Editing a Software Instrument Region in the Track Editor

team bbl


The next step in building this song is to copy the Angelic Organ region in the Timeline to duplicate the part. You will keep the original region as is, and edit the duplicate to vary the part.

Using Option-Drag to Duplicate a Region

You've already learned that you can copy and paste regions using the Edit menu. This exercise will show you another way to duplicate a regionusing the Option key.

1.

Select the Angelic Organ region in the top track of the Timeline.

2.

Move the playhead to the beginning of the 8th measure in the Timeline.

3.

Press and hold the Option key to create a copy when you click the region. Don't release the key.

4.

Click and hold the Angelic Organ region to create a copy. Don't release the mouse.

5.

Drag the copy to the playhead position in the Timeline. Release the Option key and the mouse.

The shorthand for this process would be Option-drag the Angelic Organ region to the playhead position in the Timeline.

6.

Press Cmd-S to save your progress.

Tip

You should save often when you are creating any project. It just takes a moment and can prevent a lot of frustration.


Opening the Copied Region in the Track Editor

It's time to venture into the Track Editor and use it to change the copied Angelic Organ region. Why do we want to change the region? Because if you just repeat the same part over and over, it sounds like you just copied the same part over and over. But if you change the part slightly, it will sound different from the first, and nobody will know that the entire Angelic Organ track in your song came from only five recorded notes.

In this exercise, you will open the copied region in the Track Editor, then delete the last note and transpose the part to a different key so it won't sound like the same notes as the original.

1.

Double-click the second Angelic Organ region in the top track of the Timeline to open that region in the Track Editor.

The five dark lines in the Track Editor region are the note events for that region.

2.

Click each note to hear it in the Track Editor.

Note

You may need to adjust the Zoom slider in the Track Editor to see the entire region.

On the left edge of the Track Editor is a vertical keyboard so you can see the key for each note in the region.

These keys are the exact keys you played when you originally recorded the part.

3.

Click anywhere on the vertical keyboard to play and hear the corresponding note.

4.

Notice that the note events are all very dark, and the velocity is 98or whatever velocity you had set in your Musical Typing window.

When you record notes with the Musical Typing window, they will be recorded at the default velocity of 98 unless you change the velocity settings using the C or V keys. Many external MIDI keyboards are touch sensitive, so the harder or softer you play a note, the higher or lower the velocity of the note.

There is no need to change the velocity for this part.

Changing a Note in the Track Editor

Now let's change the last note in the region.

1.

Locate the last note in the region.

2.

Locate C3 on the vertical keyboard to the left of the region.

3.

Click-drag the note straight upward in the Track Editor. Stop when it is at the C3 line in the vertical keyboard.

You just changed the last note to C3.

Deleting a Note in the Track Editor

You can also delete a note in the Track Editor by selecting the note and pressing the Delete key.

1.

Select the last note in the region (if it is not already selected).

You may have already noticed that it isn't the most ear-pleasing note of the keyboard part, and certainly doesn't work in its current location. That's as good a reason as any to delete it.

2.

Press the Delete key to delete that note from the region.

Easy, right? Deleting is deleting, whether you do it in the Timeline or the Track Editor.

Note

Delete will delete all of the selected items in either the Track Editor or Timeline. It's a good idea to double-check what you have selected before you press the Delete key.

Transposing a Region in the Track Editor

You know how to change a single note by clicking it and dragging it up or down in the Track Editor. You can change all of the notes in the region at once by changing the pitch of the region. The musical term for changing the pitch or key is transposing. Remember, there are only 12 different keys (black and white) before a note repeats an octave higher or lower. To transpose a region by 12 would be to lower the entire thing one full octave. To transpose a region by 12 would be to raise the entire region to a higher octave. Anything other than a full octave will change each note in the region to a different key, either higher or lower.

Let's transpose this region to make it sound like different notes than the original recorded region.

1.

Locate the Region Pitch slider and field in the Region portion of the Track Editor.

The current Transpose setting is 0, which indicates the region is in the original recorded key.

2.

Type 12 in the Transpose field and press Return to raise the entire part by one octave.

Notice that the selected region in the Timeline has a small +12 in the lower-left corner to indicate that it has been transposed by +12 notes.

3.

Play the region in the Track Editor to hear it at the higher octave.

4.

Type 5 in the Transpose field and press Return to transpose the region by five notes lower than the original recording.

The transposed region has a small 5 in the lower-left corner to show that the pitch has been lowered by 5 keys.

5.

Click the Track Editor button to close the Track Editor.

Resizing a Region in the Timeline

Now that you have deleted a note and transposed the region, there's some empty space in the region that can be trimmed.

1.

Locate the beginning of the 11th measure in the Beat Ruler.

2.

Click-drag the lower-right corner of the selected region in the Timeline and drag it left to the beginning of the 11th measure.

3.

Play the first half of the song to hear your progress with the Angelic Organ regions.

Copying and Pasting Multiple Regions in the Timeline

The first two Angelic Organ regions sound great. Instead of repeating all of that work from scratch, you can simply copy and paste both regions at the same time to repeat them later in the song.

To copy multiple regions, you can click-drag the empty space to the left of the first region and drag your pointer toward the right across both of the regions you wish to select. You can also press the Shift key and click each of those regions.

1.

Click-drag the empty space to the left of the first Angelic region and drag your pointer to the right across both regions to select them.

2.

Press Cmd-C to copy the selected regions.

3.

Move the playhead to the beginning of the 16th measure.

4.

Press Cmd-V to paste the copied regions at the playhead position.

The pasted regions start at the beginning of the 16th measure.

Let's move the second pasted region to the right by one measure to create a larger gap between the last two Angelic Organ parts.

5.

Click the gray, empty track space between last two Angelic Organ parts to deselect them in the Timeline.

6.

Click-drag the last Angelic Organ region (4th region) to the beginning of the 22nd measure.

    team bbl



    Apple Training Series(c) GarageBand 2
    Apple Training Series: GarageBand 2
    ISBN: 0321330196
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 139
    Authors: Mary Plummer

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