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Chapter 9 Tutorial 7: Mixing and Adding Effects 75
Adding Effects to a Project
Effects let you shape and enhance the sound of your music in a variety of ways. Anyone
who’s listened to popular music on the radio, or listened to the soundtrack of a movie,
has heard the different effects used in contemporary music. GarageBand includes a
complete set of studio-quality effects that you can use on individual tracks or the
overall project to shape the sound of your music.
Types of Effects
GarageBand includes the following types of effects:
Equalization (EQ): EQ is a powerful and versatile effect that lets you change the level
of selected frequencies. You can use EQ to make both subtle and dramatic changes to
your projects. EQ is likely the most commonly used effect in popular music.
GarageBand includes a special type of EQ called Visual EQ. You can use Visual EQ by
choosing an EQ preset, but you can also edit the effect graphically, making it easy to
see what part of the sound you are changing.
Dynamics: Dynamics effects, which include compressors and noise gates, let you
control the volume of your music over time.
Reverb and Echo: Reverb and echo are both time-based effects. Time-based effects
store a copy of the sound and play it back later in time, creating a sense of space.
Modulation: Modulation effects, which include chorus, flangers, and phasers, build on
the time-based effects by shifting or modulating when the copied signal plays back.
They can also involve detuning the copied signal relative to the original.
Distortion: Distortion effects, which include amp simulation and overdrive (and, of
course, distortion), change the tone of the original sound to recreate analog or digital
distortion.
Other effects: Other effects included with GarageBand, such as tremolo and Auto
Filter, change the sound in different ways.
Adding Effects to a Track
Each Real and Software Instrument track has a set of effects, which include a
compressor, Visual EQ, echo, and reverb. You can adjust a track's effects, and add up to
four additional effects, in the Track Info pane. Real Instrument tracks also include a gate
(noise gate) effect.
The master track includes its own effects. You can adjust the master effects and add
one additional effect to the master track in the Track Info pane.