Track Grouping and accurate control of track/group volumes

Question

Hi,
Newbie to Garageband so bear with me...
Firstly, is there a way of grouping tracks together and apply effects to the group as a whole (independantly of whatever effects are applied to the tracks within that group)? and...
Secondly, is there a way of having precise control over the volume of a given track/group of tracks?
What I am trying to do is create a dance track in which there a section which you would imagine playing with a strobe light going off, ie the volume is max followed by min straight away, max,min,max,min etc., with the min parts cutting sound completely.
Thing is, all I can see in Garageband is the ability to add points to a line (creating a sawtooth look). What's more, it seems that if, using this sawtooth, a note plays when at sawtooth is at max then it doesn't cut the volume when the sawtooth is then at min.
Any suggestions?
SadieLovatt

Answer 1

SadieLovatt wrote:
Firstly, is there a way of grouping tracks together and apply effects to the group as a whole (independantly of whatever effects are applied to the tracks within that group)? and...
Not that I know of. However, there is a Master Track that applies effects to all tracks (i.e. all tracks grouped together on the stereo mix), but no ability to create groups of only some tracks and apply effects to them. So as far as I know, in GB, it's either 1 track or all tracks.
Secondly, is there a way of having precise control over the volume of a given track/group of tracks?
What I am trying to do is create a dance track in which there a section which you would imagine playing with a strobe light going off, ie the volume is max followed by min straight away, max,min,max,min etc., with the min parts cutting sound completely.
Thing is, all I can see in Garageband is the ability to add points to a line (creating a sawtooth look). What's more, it seems that if, using this sawtooth, a note plays when at sawtooth is at max then it doesn't cut the volume when the sawtooth is then at min.
Any suggestions?
You can mimic a square wave by adding dots and dragging a dot until it is almost directly under the other dot, and then having a dot to the right of it (still at the bottom) and adding a dot almost right above it, and then another dot to the right of it at the same volume... basically draw a square wave using dots, so the audio flashes on and off. And if you do this on the Master Track, it will apply to all tracks.
However, to make it work well, you'd want to zoom in all the way to be able to get the dots as close to vertical as possible. You do this by sliding the zoom slider on the lower left all the way to the right. If your automation track is open, you can see that little differences become big differences. Zoomed in all the way, you can make adjustments that will snap to the next one so fast, it should sound like a square wave. You can see where the threshold is... if you slide a dot directly over another one, it eats it up, but slightly to the side, it coexists. It won't be a perfect square wave, but it should be close enough to sound like one.