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Using the Garage Band: Autoplaying, recording, saving and sectioning.

1a) Choose your main instrument to autoplay:
To help you form the musical foundation of your song, you need to choose one instrument to play your chosen chord progressions. You should only use selected instruments found in the smart strings, smart keyboard or smart guitar categories.

Smart Guitar Category

Metronome: Switch this on to hear a beep sound every beat; this function helps you keep track of timing

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Autoplay too fast?

1. Click Settings ('gears')

2. Go to Song Settings

3. Click the Tempo number

4. Increase tempo = increase speed

Autoplay: Instead of manually playing your chord progressions, this gets an AI to "play" your chord progressions in a professional way. You just need to tell the AI when to change the chord.

TRY: C    G    Am    F

Smart Strings Category

Smart Keyboard Category

Press here

not here

not here

Smart strings are like having your own group of string players play for you.

 

You are allowed to decide who is playing and who is not by clicking on the different pieces here.

To help you, instruments' autoplays have been arranged according to difficulty. Difficulty is decided based on how compatible the instrument is with other instruments: Green is compatible with most, yellow is selective, purple is hardly compatible.
 
In Summary:

EASY  MODERATE  COMPLICATED

Autoplay
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2) Recording: Once you've chosen your main instrument, try recording!

Track View shows your recorded work progress: If you press record and other music plays as well, then click here to delete all the other unwanted music.

Record Button: Wait for the Count in, then go! Some Autoplays require to press the chord change slightly earlier so that the AI can process and change on time. Think of it like a public bus; if you press the bell only when your bus reaches the bus stop, the bus driver may not have enough time to process the request!

Tracking Needle tracks your recording progress: Make sure the needle is at the start before you record, otherwise you would not be starting from the start!

3) Sections: Garage band allows you to section up your work so you can work on each section separately. 
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This edits how long your current section is.

This edits how long your new section is.

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4) Saving your work: As you are sharing this iPad with a few other students, you need to make sure you save your work!
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e.g. 1RSP Alice Wong & Anna Ray

Hold then
let go

Please note: Even after saving your work, sometimes bad things happen. Please make sure you write down everything you've decided just in case your work is deleted or edited.

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