Basic Garageband setup
Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:36 pm
A guide of sorts containing suggestions on how to integrate the M50 in a Garageband setup.
As most people know, Garageband is not the most advanced audio application there is. MIDI capabilities out of the box are limited to input, which makes interfacing with external MIDI devices somewhat tricky.
But first of all: how to connect everything.
1: Hardware
You'll want a minimum of two cables between your computer and M50, a USB for MIDI data (the USB cable does not carry audio data), and an audio cable, from the M50 output to your computer's input.
You will probably want a dedicated external audio interface, which also makes it easier to connect since they usually have marked 1/4" inputs, the same as your M50. Then you just get the right cables and you're set (hardware-wise, at least). You *can* connect directly to your Mac, using the line-in. If you're content with mono, you can simply get a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter and a male-male 1/8" cable; if you want stereo you're gonna have to find the proper cabling, for example a 1/8" stereo-to-mono splitter and two 1/4"-1/8" adapters.
2: Software
This section supposes that you have the right/updated drivers for your M50 and whatever audio interface you're using and it is functional.
In Garageband, open the preferences and go to the audio/MIDI section, select your audio interface (or line-in if you're using the Mac's sound-card).
Create a new real instrument track in Garageband, then go to track info and check that it uses the correct inputs and that monitoring is activated for that track. Play a bit on your M50 to see that it works and you're hearing the sounds.
As said earlier, Garageband's MIDI capabilities are not so good, but there are workarounds. Loading the M50 plug-in editor into a software instrument track (done by changing instrument generator in the track info, screenshot 1) allows you to record MIDI, which then controls the synth when playing that track.
What's that? You can't hear any synth sound from the M50 plug-in track? As it turns out, Garageband deactivates the real instrument track (ie. the sound coming from the M50) when the M50 plug-in track is selected. Fix this by 'triggering' the real instrument track for recording by pressing the leftmost of the buttons next to the intrument icon.
But using the M50 plug-in is a bit impractical if you want to control multiple tracks on the synth, and I haven't seen any way to edit specific tracks in the plug-in. This is where a component called midiO comes in.
MidiO works as a software instrument, but instead of triggering the built-in Garageband synths/samples, it sends the data to an external MIDI device.
Install the component, then load a new software instrument track and change the generator to midiO, and in the midiO settings, select M50:SOUND as destination.
Now let's have a look at what's happening here. You have a real instrument track (audio) for recieving/recording the audio coming from the M50. The M50 plug-in track allows you to access every aspect of the M50 hardware on your screen and allows you to make changes and have them instantly reflected on your M50. The midiO track(s) allows you to send data to specific MIDI channels on your M50.
For quick access, I suggest you save the M50 plug-in and the midiO tracks as new "software instruments".
What's the workflow from here? Of course, there are many possibilities, but here's a suggestion:
• set up a combi on the M50 with the instruments you want to use on separate MIDI channels.
• set up the same number of midiO tracks in Garageband, on their corresponding channels.
• record MIDI on the channels one at a time.
• do the necessary quantizing/note editing.
• record to audio (aka bounce); you can either record everything to one track, or one track at a time by muting all but one, recording that, then make a new real instrument track, and so on.
If you have a project with only Garageband instruments, you can quite quickly change this to use only or partly the M50, simply by setting up a combi with the instruments you want and changing the generator on those tracks in Garageband to the corresponding MIDI channels.
As most people know, Garageband is not the most advanced audio application there is. MIDI capabilities out of the box are limited to input, which makes interfacing with external MIDI devices somewhat tricky.
But first of all: how to connect everything.
1: Hardware
You'll want a minimum of two cables between your computer and M50, a USB for MIDI data (the USB cable does not carry audio data), and an audio cable, from the M50 output to your computer's input.
You will probably want a dedicated external audio interface, which also makes it easier to connect since they usually have marked 1/4" inputs, the same as your M50. Then you just get the right cables and you're set (hardware-wise, at least). You *can* connect directly to your Mac, using the line-in. If you're content with mono, you can simply get a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter and a male-male 1/8" cable; if you want stereo you're gonna have to find the proper cabling, for example a 1/8" stereo-to-mono splitter and two 1/4"-1/8" adapters.
2: Software
This section supposes that you have the right/updated drivers for your M50 and whatever audio interface you're using and it is functional.
In Garageband, open the preferences and go to the audio/MIDI section, select your audio interface (or line-in if you're using the Mac's sound-card).
Create a new real instrument track in Garageband, then go to track info and check that it uses the correct inputs and that monitoring is activated for that track. Play a bit on your M50 to see that it works and you're hearing the sounds.
As said earlier, Garageband's MIDI capabilities are not so good, but there are workarounds. Loading the M50 plug-in editor into a software instrument track (done by changing instrument generator in the track info, screenshot 1) allows you to record MIDI, which then controls the synth when playing that track.
What's that? You can't hear any synth sound from the M50 plug-in track? As it turns out, Garageband deactivates the real instrument track (ie. the sound coming from the M50) when the M50 plug-in track is selected. Fix this by 'triggering' the real instrument track for recording by pressing the leftmost of the buttons next to the intrument icon.
But using the M50 plug-in is a bit impractical if you want to control multiple tracks on the synth, and I haven't seen any way to edit specific tracks in the plug-in. This is where a component called midiO comes in.
MidiO works as a software instrument, but instead of triggering the built-in Garageband synths/samples, it sends the data to an external MIDI device.
Install the component, then load a new software instrument track and change the generator to midiO, and in the midiO settings, select M50:SOUND as destination.
Now let's have a look at what's happening here. You have a real instrument track (audio) for recieving/recording the audio coming from the M50. The M50 plug-in track allows you to access every aspect of the M50 hardware on your screen and allows you to make changes and have them instantly reflected on your M50. The midiO track(s) allows you to send data to specific MIDI channels on your M50.
For quick access, I suggest you save the M50 plug-in and the midiO tracks as new "software instruments".
What's the workflow from here? Of course, there are many possibilities, but here's a suggestion:
• set up a combi on the M50 with the instruments you want to use on separate MIDI channels.
• set up the same number of midiO tracks in Garageband, on their corresponding channels.
• record MIDI on the channels one at a time.
• do the necessary quantizing/note editing.
• record to audio (aka bounce); you can either record everything to one track, or one track at a time by muting all but one, recording that, then make a new real instrument track, and so on.
If you have a project with only Garageband instruments, you can quite quickly change this to use only or partly the M50, simply by setting up a combi with the instruments you want and changing the generator on those tracks in Garageband to the corresponding MIDI channels.