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Loops, de-looped: This is the first GarageBand song I ever worked on. I brought a friend to a demo of iGuitar and GarageBand; he bought a PowerBook, and I borrowed time on it before I bought my iBook. The song starts with 70s Ballad Piano loops, half sent to a Classical Acoustic guitar on the left, half to a Fingerstyle Electric Bass on the right, and Vintage Funk loops drum loops in the middle; that's the "up". The guitars transition to Emotional Piano loops, with a (very) few Long Crash Cymbals; the "down". The "back" is Southern Rock Piano and Drum loops, and finally a Pop Piano loop. The piano loops are split between the two guitars, in a sort of call-and-response pattern.
Things that worked: The call-and-response gave the song some structure, some reason for existence, I couldn't have gotten otherwise. It was nice (and kind of fun) to "de-loop" the piano loops by dragging them to guitar tracks. The drums really transformed the melodies; listen especially to the changes at 1:32 and 1:49. I tweaked the master track's volume to get rid of most of the overload. I didn't like the echo, so in the final version, I picked a Classical Chamber effect (from Jam Pack 4) for the master track.
Things that didn't work: It's still all just loops. Sometimes the bass happens to be rhythmic, sometimes melodic. (Velocity, maybe?) Piano chords aren't the same as guitar chords, especially when there are more than six simultaneous notes.
Things that worked: The call-and-response gave the song some structure, some reason for existence, I couldn't have gotten otherwise. It was nice (and kind of fun) to "de-loop" the piano loops by dragging them to guitar tracks. The drums really transformed the melodies; listen especially to the changes at 1:32 and 1:49. I tweaked the master track's volume to get rid of most of the overload. I didn't like the echo, so in the final version, I picked a Classical Chamber effect (from Jam Pack 4) for the master track.
Things that didn't work: It's still all just loops. Sometimes the bass happens to be rhythmic, sometimes melodic. (Velocity, maybe?) Piano chords aren't the same as guitar chords, especially when there are more than six simultaneous notes.
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Much of this sounds oddly muffled in my headphones, this
may be an effect of getting rid of the overload or earwax
on my part.
I'd be more inclined to propel the song along with a
steady (not necessarily in constant time, mind you) rhythm
track of bass/drums.