Does anyone use Garageband’s native drums to record? I’m looking to find suitable intros / outros. Do you edit the midi directly or is there an easier way?
I do occasionally use them but use a sequencer to do most of mine, plus my MultiFX has drums on it too, to get exactly what you want it’s best to edit it whether it’s on GarageBand or with a sequencer. The only other option is to give in to GAS and get an electronic drumset - Alesis and Roland make some nice ones around £600-750; don’t ask, I’m trying hard to resist!
Cheers Darrell - Mmm, as much as I’d like to get a drum kit I’m hoping there’s something cheaper and easier than learning drums to get a bar of intro and bar of outro 
My wife has (just) about accepted the new bass, not sure she’s going to handle drums!
I’ll look at whether a sequencer can help me, but perhaps I’ll just have to bite the bullet and edit the midi.
You could always check out EZDrummer. Though if you’re an apple user then maybe worth upgrading from garageband to logic pro. I understand that has all the bandmates etc and your licence covers you on your ipad as well.
Garageband is so easy to use, jump in and start playing with it. I would suggest building backing tracks from scratch (create a cool groove that you can play guitar over). Here’s my foray into it:
Weekend Funk
Finished track:
Thanks Clint - How did you add the crash at the beginning and end of the track? Did you edit the midi in GB, or is there another way I’m missing. If it’s midi editing then I can do that, but as I’m not a drummer, I was hoping there something easier than laying down each beat manually.
Cheers James - I did look at EZDrumer and downloaded a trial yesterday … all 15GB of it! I suspect I could make it work, but it seemed overkill for what I wanted right now. It is an option if all else fails though.
I have been looking for an excuse to get LogicPro, although again hard to justify … if the drums are more flexible then that might tip me over the edge - I’ll explore that.
I just try different drummers and settle on one that I like. I don’t recall doing much more than that. Select a drummer and a sound, then fiddle with the beat presets, fills and other knobs. Super easy. Again, I suggest building some backing tracks from scratch.
Here is another backing track that I built in Garageband: Smooth Underground Chill
Another option is to just cut/paste Midi drum loops. I use Ardour, which comes with a bunch to use as part of the clip launching capability, but they also work just pasting them into a midi track with a drum virtual instrument.
There’s some available on the Internet, such as these:
Even if you do buy Logic, these could be useful.
Cheers,
Keith
If you’re going to play with EZDrummer, definitely check out the Shootie School videos on YT (https://www.youtube.com/@ShootieSchool). Loads of good info there. I learned a lot about the mechanics of editing drum MIDI in the EZD from his series on programming “famous” beats. The Queen We Will Rock You was first and a great place to start. Really opened my eyes to what the EZD editor can do.
Cheers Clint, I’ll play around and see what I can find. I’ve use GB to create backing tracks, but wanted to get into finer details for a song.
I’d not thought of that - worth exploring for sure.
Thanks David, the jury is out on EZdummer at the moment. It might be overkill for what I need, but I might take a look at these videos and see what I can do with it.
Not an expert my any means, but there are instrument loops included in garageband. You need to click on the “loop” icon (looks like a roller coaster) on the upper right of the garageband window. You can select the instrument you want, search for text in the name (e.g. “fill”) etc.
You may have to install loops (I think only a small selection are installed by default), which you can do easily from inside garageband.
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Ah, it’s possible this is what I’m missing as I did try the loops and thought they were very limited
Loops are a great addition once you get your drummer sorted out in Garageband.
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@mathsjunky You can start with the drummer and fiddle around to get something close. You can then open up an instrument track and copy the drum pattern to convert to midi notes and do your detailed editing there without the risk that the drummer changes what you like when trying to adjust. The following YT playlist I found is pretty good. He also has a complete GB playlist that takes you from nothing to recording a song.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsXJmmXYr9BGuThnv1fwWHGqKe6nCEyDb
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Cheers Stuart - I’ll give that a go.