Tricky Garageband Question....

[michael68]

Dear all,
I am thinking of getting a Macbook to use the GarageBand for the purpose of composing songs, and playing live using a M-Audio Midi Controller Keyboard.

My problem is that I would like to play all the songs in the key of C, and while I recognise that garagebank has the ability to transpose to any key, I have the following questions which no one could answer but I hope you could shed some light on this:

1) Final song to be played in key of B flat
2) All tracks are done in C and transposed to B flat
3) Problem: If I were to do my keyboard playing live in the key of C, is there a control function somewhere within the Garageband software that would automatically adjust my key of C playing to that of B flat?

Thanks very much!

Michael

 

[Edwin]

Hi,

You can record a MIDI track and transpose it to Bb after recording.
You can't however, do that live with Garageband using your M-Audio Midi Controller. It would probably be possible only with actual keyboards like those from KORG or Yamaha.

Edwin

 

[soft]

Does your midi controller have Pitch Bend Wheel? Simply bend it -2 and you will have Bb!! Ha..haa.. but I will still encourage you to practise the song in key of Bb.

 

[kerplunk182]

You can try using the autotune function. But idk if that'll work. Heh.

 

[carboxymoron]

So basically you want to hit a C on your keyboard and get a Bb instantly in Garageband, yes?

You can do that easily with MIDI Patchbay. It's a free utility that you can use to link any MIDI input to any output, and edit the data along the way, for example transposing or mapping to different channels.

http://notahat.com/midi_patchbay


If you use pitchbend then GarageBand will record a C with transpose -2... can get quite confusing when viewing the notes. And can confuse the software if you don't manually set the transpose/pitchbend to 0 at the start of the song.
If you use Patchbay to transpose then the end result in GarageBand will be an actual Bb.

 

[michael68]

Hi guys thanks for all your quick tips!

I was just wondering, if any Korg or Roland keyboard have midi controller functions? But then, not sure if it would work with Macbook and Garageband for live playing.....

Thanks again!

Regards,
Michael

 

[carboxymoron]

I'd think any reasonably modern synthesizer will work as a MIDI controller, either via USB or with an actual MIDI port. And any such MIDI controllers would work with GarageBand.

 

[kongwee]

It is better to play actual keys. If you upgrade yourself to commercial gigas tons of sample in future, you will deal with instrument in limited octave. Also key switching in many gigas sample make transposing button quite useless.

 

[logicdroid]

I was just wondering, if any Korg or Roland keyboard have midi controller functions?

These KBs will have the "transpose" function which will allow you to play C scale for any Key Signature.

Bluntly put, it's called cheating yourself, but to each his own...

Best,
R.

 

[kongwee]

A number of songs have moderation. I have seen 4 moderation in a song before. It is much easier to play in original key.

 

[glowbox]

well, if you record the whole thing and want to simply transpose it one step down, there is an easy way. but not very nice quality wise tho.

how: export the whole recording to an audio file (ex:mp3, aac, etc), then open the file in AUDACITY and change the audio pitch one step down (from C to Bb = -1). save as, and you're done. boom!