Making a Simple Music Loop with GarageBand (MacMost Now 313)

http://macmost.com/ Learn how to make a simple music loop using GarageBand in this excerpt from the MacMost.com Guide to Switching to the Mac by Gary Rosenzweig. You can use simple loops in photo slideshows, videos and other projects.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• garageband
• loop
• sound
• audio
• music
• loops
• mac
• macmost
• macmostnow

[gratitudelovepeace]

Great transitions during the video (the rotating / flipping transition effect between segments)... anyone know how he does that?

[macmostvideo]

@gratitudelovepeace That is just the cube transition in iMovie (and Final Cut).

[woocifer]

@macmostvideo Mobile application file size. It all has to do with the compression engine writing a tiny amount of space at the beginning for some form of processing in dealing with the compression it seems. This is a pain in the butt... something that COULD be 500k is now 3 meg and it's only 17 seconds long. I'm going to try and do a little audio surgery... either way this is unfortunate.

[macmostvideo]

@woocifer Are you saying that Audacity does that too? I guess another factor is that usually if you create audio loops, they are uncompressed. I can't think of why you would make one as an mp3.

[woocifer]

@macmostvideo Yeah doesn't work because when it's compressed and run through the mp3 encoder it pads the file with that .025 seconds of silence. This is really annoying... why would one code audio compression to do that...

[macmostvideo]

@woocifer I would export uncompressed from GarageBand. Then open in Audacity. Trim off that silence. Then export from there as .mp3.

[woocifer]

@macmostvideo I use the Export Song To Disk under the mp3 compression... I've tried AAC as well and the same thing happens. I have edited the tracks in Audacity which is fine but as soon as they are saved out to other formats they are ruined with that tiny bit of silence it buffers the file with...

[macmostvideo]

@woocifer Which method, exactly, are you using to export from GarageBand? You could always use Audacity to trim off the end of the loop to make it perfect.

[woocifer]

I'm trying to create loops right now but every time I save the audio out it pads it with like .02 seconds of silence... any idea on how to make the loops flawless? I have it looped perfectly in Garageband but when I play it, it hiccups ever so slightly. I've even analysed it in Soundbooth and again every time you save to mp3 it adds this space to the audio which ruins the loop. Any thoughts?