| Whenever you double-click a track's header, its Track Info dialog box appears. At the top of it, GarageBand presents a list of what appear to be instrument names (Figure 7-1). At first glance, these instrument names may seem to have completely different functions for the two kinds of tracks in GarageBand: -
If you've opened a blue Real Instrument track, these instrument names don't refer to instrument sounds; they identify effects presets . Each is a carefully adjusted combination of studio processing effects ”reverb, EQ (equalization), and so on ”that, in the opinion of a professional recording engineer, is well suited to the instrument named in the list. -
If you've opened a green Software Instrument track, you might assume that the instrument names here ”Grand Piano, Orchestral Strings, and so on ” are instrument sounds. After all, selecting a different instrument in the list changes the sound of whatever's in the track.  | Figure 7-1. The Track Info dialog box is a lot like the New Track dialog box. But when you click Details, some important controls appear at the bottom. These are the building-block effects generators that make up the instrument-named presets in the top list. (And the two pop-up menus in the Details panel list the building blocks of those building blocks. It's possible to burrow down very deeply into GarageBand's effects-processing underworld.) | |
But as you'll find out in this chapter, these instrument names also include custom-tailored effects. These are, in other words, instrument-and-effect presets. For each one, you can modify not only the effect Apple has assigned, but even the sounds themselves , which GarageBand generates from 18 built-in modules ”Piano, Strings, Guitar, and so on. For a given instrument named in the list, you can even substitute a different sound module altogether. When you click an instrument category in the left-side list, the presets are listed in the right-side list. Apple has tried to name them helpfully, to suggest their sonic effect: for example, Edgy Drums, Punk Bass, or (in the Vocals category) Epic Diva. In the Guitar category, most of these presets incorporate the famous GarageBand guitar- amplifier simulations (Section 7.3.4.1). Whatever effect preset you choose becomes part of the track. Any sound in that track is affected the same way by those effects. |
