Using GarageBand with VoiceOver

i would pay someone to teach me how to do multitrack recording with garage band logic x pro and main stage free, money is not an issue at all.

I agree with the above comments - with all the resources available on this site, I'm actually really surprised that some GB pro out there hasn't posted a series of podcasts, or even a "Getting Started" post with some written instructions. I think that if someone was to provide something like this, it'd be invaluable to the community.

I'm actually wondering the same thing. Last I checked, which was about a year or so ago, Garage Band was only marginally accessible as far as I could tell. I think Mac for the Blind had some stuff on it but that was out of date. It might've been updated though, I haven't had much time to check. But when I last was in Garage Band, I could not get any of the sounds to play other than VO and one short video about guitar playing..

<p>There is a very helpful e-mail forum for blind musicians, audio production, and music enthusiasts. A number of the people on that list have experience with Garage Band using VoiceOver. The list is called the MidiMag list and one can subscribe by sending an e-mail to:</p>

<a href="mailto:midimag-subscribe@midimag.org"&gt;
midimag-subscribe@midimag.org</a><p>
Just write a note introducing yourself and asking questions. Everyone is friendly and knowledgeable.

Hope that helps.

--Pete

Thanks for this. I just subscribed to that list. It seems to be run by one of the ACB affiliates.

Folks, because I really struggled with learning to use GarageBand with VoiceOver myself, I want to share some basics with you. There is undoubtedly more than one way to do this but here is one way that works. If you discover faster ways then please share with this group. What follows is very detailed so I hope you can follow my explanations.

To edit a drum track and to create and record an audio track do the following:

1. Create a new project using the songwriter option. Don't worry right now about key or meter settings.
2 Press tab key until you hear Tracks Group and interact with it. by pressing Shift+VO keys+down arrow.
3. Press VO+right arrow until you hear Track Headers group and interact with it.
4. For the sake of simplicity, delete all tracks leaving just the SoCal drum track. (Select a track to be deleted and press Command+Delete.)
5. Stop interacting with Track Headers group (Shift+VO keys+up arrow). Press VO+right arrow until you hear Track Contents group and interact with it.
6. SoCal is already selected since it is the only track. Interact with it. Using VO keys+ left or right arrows you will cycle through two regions named Verse and Chorus. Each happens to be predefined to be 16 bars long. Again, use VO+left or right arrows to cycle between the two regions. When you hear verse, the verse region is selected. When you hear chorus, the chorus region is selected.
This concept of which region is currently selected is critical to performing edits.
7. Select the chorus region and cut it using Command+X. Check that the chorus region has really been cut by trying to cycle through the regions as described above. You should now only hear "verse". Remember that the chorus region has been cut and is now in the clipboard. We will come back to it later.

As I previously mentioned, the two initial regions were 16 bars long for a total of 32 bars. The verse region begins at bar 1 and extends through to the end of bar 16. Before cutting it, the chorus region started at the beginning of bar 17 and extended through to the end of bar 32. In 4/4 time which is the default for the Songwriter project, each bar is subdivided into 4 beats. Each beat is subdivided into 4 divisions, and each division is subdivided into 240 ticks. (These levels of subdivisions allow for very fine adjustments to the playhead position.)

Now, press the return key to send the playhead to the beginning of the timeline. You should hear "1 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick". If not, press the spacebar and let the drums play for a few seconds and press spacebar again to stop playback. Press the return key to send the playhead back to the beginning of the track.

Okay, as an example I will describe how to build up a drum track consisting of a 2 bar intro, two 16 bar verses, 1 16 bar chorus, 1 more 16 bar verse and 2 final 16 bar choruses.

The first thing to do is to place the chorus region farther along the track timeline in order to make room for 3 verse regions. The first of these three verse regions will eventually be cut down into a 2 bar verse region which will become the 2 bar intro. But in order to keep the math simple, we will shorten the first verse region as the final step in creating our drum track.

Note: Since the initial verse and chorus regions are each 16 bars in length, think in multiples of 16 with regard to the timeline. Sorry but it will take some basic math and some planning ahead to build up a drum track.

