Increasing MIDI Volume in GarageBand

Years ago, I bought an Edirol PCR-50 MIDI keyboard on eBay. Just this week, I got it hooked up and working with my new iMac running OS X El Capitan. But there was still one problem, something that had frustrated me back when I first bought it: the volume of the MIDI tracks in GarageBand was too low.

Even with the track volume turned all the way up, the green bar barely showed, no matter how hard I pounded on the keyboard. Naturally, I turned to Google to solve this problem. I found a lot of old, irrelevant advice. The closest thing to good information I found was this FAQ page (warning: do not click unless you've got a good pop-up blocker), clearly geared toward an old version of GarageBand.

But that old info pointed me in the right direction, and I found the answer. Here's how to get it to work.

1. With your MIDI controller (i.e. keyboard) plugged in, select the MIDI track in GarageBand.
2. Over on the right, select the Edit tab, highlighted here in yellow.
3. From the Visual EQ dropdown list (also highlighted in yellow), select the Manual option.
4. A pop-up window like you see on the left here will appear. Click and drag on the blue line to increase the volume.

The settings you see here aren't necessarily the best - play around with it until you get something you like. It might vary depending on the instrument you're using. For example, I needed to raise the Bass and Low Mid to increase my overall volume, but didn't touch the Treble or High Mid. (My keyboard's all about that bass, no treble.)

I rushed to take a screenshot and post it here so that anyone else out there using an old MIDI keyboard with a new copy of GarageBand would be able to find this information. If you actually know something about MIDI controllers and EQ's and all that jazz, please post in the comments and correct any mistakes I might have made. Thanks, and happy music-making!

New Music: alec says

It's too dorky to be rap, not gritty enough to be slam poetry. I'm not really sure what genre this rhyming-spoken-word-set-to-rhythmic-background-loops thing belongs in. On the plus side, it does contain the word "bootkicky." (OK, that's not really a word, but it should be.)

listen to alec says on soundcloud

For more information on what ALEC is about, visit alecexposed.org.

On a side note, I'd like to thank Chris Brogan and Mark Hermann for the great podcast interview about the music business they did today. It inspired me first to get off my butt and finish this piece, and, second, to turn down the stock Garage Band loops and turn up my original loops. The final result isn't polished, but it is without a doubt original!

I still can't believe I made the whole thing on my phone using the iOS version of GarageBand. I stood there in my bedroom with headphones on and the door closed, snarling "I want a pony!" into my phone, and created a finished piece of music. Sometimes, living in the future is awesome.

Mic Fright

I have no problem getting up in front of people and performing. I've been doing it since I was a five-year-old squeaking out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the violin. Two people or two thousand, friends or strangers, solo or in a group, it doesn't phase me. Want me to put on a pink wig and sing a song I composed myself in Spanish? Dance to "Baby Got Back" in front of the entire student body? Earnestly recite poetry or psalms or lead a group discussion? Been there, done that. Needless to say, I don't suffer from stage fright.

Put me in front of a microphone, in front of an audience, and I'm fine. But put me in front of the same microphone and hit the "record" button, and my nerves turn to water. I forget everything I've practiced, everything I know. All I can think is "No mistakes! No mistakes! This is permanent! Don't mess up!" Every tiny flub is magnified a thousand times: A slightly misplaced finger that would otherwise be smoothed over becomes an obvious wrong note; a tiny glitch in the rhythm becomes a stumble, and suddenly I'm hopelessly lost.

I don't know why I suffer from "mic fright." Maybe I haven't had as much practice recording myself as I have playing for others. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist. Maybe I just need to get really, really drunk before I try to record anything so I'm incapable of stressing out. I don't know.

What I do know is that I have 32 years' worth of songs I've written stored inside my head, and if I want my music to outlive me, I'd better start backing it up somewhere. That means recording my songs, whether I like it or not. I've tried to do it before, and was always able to find some excuse to stall. I couldn't record yet because I needed this piece of software or that piece of hardware. Well, basic sound recording is so brain-dead simple now that I have no more excuses.

I'm setting myself a goal of recording one song a week. They don't have to be in any particular order. They don't even have to sound good. They just have to get done. If this helps me to get over my mic fright, so much the better, but that's not the point. I need to push past what's holding me back and get my songs out in the wild, where they can be heard and sung and, with any luck, enjoyed.

Sailormoon Theme on the Mandolin

image from the Sailor Moon Wiki

Last time, I played the closing credits. But that's not the song everyone knows and loves, so here's the main Sailormoon theme song on the mandolin.

Sailormoon Theme Song (mp3)

This has been one of my warm-up songs for years. I play it almost every time I sit down to practice. Of course, as soon as I hit the "record" button in Garage Band, I turn into a complete butterfingers and forget all the notes. This was the third take, and I think it turned out well because I was so mad at the effing software for messing up the previous two takes that I almost forgot to be nervous.

Margin Doodles No. 26

This was my favorite song my freshman year of high school:

Don't recognize the song from my doodles? Here's the video:

Notes on Worship Music

While cleaning out the living room, I found an old notepad. It looks like I used the top page to take notes, probably at a seminar on using contemporary music in traditional liturgical churches that I went to about a decade or so ago. That was back when I lived in Columbia and we were first setting up a contemporary music group at St. John's.

The notes are sparse, but they contain some good information. I'm transcribing them here so that their ephemeral wisdom will live on.

Kierkegaard: in worship, God is the audience

liturgy = work of the people

Lewis Lyle: "A Theology of Music"  (rec'd book)

Aim for music that's God-centered, not self-centered

Leading worship, not giving a performance

Sailormoon on the Mandolin

Image from Anime News Network

George gave me a Jam iPad instrument interface for Christmas. I recently tried it out using Garage Band for the iPad. It works pretty well, and playing around with the different amps and effects is fun.

Here's a straight-up recording of me playing the closing credits from Sailormoon R:
Otome No Policy on the mandolin (mp3)