Creating simple beats in GarageBand

February 24, 2017 10:51 AM

I am a GarageBand newbie/occasional user looking to create super-simple, sort of lo-fi beats I can then track some acoustic guitar and vocals over. Right now my only option seems to be to select one of the built-in loops, which are all super produced-sounding and complex, and then dragging that beat along the timeline until I get it out to where i want it. What I would like to do is something like I believe you can do in Ableton, where you have 16 little squares and you can assign each a different sound -- kick, snare, etc. -- and once I have that sequence dialed in, drag it into a new track and just select the amount of time I want it to loop for. Is anything like that possible in Garageband, or is the only option to drag the prerecorded loops along the timeline? I am not looking to play my own drum track on the keyboard.
posted by Clustercuss to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Here is a good basic video on making some drum beats in Garage Band.

And here is an older video about using the Simply Drummer feature. A virtual drummer system that lets you pick some styles of drummer and their kits.
posted by dreamling at 11:01 AM on February 24, 2017

Yeah, if you don't need high specificity, I'd recommend the garage band virtual drummers too. They can do usually do most classic styles you know of, and within a few minutes of fiddling with their parameters I'm usually fairly happy. But, they cannot be given literal specific instructions, and so you can't make them play *your* beat.

I don't think Garage Band has the kind of thing you describe. That is more the domain of drum machines (software and hardware), and full DAWs like Ableton et al.

But - there are also many options outside of Ableton and Garage band. Lots of free and paid software on a variety of platoforms, and also drum machine hardware can be relatively inexpensive these days.

Just spitballing: the Pocket Operator line of mini synthesizers is currently selling like hotcakes. The PO-12 might be just the kind of fun little lo-fi beat maker you'd love. $60 MSRP, Guitar center was selling them for $30 recently.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:29 PM on February 24, 2017

GarageBand on iOS has the grid interface thing that you're looking for.
posted by emelenjr at 12:57 PM on February 24, 2017

Something to maybe check out is Hydrogen (it says GNU/Linux, but there's a Mac version too). It's a pretty neat (and free) drum sequencer that works pretty well, and I have fun with it. I've been meaning to try it with GarageBand, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
posted by General Malaise at 1:08 PM on February 24, 2017

You can totally do this in Garageband. Basically, just make a new instrument track and select a drum kit. Drum sounds will then be mapped to the piano roll so you can make whatever beat you want.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:34 PM on February 24, 2017

P.S., that guy suggests playing the drum track on your keyboard using layering, but if you want to enter the notes using a mouse that's called "step sequencing" and you can also do that in GarageBand.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:38 PM on February 24, 2017