Producing Electronic Chill-Pop Music in GarageBand (MacOS)

Build the bed of your music track starting with designing a drum beat.

Find out how you can create a melodic basis for your songs by constructing chord patterns. You do not need a MIDI keyboard for this section, it will all be done within the GarageBand software.

Create a bass line for the track by using the chord structure from the previous video lecture.

The B-section contains alternative chord changes and usually has some different musical flavours than the rest of the song. You can see this as the bridge and it usually occurs later in the track.

Pad sounds help fill out a track and in this lecture you will learn how to create the pumping sidechain feel without actually using a compressor.

Layering sounds is a great way to achieve original sounding tracks. In this video we will add a counter melody and layer it up using virtual instruments.

Mixing is usually something you do at the end of the creative part of music production however, I like to mix my track all throughout the creative process so it remains punchy, fresh and exciting. It also helps when we do get to the mix phase at the end as most of the work has already been completed.

Layering extra percussive elements into a track creates complex rhythms, which help to keep the listener's ears interested throughout your song. In this video we look at adding in percussive layers from the Apple loops library and by utilising GarageBand's virtual drum machines/software samplers.

An important element of electronic music production is the use of build and release techniques. Loop-based compositions can easily sound repetitious, so the use of risers and transition sounds is strategic in smoothing out the track and keeping it constantly changing.

It is important to know how to source your own samples online and learn how to integrate them into your GarageBand tracks. In this lecture you will learn my favourite online sources for copyright free samples, how to download them, and import them into GarageBand.

The lead line is the main melodic hook in an electronic song. When we are creating an instrumental track the lead line takes the place of a vocal in a traditional song.

We have created all the building blocks to create our track. In this lecture we will build our track with an intro, verse, chorus etc. Many new music producers struggle with arranging, but I will teach you a simple subtractive arranging technique so you can have lots of creative control without becoming overwhelmed by the process.

This is the 2nd lecture on arranging the track. We will look at the main drop into the chorus section, and filling out the middle of the song.

In the 3rd and final arranging lecture we focus on the B section and then some techniques for finishing the song including a fade out on the master track and a natural ending.

In this lecture I go through my workflow for mixing a track. After years of experience mixing music I have learned to enjoy the top down technique for balancing the gain and tonal aspects of the song.

In the second half of the mixing tutorial we complete the mix and prepare the track for mastering.

Mastering a song involves a chain of plugins on the master bus that typically contains equalisers, compressors and limiters to name a few. In this lecture we look at how we can master our music in GarageBand using only the stock plugins plus one extra loudness meter.

Once a mix and master is finished it's time to export the track. In this lecture we will look at the various audio formats available with GarageBand and which ones are best for high quality outcomes.

There are many online mastering services that can achieve great results and are much cheaper than a traditional mastering engineer. In this lecture we master our song with an online service and compare it to our GarageBand master.

This video was recorded a few days after completing the track and is a chance to come back to the mix with fresh ears. When listening after a break you usually hear things that were not as prominent when you were creating the song. This phenomenon is due to listening fatigue and our hearing system's ability to adapt to repetitive sounds.

One final video to finish the project and sign off on the master. Feel free to contact me on my email natpike81@gmail.com and check out the resources tab on this lecture for social media links.