) the piece is in relation to the performance dynamics of the overall piece which in these forms of music have a far greater range of softness and loudness volume-wise.
I'm really enjoying your video series and learning a lot. I'm new to Garageband, and have some questions, if I may.
I think I may be missing something. Here's what I've been doing . . . I mix all my tracks, make sure nothing is in the red, and then I bounce the song as an aif file. I then pull the aif file into a new project, turn on the Master Track and use the mastering settings you gave in your other vid about mastering. But now here's where I'm confused. What happens after that? Do I just bounce the track again after applying the mastering settings? Do I bounce it as an aif or MP3 file?
Is this the right order:
1. Mix tracks
2. Bounce song (with mixed tracks) as an aif file
3. Master the aif file (that was bounced)
4. ???????? (what next?) --- Do I finally bounce the song as an MP3 or aif file (if I want to share it with others and/or on UA-cam)?
When I use the Master Track, I notice that it controls the overall volume of the track(s). Do I want to crank the Master Track all the way when I go to do the final bounce? After the bounce, it seems as though it makes no difference whether I crank it or not. Where should the aif file be volume-wise when I'm mastering it? I remember you saying that when mixing we should keep everything in the yellow, but I'm confused about where to keep the aif file (that I had bounced)-----should that also stay in the yellow? The red?
My current results yield a song with very low volume. I had nothing in the red when mixing (and I kept it all in the yellow). My Master Track was living in the red. I've compared my "finished" song with other professionally mastered tracks and I'm not even close volume-wise.
Sorry, Lewin . . . so many questions . . . Thanks in advance. Any/all help is most appreciated.
Thank god I saw this. I know I'm doing the right thing now. Anxiety lifted
This is awesome. For Narration recording, (like podcasting or audio booking) would the mastering change a whole lot? Would you be willing to show those settings in another video? You rock, thanks again!
+suzanne cerreta yes you'd want to master a track like that. Good idea on the video!
Congratulations and thank so much!!! Your explanation is awesome and so understandable and very helpful, I definitely learned very good stuff today.
Uploaded on my birthday!!! COOL!!!
learned something new once you told me you can adjust the Q knob
-never knew that thanks
Congrats on the wedding and enjoy your honeymoon. Soon as I can I will tag this as "favorite".
I’ve always used T-Racks, but now I just have GarageBand at my disposal, so I need to fix my previously exported instrumentals which weren’t premixed before exported. Agh. This will help. Thank you!
Just and FYI There is an updated version of this video, you can find it on the channel page if you search for "Mastering".
Hey Lewin, first of all I just want to say great video, it was really helpful and easy to follow! I just had a question about the master track, when you play both tracks at the beginning (one mastered and the other one un-mastered) you said that you could notice the difference in the waveforms because the lower sounds were brought up and the higher ones were drawn down. My question was wether this change was caused automatically because you clicked on show master track, or because you made these changes using the plug-ins from the master track. Thank you so much!
Thanks for the video. I am looking forward to watching more.
You're welcome! Please do watch more! I have tons of videos!!
thanks do much this has helped my songs sound the way i like
Great video, I've learnt a lot from this :-) one question, when you refer to track clipping I'm assuming your mean levels going into the red on the individual track monitor rather than the the recorded track input clipping in the wave form. Anyway, thanks again, I think you've solved a big problem for me, all my final mix exports have turned out to quiet overall.
Many thanks for your videos, very incisive and motivational!
Have a great honeymoon!!!! I just got married too. Thanks for the lesson on mastering. It's an important aspect.
Very informative and great presentation
this is an excellent tutorial ! thank you
You're welcome!
…not to use too many technical terms…very funny, yet very helpful. Do you have any tips for recording Ukulele? Should I set up the same way like recording an acoustic guitar? Do you have any experiences? Greetings from Germany.
I finally get it! thank God for your video.
Hey Lewin, thanks so much for this video! I am musical director for solo artists and part of that title recently has been making MIDI hip/hop and R&B samples on Garageband. Your videos have helped me tremendously on the mixing and mastering side of things (something I previously had little experience with). I had one question about clipping issues that I have been having. After I've gone through and recorded all my tracks I find my drum mix (the MIDI Drummer) to always be giving me clipping issues in the master track. The individual track is fine, but in order to relieve the clipping on my master I normally have to go around to -5.0 through -6.0 dB on the drum track causing a lot of mixing headaches. Any ideas on how I could avoid that? Or do I just need to mix at that level, squeeze it tight and let the Multipressor boost it? Thanks! - James
+James Young Something has to be pushing the drums too hard if that's the issue. Possibly the compressor. Just use the stock GB drum compression settings an go from there.
