4.6. Retakes

Even before you play back a new recording, you may know if it was a great performance, a good candidate but not necessarily your best effort, or a real stinker that must be deleted immediately. Maybe you messed up a portion of the playing. Maybe you had trouble keeping up with the metronome, or you felt as though it was holding you back. The beauty of a MIDI sequencer like GarageBand, though, is that you can keep your take, redo it, or trash it, instantly and guilt-free, having used up no tape or studio time. Here's how to proceed after recording a MIDI performance: Trash the whole thing . If the whole thing stank, press -Z to trigger the Edit Undo command. The new green region disappears. Adjust the tempo, if necessary, and try recording again. Trash part of it . Use the Edit Split command (Section 3.7) to cut the region into pieces, so that you can preserve the good parts but rerecord the bad ones. Keep it . If the whole thing was great, or mostly great, save your file ( -S) and move on to the next track. Mark it "best so far." Press the letter M key to mute the track you just recorded. Then create a new track and repeat the entire process, hoping to do better this time. Figure 4-5. Top: You've recorded this take twice, with mixed results each time. Middle: Suppose the middle section of the second take was the best performance. Chop off both ends. Bottom: Drag the remaining middle section upward onto the first take; this obliterates the corresponding moments of the first take. The result: A hybrid final track containing the best portions of each recording. After this second attemptor your third, fourth, or fifthyou can compare your various takes by muting and un-muting them as they play back. You can also chop up these various regions and use only the best parts of each attempt, yet another extremely common practice in professional recording studios (Figure 4-5). Tip: One great way to create a new track for the next attempt is to duplicate the first one (choose Track Duplicate Track). GarageBand creates a new, empty track just below the first onewith the same instrument sound and effects (reverb and so on) already selected.
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