| Every 5.6 seconds, somebody in the world exclaims: "Hey, how come I can't use my Apple iSight video cam/microphone as a microphone for singing into GarageBand? My PowerBook's fan is too noisy for me to sing into the built-in mike." The answer: GarageBand, like Apple, is something of a quality diva. It won't tolerate audio coming from a source that provides anything less than CD quality (44.1 kilohertz sampling). In fact, if you choose GarageBand  Preferences and click the Audio/MIDI button, youll see, in the Audio Input pop-up menu, the dimmed-out text "iSight (not 44.1)." You can work around this limitation, however, by recording the audio in iMovie , which works perfectly well with your iSight. The whole procedure takes a lot longer to read than it actually is: -
Create a new iMovie project. At the lower-left corner of the iMovie window, slide the switch to the silhouetted camcorder icon, and from the icon's pop-up menu), choose iSight . You've just told iMovie to record sound from the iSight camera. -
Duck back into GarageBand, and start it playing . These steps assume that you've got some instrumental tracks already in there, to which you want to add vocals. (These steps also assume that you're wearing headphones, so that you don't record the accompaniment along with your singing.) -
Return to iMovie. Click the "Record with iSight" button below the preview monitor ”and sing your heart out . Click the "Record with iSight" button again to stop. -
Drag the clip you've just recorded into the timeline at the bottom of the iMovie screen. Now, still in iMovie, choose File Share . The Share dialog box appears. -
At the top of the Share dialog box, click QuickTime. From the "Compress movie for" pop-up menu, choose Expert Settings. Click Share . The dialog box shown in Figure 9-8 appears. -
From the Export pop-up menu, choose Sound to AIFF. From the Use pop-up menu, choose 44.1 kHz 16 bit Stereo (Figure 9-8) . You've just converted your audio into a format that will make GarageBand happy.  | Figure 9-8. Most people think of iMovie as a video-editing program, but it happens to be a very nice audio-recording program, too. You can even edit your audio recordings ”but that's another book. For now, just tell iMovie that you intend to export only the audio of your movie.
But remember to upgrade the audio to 44.1 kilohertz, 16-bit samples. It won't sound any different, but GarageBand will now accept your recording. | | -
Choose a name and folder location, and then click Save . The result is a new AIFF sound file on your desktop (or wherever you saved it). -
Return to GarageBand. (Stop playback, if it's driving you crazy.) Drag the AIFF file into a Real Instrument track, or into a blank area of the timeline to create a new track . Presto: Great-sounding audio from your iSight! |