Thanks very much for this. I had never even known what was capable until I started messing around with all the settings. Now that I've played with the EQ on my latest song, it makes my previous ones sound not so good.
very sympathetic, thank you for the good video, it really helps me :) regards from switzerland
These are all great tips. Thanks so much for doing this vid.
Thanks very helpful ✌️
Thank you!! Please subscribe! I'm super close too 100K subscribers and I'm on a big push to get there!
Thanks for a great video! Surely made my day, and the work in progress, a lot better! :)
Thanks for this tutorial... Very informative!!!
Hi! I love your video, very well explained and straight to the point, thanks a lot! The only thing is i don't have this Modern selection in my garageband, so i use Pop instead. Any clue why? Cheers!
This video was great, I'm fairly new at the whole mastering part of the recording process, how do you get the plugins
This is really well done. Thanks! One quick question, though...the "Modern" EQ setting you're using? I'm using GB 10.1.1 and I don't find it in the list you're showing of factory settings, or any setting for that matter. I've updated and reloaded all sounds and factory patches but no "Modern." I'd really like to get my hands on it. Can you tell me how to find it...or how to get it? Much appreciated.
Cool recap thanks mate appreciate your time. Song sounds like the wiggles though not my type pretty funny lol but young kids will love it!
Wade Sharp I didn't know this australian band, apparently in Italy they never arrived. Anyway, thanks for appreciation. To be honest I wrote it "all those years ago", right with that attitude of naivety, typical of the light-heartedness and of the pure love, when you're in love and so inexperienced..
Very helpful, thanks very much for this video!
EXTREMELY HELPFUL! thank you!
This was so awesome! Thank you so much, very very informative. Thank you!
Thanks a lot. Informative and comprehensive. Appreciate it.
This is my first time on GB. I wanted to bring the bass up on an old recording that has vocals and instruments all in one track. I lifted the left side of the EQ line up and it sounds pretty rich. Is this correct? Thanks. I really appreciate your professional and friendly style. Have a great Honeymoon.
This is great, thank you so much. Two-part question: how do you the unmastered stereo pair there as a track -- are you bouncing all the other tracks down to them? Or do you export the song to iTunes and then bring them back in as a pair, prior to mastering them? Second, sort of the same question, but about the mastered pair: how are you getting the mastered pair to appear there? I.e., once you make all the decisions about EQ, compression, etc., how do you actually get it to save the mastered pair here? Thanks again! I'm new to GarageBand after many years of recording and mixing on a Roland DAW, and I'm having to relearn a ton of stuff.
Very great explanation! Thx for that!!
Can you do a video explaining some in-depth details of the channel eq? As far as explaining the frequency, gain and Q. As well as each individual symbol and the numbers on the left of the grid?
this was so so insanely helpful, thank you!!
This video was really useful. Thank you!
🎼Congratulations 🎶have a beautiful trip, and life together🎶
Great explanation bruh! You got 1 new subscriber! Kudos
How do you get it all in one like that so you can master it?
Extraordinarily helpful video! Allowed me to transform a marginally poor recording into something useful and interesting. Thanks.
Great video very helpful. Just one question: you seem to be mastering the track in GB directly in the mix phase, but I heard you had to save the track and then re-open it as new project to do mastering.
I have the same question! did you find out what’s the right way to do it?
Thanks for this lesson. It's just what I needed. x
Incredibly helpful, thanks!!
Thank you Lewin! Excellent tutorial!
Fantastic presentation thank you
Wow garage band looks so different now, have been using Logic Pro x since it came out so haven't used garage band in a while, now garage band looks nearly the same as logic and even has the same looking eq plugin. Great value for free software!
+James Nixon yeah, i dont think you can even get a new version of logic for its combined into garageband.
Great lesson, thanks! One dumb question, though. Are the tracks marked Rosa & Girasole with/without Master reinserted from iTunes?
one of your best video's
Helped me a lot ! Thanks Brother !!!