GarageBand for iOS is a great app for creating music, but what if you have a project in mind that requires specific sound effects? Unlike the Mac app, GarageBand for iOS has a limited range of built-in sounds, so this tutorial shows you how to grab what you need from free-to-download websites like freesound.org.

Download

First you will you need an app that lets you download assets (like audio files) from websites. There are plenty that do this as downloading stuff is a popular activity! One that I have stumbled across recently that makes this fairly easy is iDownloads Pro as it has a built-in browser and file manager, and it’s only $0.99!

In the browser of iDownloads, navigate to freesound.org, or your website of choice for downloading free-to-use audio files, and make sure you read the licence agreements carefully—no stealing please!

Oct 16, 2019 3) Browse for your item, select it, and click Open for the iOS song or Import for the Music Memos file. Import other types of media on Mac. With your song open in GarageBand, do the following to import music, audio from video, or similar items. Here's the way you can.download Garageband for Windows. for free, this method works on Windows 10 hassle free. Install Garageband for PC using this 2020 guide.

Freesound.org requires you to be logged in, but once you find a sound you want, tap the ‘Download’ button. Choose ‘Download’ from the pop-up menu.

As with all apps of this type the file will download into the File Manager of the app itself—if you have already created sub-folders this will make organization easier.

Locate your file in the File Manager section and tap the blue arrow next to its name.

Tap the ‘Open with’ button which will make the ‘Open in...’ dialog appear (yes I know, why isn’t the ‘Open with’ button labelled ‘Open in...’?) Currently GarageBand is lagging behind other audio apps like BossJock and Audio Mastering for iPad which directly support the ‘Open in...’ protocol (strange as Apple develop both iOS and GarageBand!) so you will need to choose an audio editor app like TwistedWave or Hokusai (with Tools pack) as an intermediate step. So ‘Open in...’ one of these apps.

Edit, Copy, Paste

In the audio editor app carry out any editing that is required.

Copy the audio file to the AudioCopy clipboard—this will enable you to paste it into GarageBand.

In GarageBand, create an audio track. This means choosing one of the two instruments that support audio files, the ‘Audio Recorder’ track or the Guitar Amp’ track. If you are starting a project from scratch you will need to ‘record’ something so a project is created and you can see the instrument as a track—then delete what you recorded.

In Tracks view tap on the track background—a pop-up menu with the ‘Paste’ option will appear.

Paste the audio file from the AudioCopy clipboard into your project. GarageBand doesn’t have an audio file manager either (like Logic Pro’s Bin) so to use the sound effect in other projects you will need to copy and paste it from one to the other. It’s probably worth creating a project just for keeping sound effects in for this very reason!

When it comes to MIDI instruments and other stock VSTs, not all are created equal. There are some that are definitely better than others, there’s no question about that.

However, something can be done to make the instruments you have to sound a lot better. For this article, I’m going to go ahead and assume you don’t know a lot about dynamics processors, plug-ins, and other mixing practices.

How To Download More Sounds To Garageband Free

To improve the sound of your stock instruments in Garageband as well as in other DAWs, use dynamics plug-ins and effects, such as EQ, compression, delay, reverb, and then panning.

How To Make Garageband Instruments Sound More Professional

1) Reverb to Make the Instrument Sound Bigger and Less Up-Front
2) Ambiance to Change the Style of Reverberation
3) Delay to Thicken Up the Instrument or Add Effects
4) Panning to Spread Out The Instruments to Create Room for Them in the Mix
5) Compression to Highlight the Quiet Sounds and Minimize the Loud Sounds
6) EQ to Clear Up Unwanted Noise and Emphasize Desired Sounds
7) Replace Bad Instruments with Superior Plug-ins

1) Use Reverb to Make the Instrument Sound Bigger and Less Up-Front

Reverb is one of the greatest effects out there, and there’s a reason why it’s so popular. It adds a spacious effect to the sound of the instrument, whether it’s vocals, guitar, bass, a snare, or even hi-hats.

Reverb, essentially, is the sound of soundwaves bouncing off the walls repeatedly in a room. In other words, it is the existence of the sound after the source has stopped producing it.

The waves travel back and forth from one side of the room to the other and it sounds like it’s emphasizing or filling up the room.

For instance, when you walk into a large church and clap your hands, the soundwaves travel across the room, bounce off the walls, causing an echo that we call “reverberation.”

That’s essentially what reverb is, except engineers have figured out how to emulate this process through technology.

This natural effect that’s heard in nature can also be used through a plug-in. Without wasting too much time on explaining what reverb is and how it’s used, let’s dive into how to go about using it to make your music sound a lot better.

It really is just as simple as turning up the reverb on the software instrument track until you think it starts to sound good. Depending on the instrument, I find that it sounds good with the setting around 4-5, or sometimes just 3.

Let’s say, hypothetically, you’re not satisfied with the type of reverb Garageband has. There are plenty of reverb types in Garageband, around four of them, and each one has a variety of custom presets you can try out.

There is EnVerb, PlatinumVerb, Space Designer, and Silver Verb, and if you drop one into your DAW, you’ll see each one has a variety of presets like what you can see in the image below:

Personally, my favorite is the ‘Big Room’ preset in the platinum reverb setting.

However, I would say that for the most part, I just use the regular reverb plug-in that comes apart from Garageband’s interface at the bottom of the smart controls. Not every instrument has one, but if it does, make sure you use it a little bit.

One thing that’s important to mention is to avoid washing out your sounds, which means adding too much reverb to every single instrument. Ideally, you should only be adding reverb on the tracks that need it the most.

Another benefit to using this type of plug-in is there are more parameters for individual reverb, rather than just setting it around “4,” you can adjust other parameters, such as “pre-delay,” the “reverb time,” “highcut,” “spread,” including the “dry” and “wet” settings.

2) Use Ambiance to Change the Style of Reverberation

This is another Garageband tool I find pretty useful.

Reverb is a very specific tool that changes the way sound reverberates throughout a room, including even the size of the room, however, the ambiance is more about the type of reverberation.

For instance, a building with concrete walls with no windows will sound different than a church filled with wooden benches and large glass windows.

Thankfully, the ambiance setting is not too complicated, it’s just a matter of turning it up or down, depending on how much you want, so I typically set it at around 3-4 on the interface.

Additionally, if you tend to use too much ambiance, you’ll end up making the sound bleed into other channels.

For instance, in one of my tracks, I used ambiance on the left and right guitars, with each guitar, panned respectively in the opposite directions. Using too much ambiance will cause the sound to reverberate so much that it will begin to sound like the track is in stereo, rather than mono.