There's more to GarageBand for iOS than meets the eye (and ear)! If you've explored all it has to offer, now's a good time to add some free sound effects, and Mike Watkinson shows how.
GarageBand for iOS is a great app for creating music, but what if you have a project in mind that requires specific sound effects? Unlike the Mac app, GarageBand for iOS has a limited range of built-in sounds, so this tutorial shows you how to grab what you need from free-to-download websites like freesound.org.
Aug 27, 2019 1) Open GarageBand to your track. On iPhone, tap the Gear icon on the top right. 2) On the left, you’ll see the Plug-ins area. 3) Tap the arrow next to the Plug-ins title to view the current ones and add more. 4) To add a Plug-in, tap Edit and then tap a plus sign in green for one of the. You know me – I love a freebie.Almost as much as I love having a fiddle with some brand spanking new plug-ins in GarageBand! For this post i’ve searched far and wide for the very best free GarageBand plug-in bundles that not only come packaged with a generous and useful set of plug-ins that you can use in GarageBand, but are also completely free of charge!
Download
First you will you need an app that lets you download assets (like audio files) from websites. There are plenty that do this as downloading stuff is a popular activity! One that I have stumbled across recently that makes this fairly easy is iDownloads Pro as it has a built-in browser and file manager, and it’s only $0.99!
In the browser of iDownloads, navigate to freesound.org, or your website of choice for downloading free-to-use audio files, and make sure you read the licence agreements carefully—no stealing please!
Freesound.org requires you to be logged in, but once you find a sound you want, tap the ‘Download’ button. Choose ‘Download’ from the pop-up menu.
As with all apps of this type the file will download into the File Manager of the app itself—if you have already created sub-folders this will make organization easier.
Locate your file in the File Manager section and tap the blue arrow next to its name.
Tap the ‘Open with’ button which will make the ‘Open in...’ dialog appear (yes I know, why isn’t the ‘Open with’ button labelled ‘Open in...’?) Currently GarageBand is lagging behind other audio apps like BossJock and Audio Mastering for iPad which directly support the ‘Open in...’ protocol (strange as Apple develop both iOS and GarageBand!) so you will need to choose an audio editor app like TwistedWave or Hokusai (with Tools pack) as an intermediate step. So ‘Open in...’ one of these apps.
Edit, Copy, Paste
In the audio editor app carry out any editing that is required.
Copy the audio file to the AudioCopy clipboard—this will enable you to paste it into GarageBand.
In GarageBand, create an audio track. This means choosing one of the two instruments that support audio files, the ‘Audio Recorder’ track or the Guitar Amp’ track. If you are starting a project from scratch you will need to ‘record’ something so a project is created and you can see the instrument as a track—then delete what you recorded.
Garageband Add Ons
In Tracks view tap on the track background—a pop-up menu with the ‘Paste’ option will appear.
Paste the audio file from the AudioCopy clipboard into your project. GarageBand doesn’t have an audio file manager either (like Logic Pro’s Bin) so to use the sound effect in other projects you will need to copy and paste it from one to the other. It’s probably worth creating a project just for keeping sound effects in for this very reason!
Related Videos
GarageBand for MacOS comes loaded with many excellent plugins and effects that you can use to shape your sounds and mix your projects to a professional level.
Free Plugins For Garageband
One of the best things about GarageBand is that you can install third party Audio Unit plugins, which really opens up some exciting sonic possibilities.
In the video below, I share some of my favourite Audio Unit plugins that you can add to GarageBand on Mac for free.
Garageband App Plugins
So there you have it – some of the best gratis GarageBand plugins on the web.
Did i miss any? Which free plugins do you use in your GarageBand projects?