The 1st 16 bars start at 1 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick (1st verse)
The 2nd 16 bars start at bar 17, beat 1, division 1, tick (2nd verse)
The 3rd 16 bars start at bar 33, beat 1, division 1, tick 1 (3rd verse)
The 4th 16 bars start at bar 49, beat 1, division 1, tick 1 (1st chorus)
The 5th 16 bars will start at bar 65, beat 1, division 1, tick 1 (4th verse)
The 6th 16 bars start at bar 81, beat 1, division 1, tick 1 (2nd chorus)
The 7th 16 bars start at bar 97, beat 1, division 1, tick 1 (3rd chorus)

1. Remember that we were just interacting with SoCal in the Track Contents group and that we cut the chorus region and placed it on the clipboard. Now, use the VO+I command and enter "bar" to search the screen for occurances of "bar". . Arrow down until you hear "1 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick". The next four items in the search results list are "1 bar," "1 beat," "1 division," and "1 tick". You can interact with each of these in order to make increasingly smaller adjustments to the playhead position. For now, select "1 bar" and press the return key. Focus is now on that control so interact with it. By using VO+left or right arrow keys you can change the value of the bar control. Looking at our chart above, we see that we want to paste the first chorus region into the area of the timeline which starts at 49 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. So, interact with the bar control and increment to the desired value.
2. Press the tab key until you hear Tracks Group and interact with it. Select Track Headers group and interact with it. SoCal, being the only track in the project, should already be selected.
3. Paste the chorus region into the SoCal track using Command+V.
4. If you want to check that the chorus region was really pasted into the SoCal track, stop interacting with Track Headers group and interact with Track Contents group. Interact with SoCal and use VO+left or right arrow keys to determine how many regions are present. You should hear verse region and chorus region. When you hear "chorus region" and then press VO+right arrow, you should hear an audible click that tells us that we went past the end and returned to the first (leftmost) region which in our case should be the verse region. The difference from when we first started this process is that instead of the chorus region being adjacent to the verse region, they are now separated by a 32 bar gap into which two verse regions will be later pasted. Unfortunately VoiceOver doesn't tell us about the empty area. We just have to trust that it is there.

Since the chorus region is still in the clipboard, lets paste it two more times into the SoCal track at the appropriate places as determined by the playhead position on the timeline.

5. Use VO+I and type "bar" as we did earlier and again arrow down to the bar control and press the return key. Interact with bar control and increment the bar value to 81 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick as specified in our chart above.
6. Press the tab key until you hear Tracks group and interact with it. Select Track Headers group and interact with it. SoCal is already selected. Paste the chorus region using Command+V.

Repeat the previous two steps only incrementing the bar value this second time to 97 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick.

Let's go back to check on our progress by interacting with SoCal in Track Contents, we should now hear verse, chorus, chorus, chorus. Unspoken is the fact that there is a 32 bar gap between the verse region and the first chorus region and a 16 bar gap between the first chorus region and the second chorus region.

Since we are already interacting with the SoCal drum regions, let's now fill in the missing verse regions. Select the existing verse region and then press Command+C to copy it into the clipboard. Repeat steps 5 an 6 above three times. For the first time, set the bar value to 17 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. For the second time set the bar value to 33 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. For the third time set the bar value to 65 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick.

Let's again check on our work by interacting with SoCal in the Track Contents group. We should now hear verse, verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus. Pressing VO+right arrow once more we should hear a click and be returned to the first verse region.

Pressing the return key at any point in the above process and then pressing the spacebar to start playback will let you hear the results at any step along the way. Of course, if there are gaps you will hear corresponding sections of silence.

The final step in creating our drum track is to cut the first 16 bar verse region down to a 2 bar region which will become the two bar intro.

I. Since we are currently interacting with SoCal in the Track Contents group, select the first verse region. If you are really on the first verse region, VO+left arrow will cause a click and a wrap around to the last chorus region. VO+right arrow will produce a click and a wrap around in the other direction to the first verse region.
II. Repeat step 5 above setting the bar value to 3 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. (If you want a four bar intro you would set the bar value to 5 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick.)
III. Repeat step 6 above but instead of a copy or paste command, press Command-T to split the first 16 bar verse region into a two bar region and a 14 bar region.
IV. Interact with SoCal in the Track Contents group. Using VO+right arrow you should now hear verse, verse, verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, chorus. Pressing VO+right arrow once more you should hear the click noise and wrap around to the first verse region which is only 2 bars long. Press VO+right arrow once more to select the second verse region which is now 14 bars long. Stop interacting with SoCal. Stop interacting with Track Contents.
V. Interact with Track Headers group. SoCal is already selected.
VI. Press VO+M to access the GarageBand menu bar. VO+right arrow until you hear Edit. VO+down arrow until you hear "Delete and Move." Press the return key(enter key). This should delete the 14 bar region and cause all the remaining regions to the right to move left filling in the gap that would have otherwise been created if, for example, we had used the cut command which would have left a 14 bar gap.

