Digital Commons at Penn State

GarageBand 09 comes with a wide array of jingles and sound effects to make your podcast pop. To add an intro, outro or sound effects:

1. Click the Eye icon to open the Loop Browser.

2. Select a category, like Jingles, and then choose from the subcategories.

3. Click on a sound’s name to hear a sample.

4. When you’ve found the correct sound, click its name and drag it to the Jingles track in GarageBand.

5. Let go and the Jingle track will render. You may need to move your audio tracks around to accommodate the new addition.

Ducking

It may be necessary to lower the volume of backing tracks to more easily hear the spoken narration or dialogue. Lowering the volume of some tracks to make others easier to hear is called "ducking." GarageBand 09 automatically gives your vocal tracks priority to any underlying sound effects. However, you may want to change the order of ducking if you have two vocal tracks or need a sound effect to stand out.

Setting Up a Podcast Project
1. Open GarageBand

2. Select New Project on the left and Podcast on the right. This will open GarageBand in a podcasting configuration.

Setting the GarageBand Audio Source

1. When GarageBand has launched, choose GarageBand > Preferences.

2. Click the Audio/MIDI tab and then choose Audio Input.
Note: Make sure it is set to your microphone if you are not using the Built-in Audio (as a line-based microphone or internal mic.)

3. Check the input and monitor settings for the track you want to record into. Double-click on the track and adjust the input and monitor settings in the bottom right area of your GarageBand window. Recording Levels are also set here.

Select a Portion of a Track
1. To select a portion of a track, first select the track in GarageBand 09 by clicking once on it.

2. Then, select the Track Editor button (scissors), which will open the track editor window at the bottom of the screen. The selected track will appear as a waveform in the Track Editor.

3. Move the cursor over a point on the waveform, until the crosshairs appear, left click, and drag left or right to select a portion of the waveform.

4. Release the mouse button to finish the selection process. Once a portion of the waveform is selected, there are numerous operations that can be performed on that chunk of the waveform.

Listen to the Track
Press the play button to listen to the track.

Delete a Portion of a Track

Choose a Track
GarageBand 09 is a multitrack editing program. The new podcast that you’ve created will open with a male voice track and a female voice track as well as numerous sound effect tracks. Choose the appropriate vocal track for your podcast’s primary voice.

Start to Record
1. Press the red Record button to begin recording from the microphone or external source. As soon as the Record button has been pressed, begin speaking or press the play button on the external source.

2. If everything is set up correctly, a waveform will appear in the track showing the volume of the audio from the recording. Note: You will not hear voice or music play through the computer speakers while recording, only during playback.

3. To stop recording, first quit speaking or stop the external source, then press the Stop/Play button in GarageBand 09.