How to Record a School Band Concert with GarageBand

One of the best ways for young, aspiring musicians to improve their skills is to listen to what they've performed. Some school band programs choose to make recordings and sell them for fundraisers. Regardless of what you do with the recording, it's an invaluable experience to allow the students to self-analyze their performances. There are so many different audio-recording devices on the market today as well as computer software. The simplest way I have found to achieve a quality recording with VERY LITTLE effort and investment is to use GarageBand.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• 1 or 2 microphones of your choice
• mic cables (minimum of 2 but you may add more depending on how far a distance you need to travel from the microphone to the input source)
• mic stand(s)
• mic input device (for example, a mixing board or pre-amp)
• Analog to digital signal converter
• MacBook, MacBook Pro, iBook or Powerbook
• GarageBand (any version will do; for this example, we will use GB 4.1 that comes with iLife '08)
• headphones

1. Mic placement is as vast a subject to discuss as music itself. A basic, easy placement could be using a stereo microphone, centered in the room approximately 20ft from the stage. If you are using 2 microphones, do a bit of research on the various types of microphones and placement to achieve the sound you desire. 2 Shure SM57's, distanced about 10 ft. apart and pointed towards the band will work just fine, and you won't have much invested in mics.
2. Run your mic cables to your mix position keeping aware of which cable is connected to which microphone so as to keep any imaging clear.
3. Connect the cables to your input source. Again, there's so many of these devices that one could not state specifically which to use. I have an original MBox that has 2 channel inputs and then connects to the computer via a USB cable.
4. Once connected, have someone play an instrument on stage (preferably a drum due to it's louder characteristics) if possible to set you levels and achieve as much signal input level as possible without clipping the channel input.
5. Once your levels are set, launch GarageBand. From the GarageBand menu, select Preferences. Then click on Audio/MIDI. In this window you can select the Audio Input and Audio Output. Input will list the name of you input device connected via the USB cable (or however you have chosen to connect). Output can remain at Built-In Output if you are monitoring with headphones connected to your laptop or select the device you are using.
6. Under the TRACK menu, select NEW TRACK and select Real instrument. Then click on Create and the Track Info window will open from the right side of the screen.
7. Select the appropriate input (input 1 - mono for one of the mics).
8. Repeat Step 6 & 7 for the 2nd input.
9. To enable both tracks to record, you will have to hold the SHIFT key down and then click on the RED record button for each track.
10. As the band takes the stage to warm-up, double check your levels to make sure you are not clipping the input channels and thus receiving a distorted signal. When the performance is about to begin, click on the RECORD button in the control area of GarageBand (next to the Play, Pause, Stop buttons).

Tips & Warnings

• You can record the entire performance on one track or save each individual song as a GarageBand file. To do this and save time, set up each of the songs on the program as their own GarageBand file BEFORE you start recording. This will save you much time in the editing process later.