You should now have a customized drum track consisting of a two bar intro, two sixteen bar verses, a sixteen bar chorus, another sixteen bar verse, folloed by two more sixteen bar choruses. You should be able to generalize the above instructions in order to build any drum track configurations that you need for your projects.

The final thing that I will briefly describe is how to create and record an audio track using a mic or a line in input.

1. PressOption+Command+N to create a new track.
2. You will be asked to select a track type. Press VO+right arrow until you hear the audio mic, line-in option. Then press VO+spacebar to select it.
3. VO+right arrow over to the details group (you may need to expand it first) and interact with it in order to set your input source (E.G., built-in mic input or external audio interface with multiple inputs to choose from.)
4. Stop interacting with Details and VO+right arrow to the creat track button and press VO+spacebar.
5. Interact with Track Headers group and select the new audio track.
6. Press "R" to begin recording.

Look folks, I know that this was a lot of detail but I hope that it helps some of you get going with GarageBand. Once you've mastered the above process, other GarageBand features start making more sense. I hope that some of you will share what you learn with the rest of us.

Fin

These are excellent instructions. Now if only you or someone else who really knows what they're doing and knows how to communicate it properly without tons of errors, could do something like this about iTunes that'd be awesome. I realize iTunes is off topic for this thread and is probably a whole different thing, but just saying.

I'm getting back into music after over 20 years' hiatus, long enough to raise a kid. Well, I got a bass guitar and just started looking at Garage Band.
A friend from high school uses it, though he's not blind.
I was able to figure out how to load the tracks, set up my input source. I'm guessing though that I need to establish preamps, etc., because my bass is barely audible. I used to be a keyboards guy / synthesist back in the late 80s early 90s, so am well acquainted with at least the hardware version of what should be happening.
But what I am dealing with, I can load a patch by selecting it in the table, but cannot modify any of the settings. I select a modern stack, but can't see the specs for that amp. I did select to monitor the instrument so I can hear it.
How do I set the preamp, EQ, power amp, effects pedals, etc.?
Weird since when I do play out, I never use effects with bass, a bit of contrast compared to the big techno stuff I used to do.
I feel like I must be missing something obvious here, but can only see the browser list, and the Save button. Save seems pointless if I can't modify the patch at all.
If I was doing MIDI through, that wouldn't be as important as I could do it from the synthesizer, presuming we can even do that with synthesizers anymore. Anyhow, with something like a bass, my second instrument, I need to be able to modify the effects. I'm pretty sure that's why I can barely hear it, I need to set the gain / preamp, as I would on a real amp.
The other stuff on here was really helpful. I can see how once you learn this it could be really useful. I feel a bit dysphoric looking at it, knowing I should be able to change the amp and settings, knowing what I would change, but not having any idea how.
This is with Mac OS Sierra.
There is a tutorial with what is probably a really old Garage band, the guy is using a MIDI controller keyboard, and has access to a ton of popup buttons. I can't see a single one, no pedals, no effects. I know this must be possible as my friend continues to send me Facebook Messenger links from his Garage Band that sounds like what we used to do with thousands of dollars worth of gear. You shouldn't need a direct box to take an input at line level. And while I can see patches, I can't set a gain.

I have taught myself how to use garage band, and I regularly use it to create music for my podcast. You can check out some of that music with the link below. I created all of the music in this piece with GarageBand, With the exception of the opening songs that play while the podcast hosts do the intro.
http://secretroom.libsyn.com/22-nindaddys-secret
I would be willing to make a series of audio lessons, illustrating how to use GarageBand. However, to do a good job I believe I might have to charge for the tutorials; I was thinking around 30 dollars would be reasonable, since similar tutorials for Amadeus Pro and Pro tools cost more then that.

