GarageBand & Arts Festival

Edit Audio in iMovie?

Understandably, GarageBand can feel a little daunting as a audio editing tool, many teachers have found that 'cheating' and using iMovie for audio editing can work surprisingly well. You do need to drop in a generic image first, as iMovie won't let you add any audio until there is an image/video there first.

When you're happy with the audio mix you can export the audio, choose file, then choose Audio Only.

GarageBand is a tool worth learning when it comes to Arts Festivals, or anything that involves compiling an audio composition.

For Arts Festival, some reasons are:

• Drag and drop in an audio file/files and trim/sequence to suit your script.
• Add sound effects, loads available in the library, or download from a site and drop in.
• Ideal for rehearsals when you want to repeat certain bits of songs, from a certain point, over and over again...
• Essential if you want to use a mashup of different sections of songs/sounds etc.
• Can export to a range of audio formats, including mp3, no problem.
• Adjust volume levels for different elements, eg loud thunderclap, quieter music.

A common problem is that the AV team do not want the compiled audio as one file, ie the finished mix, they need the different tracks separated in order to work with their software/systems, and these audio files need to be mp3 files. Doing this is NOT obvious, hence this post...

Isolate and Share

Isolate the track/s you need to export by muting the others, then isolate the particular section of that track line by moving and indicating the cycle range.

Now Share > Export Song to Disk, but make sure you tick the box that says 'Export cycle area...' so it only exports the bit you selected above.