Effecting sounds with plugins
Learn how to go beyond patches with a look at how GarageBand’s myriad of plugins offer limitless sonic enhancements
When big time music producers talk, their eyes tend to twinkle at the mention of plugins. It can seem a bit confusing to most GarageBand users, so what are they? Well, usually those guys are eulogising about essentially units that ‘plug in’ to software like Ableton Live and Apple’s own Logic. With the latter being GarageBand’s bigger brother, it stands to reason that they exist here too, albeit in simplified form. Plugins are what power Library patches and while quite hidden, they can be manipulated directly to achieve advanced results.Here we’ll identify the plugin stack but more specifically pick a plugin to add, open up and tweak. To follow you’ll want a project open containing at least one track and region of any kind.