I believe I could cover all major aspects of GarageBand, with the caveat that, as far as I can tell, a few things are not accessible. For example, I have never figured out how to use automation.

Let me know if your interested, and what you would like me to cover in a hypothetical series of lessons. If there is enough interest I could finish the project in a few weeks; I would send a link to the audio lesson files to each individual who is interested, upon which they would send the agreed upon money to me through Pay pal. We would work out all of the finer details through email.

Forgive me if my offer is not compelling, or if I'm breaking any Apple vis rules by posting this; I just saw that people were interested, and I would love to help, just need to pay the bills at the same time.

Hi Guys, Any luck finding tutorials? I've been putting together a resourse website for blind engineers and this fits what I'm trying to find. I can add Garageband tutorials to my list of things to do. I am hoping to start making youtube vids on how to record as a blind engineer since for some reason no one else has. My site is Pro Audio Work Arounds for the Blind .wordpress for now any ideas email me at pawaftb@gmail.com

Nicely done and thank you. I am now wondering though if I need a guitar interface cable, because when I direct in with my bass and start moving around Garage Band with the Voiceover cursor, it goes to busy an awful lot. Someone I know who's sighted says he thinks it's because Garage Band is trying to calculate the line input signal. The USB interface cable will allegedly make things easier. Is that right? I only have 8 gb of RAM which is more than plenty for basic things, but was wondering if that was making VoiceOver go busy in Garage Band. But if you remove the patch cable from the line input, busy stuff is all done away with and it's fast again.

Thank you so much Aaron. I've actually been able to figure out a few more things in GB on my own, but I'll certainly check out your site. The whole GB interface--or most of it anyway--just seems a bit odd even when compared with iTunes. The only reason I specifically mention iTunes is that there's a lot you can do with it, and I have found that interface to be quite nice.

Hey everyone, I was using an old version of GarageBand before and had created a project there. Since then, I've upgraded to the latest version on the Mac and hadn't used it for awhile. I wanted to work on this file again and, after doing some troubleshooting to get my loops and everything back, I've run into a few problems I was hoping someone could help me with.

Honestly, it's simple enough -- I just want to shorten some of the tracks in the project. The method I used for resizing tracks in the old version doesn't work anymore, so if someone could tell me how to do it now, that would be a great help.

On top of that, I was hoping to record some vocals from my digital microphone. How do I add a vocal track to the project and experiment with different vocal effects?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference but I forgot to specify that the tracks I'm looking to shorten are loop tracks. I want to cut down what I have by about half (so 12 bars instead of 24) and have other loop tracks end at different points in the project. Thanks again for any help you can provide!

Does anyone have any suggestions to doing hip hop beats? In Hip hOp the hi-hats can get pretty complex. With in that same 16bars. There can be a couple of clicks where it's 16ths, and then triplets, and then back to the 16ths, and then 8ths.
I'd really like to get back into beat production, but when GarageBand had it's not very accessible times. I just kind of gave up with it, and focused more on school, and getting my guide dog.
Chuck

Would you have more advice or guidance using the software instrument tracks? That's what I prefer to use.
I know i'd use separate tracks for each part of the drums like snares on their own track, kicks/bass on their own track, and then hats would have their own tracks. Though when it comes to creating software instrument tracks with the complex hats patterns. That's where i get lost. Like you may get a one ee and a then for the 2 can be switched to the 32ths notes and then go back to 3 ee and a then that 4 can end up the same as 2 back to the 32ths.
Chuck

Does anyone know how using voiceover on the Mac I pitch correct or auto tune in GarageBand? I can't figure it out. It used to be accessible a couple of years ago but now it isn't and I don't know how to do it. Any help would be appreciated.

This helps. Now i just need to figure out the arpeggiator for the drums. Trying to do 32ths notes or 16ths notes in an uptempo thing isn't exactly easy.
I guess for each different hat it would be a track for the 16ths and a second for the triplets and so forth. sorry If i sound like i'm clueless on this. I did use Garageband back in high school, but to be truthful I really didn't know how to do anything of this stuff.
Chuck

A few months ago I completed (except for the index) a GarageBand tutorial for VoiceOver users. I lost two book editors and was looking for a third when GarageBand version 10.2 came out. The changes to the new version were/are significant and rendered portions of my tutorial inaccurate though much of it is still valid. Probably the biggest changes are to the drummer function. For instance, the ability to choose genres and drummers was removed from the Auto-Play Drummer editor and was placed into the Library as an addditional library browser. The way drummer regions are dealt with in the Tracks Contents Group has changed significantly. And the Loops Group now provides additional ways to build drummer tracks. Numerous smaller changes have been made throughout GarageBand.

