You can open the Sound Library from the Sound browser, the Live Loops browser, and from instruments that have additional sounds available for download. To open the Sound Library, your device must be connected to the Internet.

Garageband is intuitive, and comes with a sound library that includes instruments, presets for guitar and voice, and a selection of session drummers. It also provides guitar and piano lessons. This makes Garageband perfect for beginners in ease of use, but also suitable for pros that want to get into the amazing world of DAW’s without. Select the desired entry, and a list of presets will appear within the category. Select any of the presets and play the guitar. Adjust the preset’s amp and the effects settings on the smart controls button and the preset’s smart controls. After selecting your desired choices, click the record button on Garageband and record. I did try using the presets when recording guitar, but have moved towards just using Garage Band like a multitrack recorder and getting the sound I want out of an amp and then micing it in with an SM57. It just feels better and more natural that way.

Open the Sound Library

To open the Sound Library from the Sound browser:

In an existing song, tap to open the Sound browser, swipe until you see Sound Library, then tap Sound Library.
If you’ve created a new song, the Sound browser opens automatically. Swipe until you see Sound Library, then tap Sound Library

To open the Sound Library from an instrument like Drummer:

If necessary, select the Drummer track in Tracks view, then tap in the control bar.
Tap the drummer name, then tap “Get more Drummers.” The number indicates how many additional drummers are available.

To open the Sound Library from a Live Loops song:

In an existing song, tap to open the Template browser, then tap Sound Library.
If you’ve created a new Live Loops song, the Template browser opens automatically. Tap Sound Library.

Navigate the Sound Library

Once you've opened the Sound Library, do any of the following to navigate it:

Tap a tile to see more sounds.
Tap Preview to hear samples of the sounds.
Scroll to view additional information about the sound pack, including file size.
Tap Get to download the sounds to your device.
To delete a downloaded sound pack, tap the tile, then tap Delete

Mixing vocals is an artform on its own that takes a bit of practice to do well, however, there are a few things one can do right away that will make a world of difference. Garageband is a great introduction to the world of music production and vocal mixing, because many of the tactics and dynamics processors are the same, they just have fewer parameters and are therefore less confusing for the beginner.

Nevertheless, there are a few things one can do to mix their vocals in Garageband. So what are they, and how should you go about it?

To mix vocals in Garageband:
1) Turn on the noise-gate
2) Use the compressor’s “Studio Vocals” preset
3) Use the Channel EQ’s preset, “Natural Vocal”
4) Add reverb
5) Adjust the volume so they fit in the mix
6) Pan the vocal tracks if there is more than one
7) Apply pitch correction

What I just outlined above is a simple guide on how to get your vocals to sound much better quickly, however, how you mix your vocals is going to depend on many different factors, including the singer, the microphone they used, the genre of music, the room they sang in, etc. With that said, many of the principles will remain the principle regardless of the vocal performance.

1) Apply The Noise Gate

Starting from the beginning of the aforementioned list I just laid out, the best thing to do first, in my opinion, is to apply a noise gate.

Typically, there will be a ton of background noise when clients send you their music, whether it’s the very light sound of a TV going in the background, someone talking, breathing, or an old grumbling air conditioning system.

You can see the Noise Gate in the plug-in section of the Smart Controls beneath the workspace.

I find that, when using a noise gate on vocals, you don’t want to set it too aggressively, otherwise you’ll squeeze out other transients and sounds you may want.

Moreover, if you’ve set the noise gate too high, it’ll eliminate sustain in notes, for instance, if you’ve tracked a guitar solo and there’s a moment where you hold a bend, the noise gate will mute the ending of the note, rather than let it drone out gently.

Truthfully, this is a rule you can use for pretty much every instance of the noise gate.

The last time I used one, I set it to around -49 dBs.

To see what you’ve done, you can hit the “Solo” button to see how much of a difference this makes in the vocals. It’ll eliminate pretty much all of the undesired noise in the background (more on eliminating background noise in my tutorial).

It might be tempting to simply go through every vocal track and set up a noise gate around -49dBs, but the truth is that the attention to detail, and caring for each track individually, as well as how it relates to the whole mix, is the way to make a song sound really good.

2) Apply Compression

The beautiful thing about Garageband and even Logic Pro X are the surprisingly useful presets.

The stock presets that come with the software work pretty well, or if they’re not great right off the bat, they work as a solid jumping-off point.

Now, in case you’re new to compression, you can read about it in my article here, but essentially, compression is lowering the volume of the loud sounds and increasing the volume of the quiet sounds.

The tool can be very useful, but also damaging if used too much.

Threshold – the point, in dB, at which the compressor starts working
Ratio – how hard the compressor is actually working
Attack – how fast the compressor is
Gain (makeup gain) – a gain knob that compensates for the volume loss as a consequence of compression.

If you’re a beginner to the compressor, it’s a good move to use some of the presets.

In my case, I’ll use the “Studio Vocal” preset, and any other changes I’ll just make to it manually. As I mentioned above, the presets are a great jumping-off point, so any changes you want to make you can ever-so-gently dial them in.

When making changes to the compressor, it’s always best to go a little bit by a little bit. Assuming you’re new, you can see what it sounds like when each parameter is cranked to the max.

The “Gain” and the “Ratio” knobs are without a doubt the most significant because the gain essentially increases the total volume of the track, or in more proper terminology, it increases the strength of the entire signal.

The ratio, on the other hand, is how much the compressor is compressing. It’s how hard it’s actually working.

For instance, a ratio of 3:1, means that whenever the signal exceeds the threshold by 3dB, the compressor will drop it down to just 1dB outside of the threshold.

(I really can’t stress enough that if this sounds foreign to you, head over to the compressor article I linked above. I did my best to explain everything as best as I could with diagrams and pictures as well).

The “Attack” knob is one that I don’t actually use that much. I might change it a little bit, depending on the instrument.

For instance, the “attack” setting is useful if you decide to apply a compressor on a hi-hat for instance, because the hi-hat has fast transients, so you need to increase the attack time in order for the compressor to actually be fast enough to compress them.

The attack is less useful for vocals because vocals aren’t “fast,” they’re drawn out and slow.

Think about it.

When a drummer hits a hi-hat, the sound blasts through the room very fast, in comparison to the sound of someone’s voice, which is drawn out and slow.

Garageband Guitar Presets