Learning how to record your guitar for the first time can be a tricky experience, even on a clean and intuitive digital audio workstation (DAW) such as GarageBand.
To help ease you into the recording process as smoothly and effectively as possible, let’s take a step-by-step look at how to record your guitar in GarageBand for macOS.
Choosing Which Method to Record Your Guitar
There are two main ways in which you can go about recording your guitar, depending on the kind of guitar you have and the sound you want to go for. These are:
- Recording your guitar using one or more microphones
- Recording your guitar via a direct input (DI)
If you’re looking to capture your guitar’s unplugged sounds, or you’re recording your guitar through an amp, the first method is for you. This is perfect for acoustic guitars, electro-acoustic guitars (unplugged or via an amp), and electric guitars (via an amp).
There are various factors to consider when recording your guitar using microphones, but the end results can be fantastic. This is how most guitars are professionally recorded.
The second method is best suited if you’re looking to take full advantage of GarageBand’s inbuilt presets and its wonderful Amp Designer and Pedalboard plugins. It’s much more convenient and requires less preparation than the first method, though your sound won’t be as authentic.
This second method is perfect if you’ve got an electro-acoustic guitar or electric guitar and want to easily experiment with a wide range of virtual amps and presets, giving you more control over customizing your guitar track. This method is also a lot quieter than playing via a physical amp, meaning you won’t have to worry as much about disturbing anyone.
If you’re unsure where to begin, check out our guide on how to record your acoustic and electro-acoustic guitar (this also works for recording electric guitar if you follow the “electro-acoustic guitar” section), where we outline each method and how they differ from one another, as well as some good mic positions if you’re using a microphone or two.
Both these methods follow the same general steps when recording on GarageBand, but since the preparation is different, you’re going to get different results.
Once you’ve chosen your preferred method, let’s dive into how to record your guitar on GarageBand.
Step 1: Make Sure You’re All Set Up
If you’re recording using microphones, make sure they’re in the right position and connected to your audio interface (if using XLR mics) or your computer (if using USB mics).
If you’re recording your guitar via a DI, simply make sure it’s connected up to your computer via an audio interface.
Also, don’t start recording anything if you don’t have a pair of headphones, at least, both to listen back to your recording and listen as you play. Make sure they’re connected to either your audio interface, your USB mic (if it allows for that), or your Mac.
Step 2: Create a New Project
Once you’re all set up, open up GarageBand and select Empty Project. If GarageBand opens up a previous project, simply select File at the top-left of your screen and then select New.
Step 3: Check That Your Audio Interface or USB Mic Is Selected
At the top-left of your screen, go to GarageBand > Preferences, then Audio or Audio/MIDI.
Under the Input Device popup menu, make sure your audio interface or USB mic is selected. If you’ve got your headphones connected to your audio device or USB mic, then simply select that in the popup menu for the Output Device.
If you’re using two USB mics to stereo-record your guitar, GarageBand won’t immediately recognize them both. Fortunately, with a little tweaking, you can still use more than one USB mic on GarageBand.
If you prefer connecting your headphones up to your Mac, then select External Headphones or Built-in Output on older devices.
Step 4: Choose Your Track Type
From the Choose a track type menu, select either audio track, depending on if you’re using a microphone or recording your guitar directly into GarageBand.
However, it should be said that you can go back and forth between both types of audio tracks after selecting them by changing the presets in the sound library (which we’ll get to).
If you’re using two or more mics to record (or using both a mic and a DI as two different tracks) you can add more tracks by pressing Cmd + Option + N.
At this point, it’s good to save your project using Cmd + S. Remember to save often!
Step 5: Make Sure Input Monitoring and Record Enable Are Selected
It’s best to listen through your headphones as you adjust the EQ in your guitar track, making sure that your input is picking up the kind of sound you want.
It’s best to make the option to turn your monitoring on or off as accessible as possible.
To do this, control-click on your selected track and select Configure Track Header from the options. From the popup menu, make sure that Input Monitoring is checked. Do this for all of your tracks.
An icon should appear on your track which you can toggle on or off.
If you’ve got more than one track, also make sure Record Enable is selected from that same popup menu, which should bring up another icon on your track. This way, you can select which track you’re going to record and you can choose to record multiple tracks at the same time.
Step 6: Choosing Your Presets
Using GarageBand’s Sound Library, you can choose and customize the presets to use for your guitar.
Your Sound Library should be located on the left-hand side, and you can show or hide it by pressing Y. From here, you can select a wide array of presets for your guitar track. Simply click one of the tabs and begin!
Selecting one of these presets will give your guitar track a different EQ which you can also tweak from the corresponding Smart Controls area that appears below your track. You can also show or hide this by pressing B.
With a combination of finding and tweaking the right preset, you should be able to get the sound you’re looking for.
If you’re recording your guitar with one or more microphones, it’s best to stick to the presets under Acoustic Guitar which will work with your microphones to give you the best sound.
Using the sounds under Electric Guitar and Bass will generate a plethora of virtual amps and pedals for you to try out. What’s more is that you can customize these presets with GarageBand’s fantastic Amp Designer and Pedalboard plugins, located at the top-right corner of your Smart Controls area.
Step 7: Using GarageBand’s Amp Designer Plugin
Selecting GarageBand’s Amp Designer at the right-hand side of your Smart Controls area gives you access to a vast array of amp presets, with the ability to create your own custom amps, choosing from the amp, cabinet, and microphone type. You can save custom amps from the dropdown menu located at the top of Amp Designer.
You can also choose from a vast amount of amp presets from the dropdown menu or a preconfigured model (consisting of an amplifier, cabinet, EQ type, and a microphone type), all of which you can tweak using the integrated knobs found on each type of amp.
Step 8: Using GarageBand’s Pedalboard Plugin
Next to the Amp Designer button, is the Pedalboard button, which opens your Pedalboard plugin. Here, you can click and drag pedals from the Pedal Browser on the right-hand side to your Pedal area, where you can tweak, drag, and reorder your pedals.
There are a number of preconfigured options in the dropdown menu at the top, and you can also open up a router above your pedals to control the signal flow of different combinations of pedals.
The Perfect DAW for Beginners
And there you have it! Following these steps should help you navigate GarageBand whilst getting the best recording out of your guitar.
It can be a little tricky to get your head around at first, but thankfully GarageBand has a clean, easy-to-navigate interface that should make learning this skill all the more fun and intuitive.
GarageBand is the perfect DAW if you’re new to audio production, allowing you to easily try out new things and learn new skills. So why not see all there is to offer in this amazing app!