The change that affected me the most was that in the Piano Roll editor, the note velocity slider disappeared. This was a show stopper for me because I use this feature heavily when building electric bass and piano melody and harmony tracks. In other words, you don't want every note to have the same loudness...you want to make some notes louder and others softer in order to sound more natural. This is done by adjusting each note's velocity. Technically, note velocity is a reflection of how soft or hard a key is struck. Keys struck harder are generally louder. In practice, adjusting note velocity acts as a volume control.

Because of the loss of the note velocity slider, I reverted to version 10.1.6 and put my tutorial on the shelf because it was now out of date. A couple of days ago, I reinstalled version 10.2 just to check it out again and I stumbled upon the secret too accessing the note velocity slider in version 10.2! It isn't accessible using just VoiceOver. You must utilize the OS's Mouse Keys function to manually position the mouse cursor on the top edge of the Piano Roll editor and then drag the edge of the editor upwards to make it larger. VoiceOver gives no feedback. You just have to trust that the window is enlarging. Ideally, this should be a splitter control accessible to VoiceOver. In any case, when the window is enlarged beyond a certain size, the note Velocity slider reappears in the Piano Roll Inspector Group where it was previously available in earlier versions of GarageBand without having to first enlarge the Piano Roll editor window. This works the same way for sighted users. In other words, a sighted user won't be able to find the note velocity slider unless they happen to enlarge the window and then happen to notice that the slider has appeared. This is questionable design if you ask me.

I will now work more with version 10.2. I will probably update my tutorial but if I wait too long, or take too long, GarageBand will undoubtedly change again. I had contacted American Printing House for the Blind to see if they would be interested in publishing my tutorial but they told me that they no longer publish software tutorials because they go out of date so fast. I have experienced this first hand during the process of writing my tutorial.

One thought I had was to make the tutorial a web site that could be revised to keep it current but, unfortunately, I don't really have the skills and resources to do this on my own. It would probably take a community effort to build and maintain it.

The tutorial, as it stands in 14 point font, is approximately 600 pages long without any screen shots. It is quite detailed and I am confident that a person with no prior knowledge of GarageBand can learn to use it quite well.

It took a lot of work to research and write the tutorial. If there is interest in it, please let me hear from you. It may motivate me to update it and make it available.

Be Well

While I have a very basic understanding of how to manage loops and vocal tracks, a detailed tutorial for gb would be fantastic! I'd love to learn how to do more with it because working from only the loops and vocals is pretty limiting. Thanks and I hope you pick up work on the tutorial again. Good luck!

Hello. I, too, am very interested in a tutorial for GB. I'm only an amateur musician at this point, but I love tinkering around with all this audio stuff. To that end I have a question about the midi setup assistant on here. I apologize if this is somewhat OT, but is that at all connected to GB? The reason I'm asking is that I found several midi tracks on another website which I want to hear, and I cannot quite figure things out. Feel free to contact me privately via the form in my profile if necessary.

@Bo Jingles: I got the midi to work in GB. I tried going to the context menu, but wasn't able to find that option. So I just opened the midi files and GB came up right away. I haven't done much else with it yet other than explore a couple of the individual instruments, but I think I'm slowly but surely getting used to things in GB. The interface still seems a bit clunky, but perhaps that'll change on or after Monday when High Sierra is unleashed to the public. I still think Apple did a nice job thus far.

How do I lengthen a loop in GarageBand version 10.2 so that it continues for a greater number of bars or even continues for the length of the song/project? I used to be able to do this in the old version of GarageBand I used to use in Mountain Lion. Thanks to Bo Jingles, I've now managed to be able to add a loop to my project in the new GB but haven't yet been able to ensure the loop continues for the right amount of bars, except I suppose if I keep pasting multiple copies of the loop throughout the project every few bars.

Nicholas,

Good work and thank you for posting your how-to steps. The more people do the same, the more valuable this forum will become. I have repeated your instructions below and have added to them.

