4.8. Cumulative Recording

GarageBand's tricks for people with less-than - stellar musical ability don't stop with the slow-tempo-recording trick and the ability to rerecord certain sections. The Cycle button described earlier is also the key to cumulative recording, in which you record one note at a time, or just a few, building up more complexity to the passage as GarageBand loop-records the same section over and over (Figure 4-7).

This trick is especially useful for laying down drum parts . In real life, drummers are surrounded by different kinds of drums; they're constantly reaching out and twisting to hit the different instruments at different times.

Figure 4-7. Using GarageBand's Cycle feature, you can record the same section of music over and over, adding more notes on each pass. Here, you see the music from three successive loops through the same three-measure section. With each repetition, you add more notes to what you've already recorded.

When you want to perform your own drum parts, you'll probably be using a MIDI keyboard. It turns out that GarageBand's various drum sounds ”bass drum, snare drum, tom-toms, and so on ”are "mapped" to the various keys of the keyboard (see Figure 4-8). Unless you have an extraordinarily unusual limb structure, you'll probably find it very difficult to play all the drums you want in a single pass, since they're scattered all over the keyboard.

It's much easier to record drum parts in successive passes , as GarageBand continues to record: the bass drum the first time, the snare on the next pass, and so on.

Here's how to set up loop recording:

1. Turn on cycling .

   See step 1 of the preceding instructions. Figure 4-6 explains how to adjust the yellow Cycle bar. The point here is to "highlight" the portion of music you want to record.

2. Set up the recording .

   Adjust the metronome, the Count In option, and the tempo, just as described in the previous pages. If you plan to record in the middle of a piece, place the Playhead to the left of the cycled region to give yourself a running start. (GarageBand will be in playback-only mode until it reaches the yellow Cycle bar.)

   Click a track header to indicate which track you want to record. If you intend to lay down a drum track, fool around with your keyboard to identify which key plays which drum sounds. (The basic setup for GarageBand's drum kit is shown in Figure 4-8.)

   

   Figure 4-8. Cumulative recording is especially useful for drum parts, because it lets you focus on only one drum sound at a time. This diagram illustrates how GarageBand's drums are mapped to the keys of your keyboard. (The different drum kits are all mapped identically, although what constitutes a snare or a low tom in the Jazz kit may not sound anything like the one in the Techno kit.)
   The bass drum (kick drum), snare, and ride cymbals are the foundation of most drum parts, so these may be the keys you want to "ride" with three fingers as you record.

   
   

3. Click the Record button (or press the letter R key) .

   Each time GarageBand plays through the yellow-striped section, it will record any notes you play. Remember, GarageBand accumulates all the notes you play, adding them to the piece even if you play them on different repetitions of the looped passage.

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Tip: It's OK to let a pass or two go by without playing anything. You just haven't added anything to the recording in progress, so no harm done. In fact, you might want to consider routinely sitting out a couple of repetitions between recording bursts.

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Each time GarageBand loops back to the beginning of the section, you'll notice that it's already playing back what you laid down on previous passes. And when you finally stop (tap the Space bar) and play back the new passage, you'll discover that every note you played during the various repetitions plays back together.

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Tip: Believe it or not, you can stop the playback, listen, do other work on your piece, and return much later to add yet another layer of cumulative-recording notes ”as long as you haven't disturbed the yellow Cycle bar in the beat ruler. Once you move that yellow stripe or turn off cycling, GarageBand ends your chance to record additional material in that region. The next recording you make there will wipe out whatever's there.

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