How do I use GarageBand to compile my own soundtrack for Arts Festival?
If all you want to do is trim an audio file you can do that by trimming in QuickTime, that is by far the easiest and simplest way.*
GarageBand is a tool worth learning when it comes to Arts Festivals, or anything that involves compiling an audio composition.
For Arts Festival, some reasons are:
- Drag and drop in an audio file/files and trim/sequence to suit your script.
- Add sound effects, loads available in the library, or download from a site and drop in.
- Ideal for rehearsals when you want to repeat certain bits of songs, from a certain point, over and over again...
- Essential if you want to use a mashup of different sections of songs/sounds etc.
- Can export to a range of audio formats, including mp3, no problem.
- Adjust volume levels for different elements, eg loud thunderclap, quieter music.
A common problem is that the AV team do not want the compiled audio as one file, ie the finished mix, they need the different tracks separated in order to work with their software/systems, and these audio files need to be mp3 files. Doing this is NOT obvious, hence this post...
Isolate and Share
Isolate the track/s you need to export by muting the others, then isolate the particular section of that track line by moving and indicating the cycle range.
Now Share > Export Song to Disk, but make sure you tick the box that says 'Export cycle area...' so it only exports the bit you selected above.
Now you'll have just that bit as a separate mp3 file, keep doing this for any other bits of your GB project, don't forget to mute/unmute the tracks before you export!
*but it won't export to mp3, which our AV team insist on for some reason.