1. Navigate to the loop region in the tracks contents area;

2. interact with it;

3. navigate to the loop handle;

4. use VO-Command-Accent to move the loop handle and then use VO-arrow keys to move it to the right. VoiceOver will announce how long the region is becoming.

I encountered problems with GarageBand version 10.2 so I used a Time Machine back up to go back to version 10.1.6. However, the instructions below should apply to version 10.2 as well.

When you use the Move Item command, VO+Command+Accent, and then use the arrow keys to lengthen (or shorten) the loop region, the amount of increase is governed by the Horizontal Zoom value.

For example, I just used the Hip Hop template to create a new project and added a loop to it. Following your instructions above, I press the right arrow to lengthen the loop. Each press of the right arrow lengthens the loop by one beat. So, to lengthen the loop one bar, I need to press the right arrow four times.

I checked. The Hip Hop template set the Horizontal Zoom value at 39.5%. Changing the Horizontal Zoom value to 29.5%, each press of the right arrow now lengthens the loop one half bar. Setting Horizontal Zoom to 24.9%, each press of the right arrow now lengthens the loop one bar. Setting Horizontal Zoom to 19.5%, each press of the right arrow now lengthens the loop two bars.

By the way, Command+Left Arrow and Command+Right Arrow are shortcut keys that decrease/increase the Horizontal Zoom value without having to navigate to, and interact with, the Horizontal Zoom slider. By default, VoiceOver doesn't speak the changes to the Horizontal Zoom value. However, you can set up a hot spot on the Horizontal Zoom slider and then press Shift+VO+Command plus the hot spot number and VoiceOver will monitor/automatically speak changes to the Horizontal Zoom value. Pressing the command again will terminate monitoring for the hot spot.

FYI, when in the Tracks Contents Group, VoiceOver may tell you that a region is partially hidden. This means that part of the region is off screen. Decreasing the Horizontal Zoom value (zooming out) will bring the entire region into view and VoiceOver will no longer describe the region as partially hidden.

While on the subject of loops. There is a quick, albeit, temporary way to lengthen a loop. Select the desired track and press the letter L. GarageBand will lengthen the loop all the way to the End Marker value. For example, the Hip Hop template sets the default End Marker value to 32 bars. Therefore, selecting the loop track and then pressing L will cause the loop to be heard during playback all the way through to the end of bar 32. Pressing the letter L again will stop the extension and the loop will revert to its original length.

Here is a nuance. let's say that you want the loop to extend to the beginning of bar 17 instead of to the End Marker value. You can select the loop region in the Tracks Contents Group and position the playhead on bar 17 and then press Command+T to split the region at that point. Weirdly, a new region will be created starting at bar 17. Delete it and now the loop will play from the beginning of the loop and stop at bar 17 instead of playing to the End Marker value. However, if you press the letter L to remove the loop extension and then press it again, the loop will again play to the End Marker value instead of to bar 17. Rather than messing with this, you might as well follow Nicholas' instructions above which will make the loop extension permanent.

One more nuance with regard to the letter L shortcut. If a track has more than one region, only the last region can be extended.

The letter L and other useful shortcuts can be found at the following URL:

GarageBand Keyboard shortcuts
https://help.apple.com/garageband/mac/10.1.5/#/gbnd715f33a0

Note: The shortcuts in the above document are GarageBand commands, not VoiceOver commands. Therefore some of them may not appear to do anything. In most instances, this is because they do something that only a sighted user can see but that VoiceOver doesn't detect. However, most of the shortcuts work as described so if you want to up your GarageBand game, learn them.

Hi,

If you are interested in obtaining the first four chapters of my book at no cost, GarageBand 10.1.6 for Mac: A User's Guide and Reference, please email me at:

GB4MacVO@ icloud.com

I include the entire table of contents so that you can see what is covered in chapters five through fourteen, but I am only offering the text for the first four chapters at this time.

If you have been frustrated trying to learn GarageBand with VoiceOver, I believe that the first four chapters of my book (Part One--GarageBand Basics) will take you from knowing little or nothing, to becoming quite familiar with the basics of GarageBand. I encourage feedback.

