Friday Tidbits -04-12-13

I’m offline much of this weekend (starting today) going to Ladies Rock Camp, so here is a selection of tidbits previously posted to my Facebook Page as they didn’t turn into full blog posts:

Quick iPhone tip  If you need to charge up your iPhone while away from your computer and lacking a direct outlet plug, before plugging into another person’s computer make sure to do this: open iTunes on the computer, go to Preferences -> Devices and enable the checkbox for “Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically.” Why? so that things like your voice memos don’t get transferred to their computer!

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Using Automation In GarageBand

Here’s another Music Production class homework assignment video. Automation means adjusting the amplitude level of an individual recorded track at various points to balance its volume vis a vis other tracks – for instance as in this video to make the vocal track “pop” out on top of the accompanying instrument tracks:

 

Quantizing A Recording To Improve Rhythm (Online Course Homework)

If you have ever performed music for a recording session, you have probably had more than your fill of “let’s try another take” and “let’s punch (replace a short part of a recording with another) that note.” However, if you are recording tracks with a software instrument that sends MIDI signals instead of audio sounds, you can edit the MIDI notes inside of the digital audio workstation (DAW) that records the tracks, thus potentially saving an almost-perfect take.

Here’s a video I made for this week’s online Production course homework teaching how to use the Quantize function in GarageBand to make notes that were not played quite on the beat line up more closely (and in a future post I will tell you how I made this screen-capture video!):