how many LVers using GarageBand?

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » August 8th, 2016, 8:22 am

it's pretty clear that Audacity rules the day around here, but I'm curious how many people record with GarageBand? it's what I'm most used to, and it's worked fairly straightforwardly for me.

do any of you work with GarageBand for LibriVoxing? how do you find it? do you think you'll give into the peer pressure and switch to Audacity at some point? why/why not? I am curious!

Post by **TriciaG** » August 8th, 2016, 8:37 am

I don't use GB, but I recommend Audacity to new readers for two reasons: (1) GB seems to be hard to get the tech settings correct; and (2) because most people use Audacity, the new reader can get a lot of help when needed.

If you could help with the Wiki page for GarageBand, detailing especially how to get the tech settings correct, that'd be wonderful! The page is here: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/GarageBand

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » August 8th, 2016, 9:14 am

that's something I've definitely been thinking about-- adding to the GarageBand resources for us. I should officially add it to my list of things to do.

I'll have to remember how I did the settings... since I first got started, I've just been re-saving the same recording file with a new name over and over, just to make sure they all stay exactly how they need to stay.

Post by **philchenevert** » August 8th, 2016, 9:58 am

plaidsicle wrote:that's something I've definitely been thinking about-- adding to the GarageBand resources for us. I should officially add it to my list of things to do.

I'll have to remember how I did the settings... since I first got started, I've just been re-saving the same recording file with a new name over and over, just to make sure they all stay exactly how they need to stay.

That would be a big help to other users; if you could show how you set the specifications because it seems cause problems. Post it here, OK?

tony123 · Post by **tony123** » August 8th, 2016, 4:50 pm

For your interest, here are links to two of our more recent new comers taking their 1-minute test and needing to correct their mp3 settings using GB:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=61944

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=61933

Post by **annise** » August 8th, 2016, 5:27 pm

Does Garageband now have adequate editing and noisecleaning ? When I asked several years ago that was the reason ex users gave for changing to Audacity? Not having a Mac I've no way of telling .

Anne

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » August 9th, 2016, 2:17 pm

thanks-- I'll be happy to work on some "how-to" things and post them! hopefully soon..

Anne-- I have had no trouble doing basic editing in GB, but noise cleaning eludes me still. I haven't had to do any noise cleaning yet... so that's lucky? maybe someday I'll figure that out.
I did open up Audacity once, on my office computer, when I needed to take care of a clipping issue. since then I've poked around more and found that GB does have a compressor tool, but it is much more baked in than the Audacity version, it seems.

GB help can be hard to find in general, and most of the things you can google are more geared to complicated musical non-LV-type things. that's one reason it would be cool to band together however few GarageBand users we have here-- I am imagining that together we could have some useful conversations, pool our knowledge of things we've figured out or are figuring out as we play with it.

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » October 18th, 2016, 7:38 pm

okay, I have finally compiled some screenshots and instructions into at least something potentially helpful for GarageBand users. any feedback or questions would be marvelous-- I'm sure this isn't perfect. I want to keep working on it so it makes sense for as many people as it needs to.
I am not a full-on GB expert, but I have been able to make it work for me so far, at least. what I have here is a step-by-step re-creation of how I think I got to the right settings when I was starting out.

Getting the Right LibriVox Settings in GarageBand

this little mini-tutorial assumes some basic familiarity with GarageBand (creating new projects, saving and exporting files, etc.)

my version of GarageBand is GarageBand '11, 6.0.5. the interface looks like this:

the trickiest parts about the LV technical specifications for me when I was starting out, using GarageBand, were getting the Channel to be Mono (not Stereo) and the Export bitrate to be 128 kbps. GB usually defaults to fancier settings than we need for LibriVox work, so part of the trickiness is figuring out how to undo those and replace them with what LV requires.

getting the channel to Mono is tricky because there are multiple places to specify that setting in GB.
first, check the Input Source dropdown in the lower-right of the interface.