I don't use the newest version of GarageBand (version 10.2) because I've had too many problems with it. I have reported the problems that I have encountered, as I'm sure many others have done. Hopefully, the next version will address them. In the meantime, I consider version 10.1.6 to be the stable version. If you are using version 10.1.6 with Sierra, you should find my text most accurate. If you are using an older version from the 10.1.x series, you should still find these chapters very helpful. And, even if you are using version 10.2, which underwent a significant redesign, these chapters should be of value.

Hello everyone. I'm writing to let you all know, that not only am I typing this from flip type, but I've also been hard at work this weekend creating a decent four part tutorial on producing music in garage band for Mac with voice over. I hope this was the correct place to post this but I feel that people who are just getting into music and may not want to or have the dollar to drop on anything really could use this. Garage band gets a lot of bashing for not being a capable digital audio workstation, but if you hope to upgrade to something like logic or even reeper, garage band is an amazing and free program to start with and get your feet wet. Below is the link to the play list containing all of the videos in the tutorial. I create a track from start to finish using nothing but built in sounds. If you have any feedback feel free to leave it and also suggestions in the comments here or on my channel. I also wanted to state for the record that all information written here and linked below was created by me for informational uses only.
Here is the link to the play list. As I said the tutorial is split across four videos, and the fifth is the audio of the final track.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2nN_7cg-MaE_qKTf96dEUOguWLpvDjiw

How to choose a project template in GB 10.3

I installed GarageBand 10.3 on OS Sierra.

While GarageBand 10.3 looks really good so far, the way VoiceOver interacts with the grid of selectable templates in the Project Chooser Window has become more complicated. Even so, once you know what to do, choosing a project template is still quite easy.

The Project Chooser Window appears whenever you press Command+N (new project) or Command+W (close open project) and then exit the Save dialogue. Project templates were formerly chosen from a grid of selectable templates. The grid still exists but it has been redesigned and is now called “Collection”.

1. Interact with Collection by pressing Shift+Control+Option+Down Arrow.
2. Immediately press Control+Option+Command+Return one time This is the multiple selection command. See note below.
3. Use VO+Right Arrow to select a template. Since I have cursor wrapping enabled, the VoiceOver cursor cycles between Keyboard Collection, Amp Collection, Voice, Hip Hop, Electronic, Songwriter, and “Factory Templates”. Factory Templates is new and is only a text label. What happened to the Empty Project template? With the VoiceOver cursor on the Factory templates label, VO+Left Arrow one time to the Empty Project template.
It appears that the Ringtone template is been dropped in version 10.3.
4. After you have selected the desired template, press Command+Option+Control+F5. This command jumps the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor which is already located on the desired template.
5. Press Shift+Control+Option+Spacebar to perform a mouse click. This selects the template.
6. Exit Collection. A fast way to do this is to press Control+Option+Command+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor out of the Collection and on to the Choose button.
7. If you want to launch the template with default project properties (tempo, key signature, time signature, etc.),, press Enter or VO+Space Bar. However, if you want to change project properties before launching the template, VO+Left Arrow to the Details Group and interact with it. If you don’t encounter the Details Group but only encounter the Details collapsed disclosure triangle, press VO+Back Slash on the disclosure triangle to reveal the Details Group which is now accessed by pressing VO+Right Arrow one time. After changing project properties, exit the Details Group and activate the Choose button.

Note: There may be more going on in the redesigned Collection than I yet understand. It appears that when the Collection is first interacted with, the multiple selection function is automatically turned on. If step two above is skipped, pressing VO+Right Arrow a few times will cause VoiceOver to start saying things like “three items selected”, four items selected”., etc. Why would we want to select multiple templates? Create a new project made up of several templates? Move templates somewhere? Rearrange the order of templates? My experimentation hasn’t yet uncovered any answers. In any case, following the above steps should make selecting project templates a relatively easy matter.

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Just wondering if anyone is unable to copy/paste apple loops into the tracks contents window. I try copying loops from the loops browser like before and the option is dimmed when I have a track selected now. Has apple changed how to do this in the new garageband update, has accessibility been broken or is it just me having this problem?

If anyone could let me know their own experience or (even better) an alternative way to get the loops to the track contents window so I can edit their length and volume in the mix... or even put them in my project, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

I try my best to drag the loops in by double tap and holding, then dragging straight to the left, slowly. Then inches from the home button I release, and it should say adding audio files.

Here, this is one of my tracks on my YouTube channel, using Garageband on iOS.

All I used, was the Hcienda drum kit, and Apple Loops.

