After messing around in Garageband, I've just put together the first song I'm pleased with and and in the process of mastering it. When laying down each track, I had set effects to give each instrument the right feel. Now I'm setting the master volume and have a choice of different effects and settings for the song as a whole. Some of these make the song sound great in places, but throw certain instruments out (particularly those I already set effects for).

I'm just wondering when is the most logical stage to employ effects – at the recording stage, or the mastering stage, or both? Something's telling me I was a bit too specific early on, and I should have waited till I had the broader picture. Any advice from more seasoned Garageband users?

Thanks...

Hi friend!

I think the general consensus is to employ effects at the mixing stage, but I'm not sure how flexible GarageBand is in that respect. If you use Logic, you can use effects buses in your mix that you can tinker with, and they won't be permanently attached to your tracks.

If you like GarageBand, you'll love Logic. GarageBand is great as a notepad, and you can make some really professional stuff happen with it. But for the finesse stuff, you'll probably want to move on up to Logic.

If I may interject another opinion here, I'm on a crusade against Pro Tools because of their malicious delays in providing timely software upgrades. Also, their software only works with their hardware, which just makes me mad. If they're going to force us entry-level recording engineers to use their hardware, they should make quality hardware instead of a plastic toy joke like the MBox. What I'm trying to say is that I'm advising you to not go the Digidesign route if you're planning on upgrading. It's not worth the headache.

Logic rocks, though. I use the pro version, but I hear the express version is sweet, too.

Hope this helps.
hahaworld

Some people say that individual tracks, parts or effects should be sacrificed for the sake of the final mix. . .

I would suggest that now your song is finished, you should remove all of the effects from every track and then master your track as a total song from scratch by adding effects and EQ to each track seperately.

(You may not require as many effects and you will be able to approach the song as a whole with a lot more clarity).

Besides, if it doesn't work or doesn't sound as good, you can always revert back to your original!

Good luck.

Hey - thanks both for the swift replies...

Yep, I am hoping to upgrade to Logic - perhaps at the end of the year (need to get a bit further with Garageband first before I take the financial plunge).

And, yes, I'll try stripping out all the effects I laid down before to see if they are really needed in the final mix. It's kind of odd though: I've found that to craft a song I need to add quite a few effects to the Garageband preset sounds - otherwise they are often not inspiring enough to make me want to lay down the next tracks. But then when I come to mastering I hit things like reverb- and echo-overload!

Ah well, I'll suck it and see. Thanks for the advice...

There are some great books on mixing out there. It sounds like you are refining each sound individually and when they all go together they seem to trample on each other. Mixing/Mastering is about how the individual tracks 'fit', in EQ, panorama and style. Have a look on Amazon for the advice from the Pro's. Even Garage Band songwriters will find much to help them.

Less is more, understated effects work better than over the top amounts, try filtering as well to tidy up the spectrum

...So does anyone find it useful to add 'global' effects (reverb, echo, etc.) to the whole song when mastering, or is it generally thought better to tweak these effects on a track by track basis?

Hi,

I found that, in general, it is better to make "space" (i.e. reverb / eq) for each instrument/track rather than in a whole mix. I do, however, from time to time use a Ultramaximizer (for the lack of a multiband compressor) to smooth out my mix.

Remember that reverb, delay etc puts instruments in different "places" in your mix, for example: a guitar with a lot of verb can sound more to the back of the mix (ie. less audible) than a guitar with no reverb, even though the tracks could be equal in terms of volume / gain. I think this sits with what B3 was saying earlier: making tracks fit.

Eq across a mix is usually only used to fix mistakes that should have been picked up while tracking. Of course you do find odd occasions where you're looking for a specific sound and therefore eq across a mix, but that is really the exception, not te rule.

My 2p, hope it helps.

Cheers