"Mono" should be selected for the Input Source here. I don't mess with the other options in this box, and I assume it's okay to leave them as they are.

one other important adjustment for LV recordings has to do with the vocal track effects. every new Voice project in GarageBand defaults to one "Male Basic" track and one "Female Basic" track. to get rid of this, look over to the "Real Instrument" panel on the right, under the "Browse" tab, where the "Vocals" menu has a list of many GB effects. I'm not sure what they all do, but for LibriVox work it's best to select "No Effects" (at the very top).

and the last very important place to make sure GB has the right settings is when you're saving or exporting the file to MP3 format. I find it much simpler to choose the "Export Song to Disc" option from the "Share" menu in GarageBand. with this option, I can save the file directly to my Librivoxing folder and I don't have to deal with digging around in iTunes at all.

however you decide to export or "share" your recording, GarageBand will ask you to specify compression and audio settings:

you'll want to choose the "Compress using: MP3 Encoder" option (not AAC-- that will give you an M4A file).

under "Audio Settings," GB gives three default quality options (Good, High, and Higher) and a "Custom..." option. Choose "Custom..." and then a new dialog window will open, with more options.

for "Bit Rate," choose 128kbps, and make sure the "Channels" setting is in Mono. then click "OK." you'll be back at the "Export" dialog, where you can click "Export" and wait for the MP3 file.

once you set these settings for one LV recording project, you can use "Save As" from there to create and rename new GB files with the same settings, and never again have to worry about how to set it all up! that's what I do, and so far it's worked out pretty well.

if this should go in the LV wiki, I'd be happy to try my hand at updating that info if people think it would be worth doing.

Post by **annise** » October 18th, 2016, 8:07 pm

as a non user it looks good , let's see if anyone has anything to add
I did get an email last week

hello, in your Wikipedia article you state to place on 1/2 when you are creating the track. This is wrong. To go from stereo to mono, when creating the track place your selector on 1/1 instead of 1/2 stereo. 1/1 equals mono. If you allow me to edit the Wikipedia article, I can fix this. As of now I am writing to you via my iPhone. God bless you.

so I might point him here to confer and then we could update the wiki which is probably out of date.

Anne

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » October 19th, 2016, 5:16 am

sounds good, Anne! I would love to talk to other GB users about how they make do with it. I'm sure we could learn from each other and then also share the knowledge for future LVers.

AliceJane · Post by **AliceJane** » October 26th, 2016, 12:18 pm

plaidsicle - your explanations were extremely helpful! I've been having a tough time with Audacity; Garageband just feels more intuitive. I have one more question, though. How do you know if your levels are between 0.5 and 1.0? I see the visualizer showing me louder vs softer, but I don't know if my peaks fit in the "magic window". Thanks for your insight!

AliceJane

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » October 26th, 2016, 2:12 pm

AliceJane,

I haven't actually been able to tell in GarageBand exactly. in the bottom half of the interface, where the purple waveform shows up, there is a 0 and + and a - , so maybe that is similar enough to the markings in Audacity?
I usually just trust that I'm in a good range for the most part, and then I end up checking my decibel levels in MP3Gain when I'm done recording.

Post by **dlolso21** » October 26th, 2016, 2:23 pm

AliceJane wrote:plaidsicle - your explanations were extremely helpful! I've been having a tough time with Audacity; Garageband just feels more intuitive. I have one more question, though. How do you know if your levels are between 0.5 and 1.0? I see the visualizer showing me louder vs softer, but I don't know if my peaks fit in the "magic window". Thanks for your insight!

AliceJane

AliceJane,

The "levels are between 0.5 and 1.0" is a reference to a visual scale in Audacity during recording.

After recording, you can use either Checker or MP3 gain to measure the volume of your files.

Liobrivox Wiki page about Checker ->> http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Checker
Checker download (including for MAC OS) ->> http://cgjennings.ca/checker/#Download

MP3Gain Express for Mac OS X information page with download links ->> http://projects.sappharad.com/mp3gain/

David O

saloni · Post by **saloni** » October 30th, 2016, 5:42 pm

plaidsicle - Thanks for your help!

plaidsicle · Post by **plaidsicle** » October 31st, 2016, 8:34 am

you're welcome!

I'm just noticing that my image links got broken. I'll try and fix that soon.

if this content does go up on the wiki someplace, would there be a place there to host the images? just thought I'd check on that. right now they're in a random blog draft post.