Tunmi - Ultimate Surviver (Dance Remix). HTH!

Again, so many thanks for this. I finally went out and bought a keyboard, keyboards were my first instrument. I've been able to successfully create one complete piece, and lay down a couple other tracks for a friend overseas. Starting at Post 8 on this thread, this is a great deal of very useful information!
I wish I could play a region by itself. Maybe I'm missing something.

Also, once you define a region, is it possible to stretch or shrink it? I could only do this by making a new one, but I'm probably missing something obvious.

This version of Garage Band really does have a lot more direct keyboard access.

Also, a tip for keyboardists -- I haven't bothered hooking up my bass a second time --. I bought Mainstage 3 from the Apple store, about $30 I think. I did so because once you run it and download all its patches (they call it sounds), you've got every patch you could want at least as a keyboardist.

Leo,

You wrote:
"I wish I could play a region by itself. Maybe I'm missing something."

If you would, please explain your comment in greater detail. I am not sure what you mean.

In the Tracks Contents Group, regions can be expanded, shortened, or looped. Here's the deal:

Drummer regions can be expanded or shortened as many bars as you like. By drummer, I am talking about GB"s drummer feature.

As I recall, software instrument regions, such as those created by adding a software instrument loop to your project, can also be expanded but the expanded part of the region will probably contain silence. In other words, if you start with a two bar software instrument region and drag its right edge so that it becomes four bars long, the region becomes two bars of instrument followed by two bars of silence, for a total of four bars.

Audio regions behave like software instrument regions. In other words, dragging the edge only adds silence.

With regard to drummer regions, you can shorten them, change your mind, and press the opposite arrow to expand the region again. Drummer regions are very flexible this way. However, if you shorten an audio or software instrument region, the shortened part of the region is permanently erased. In other words, you can't change your mind and press the opposite arrow key. All this will accomplish is to add silence, not restore the erased material. For example, if you have a two bar audio loop and shorten it to one bar, trying to lengthen it again by pressing the opposite arrow key will only add silence. Nor will the OS undo command restore the erased material. I've been bitten by this many times. Therefore, it is a good idea to save your project prior to moving handles just in case you make a mistake and want to start over.

To drag the edge of a region:

1. Interact with the desired track in the Tracks Contents Group.
2. Use Control+Option+Left or Control+Option+right arrows to select the desired region.
3. You can select the left border handle, the right border handle, or the loop handle.

Note: The left handle is used to
move the left edge of the region left or right. To the left expands the region, to the right shortens the region. Same idea for the right handle except that moving the handle to the right expands and to the left shortens. Moving the loop handle to the right adds more bars of loop while to the left reduces the number of looped bars.

To move a handle:

1. Select the desired handle by pressing Control+Option+Right or Control+Option+Left Arrow.
2. Initiate the Move Item function by pressing Control+Option+Command+Accent key. (The accent key is just below the escape key.)
3. Use the left and right arrow keys to move the handle to either the left or to the right.
4. When done, terminate the Move Item function by pressing the Escape key

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Ok I've been doing some work in the past few days after work and I have a question.
I get how regions work now. But I'm old school enough that I really want to use my ears to define the region. What I mean is, basically select, hear my selection, then lengthen and shorten the selection.
I know this is possible because when I was a session musician in the early 90s, the engineers were using software then. We couldn't of course. Or at least I didn't know of anything for us back then. But while they were visually looking, they were listening as the cursor or whatever moved. Lol the engineers would always say then that they'd rather use their ears. Mind, they were fully sighted, I was the only blind guy in the studio.
Select-and-play seems kind of key. If you're doing anything that doesn't match the stereotype for a song on the radio, something a bit more atmospheric, you can't always make your edits just by math … it helps to listen. I get that you can cycle play a region, but would love to learn how to select, then play that selection. Visually they can, I've seen people talk about selecting and then use space to play that selection. I get that we can't scrub in Garage Band, plus unless you're used to it, scrubbing with a sequencer can sound a little weird to some. I can live without that if I could only make a selection and just play that selection, so I know how to resize it before making it into a region.

Thanks so much,

Leo

Hi, I've been playing around with editing notes, but can't figure out how to edit cc messages.
For example, lets say I move the mod wheel a little to far on a patch, Is there a way to edit that message accessibly?