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How to use the compressor in garageband

How To Use The Compressor In Garageband

It may not be the most glamorous, flashy or exciting effect in Garageband’s AU plug-in arsenal, but rest assured – the built in compressor is one of the most useful available to you.

Way back in 2012 I put together a definitive guide on how to get the most from Garageband’s built in compressor. I noted that while it wasn’t the most feature rich of compressors out there, it did a sterling job of getting the basics right.

After Apple made the frankly bizarre decision to remove the built in compressor plug in from Garageband 10, we were left with a single incredibly vague Smart Control compressor ‘dial'( I wasn’t a fan of it…)

It wasn’t until the latest 10.0.3 update that Apple added their good old built in compressor Audio Unit back into Garageband (along with a ton of cool other stuff too). Seeing that it’s back in action, I thought it a good time to update that original article.

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to get to grips with Garageband’s built in compressor as well as how it works on different instruments.

 

 

What Is Compression?

In a nut-shell, applying compression to a track in Garageband lowers the volume of loud sounds to the same level as the quieter sounds. You can then raise the gain of your compressed track, having reduced any peaks or troughs in the volume.

How much compression you’ll want to apply depends entirely on the type of instrument or genre of music you’re working with. You wouldn’t use the same compression settings on a face melting guitar solo as you would a violin melody, or the same set up on a drum track as you would on a vocal track…

By far the most important thing to remember – especially if you’re just getting to grips with compression – is make sure you don’t over-compress and leave your tracks or project sounding squashed or lifeless.

 

How Does It Work?

Much like the version found in earlier iterations of Apple’s entry level DAW, Garageband 10.0.3’s built in compressor is intuitive and simple to use.

 

Garageband compressor smart control window

You can find it in the plug-ins drop down menu within Garageband’s Smart Controls window.

 

There are 4 main settings for you to fiddle with:

 

Garageband 10.0.3 compressor

 

 

Threshold

The threshold controls the point at which the compression kicks in. When you click on the up/down arrows or adjust the slider a decibel (db) level is displayed. Any sound above this db level will be compressed.

Do you only want the louder sounds in your track compressed? Or do you want to really ‘level out’ your sound by setting the threshold at a lower volume?

 

 

Ratio

The ratio determines how much volume to reduce. The higher the ratio, the more volume is reduced and squished, while a lower ratio will reduce less volume.

So for example, if you select a ratio of 2:1 for every 1db that your audio goes over your threshold setting, it’s volume will be reduced by 2db.
If you select a ratio of 30:1, the volume will be reduced by 30db for every 1 db over your threshold setting (and sound majorly squashed)!

 

 

Attack

The Attack governs the speed at which compression kicks in.

How much attack you use depends entirely on what it is that you’re compressing. Snare drums, Kick drums and certain vocals (hip hop/rap) all traditionally have a fast attack setting, whereas pianos, guitars and other instruments – where preserving the dynamics and the need to sound natural are important – generally have a slower attack speed.

 

 

Gain

Remember that compression reduces loud sounds down to the same volume as the quieter sounds. Once this has happened, you need to boost the output level to make up for the lost volume. You do this by –  you guessed it – increasing the gain.

 

 

 

How Do I Use It?

When I first started out with Garageband and discovered compression, I jumped in headfirst and compressed absolutely everything – whether it needed it or not.

“It doesn’t matter how clipped and sloppy that vocal track is – the compressor will fix it” I thought.

“As wonderful as that acoustic guitar part is that I’ve just recorded ( and taken 2 hours to play right….), it will sound even better when I squash the life out of it!”

Yeah right……

The result?

Everything sounded flat, lifeless and very UN-dynamic.

Also, I quickly found out that compression doesn’t actually fix anything in your audio.
Over compressing a less than stellar performance won’t magically make it sound great. You’ll end up with something that sounds lackluster and squashed – not good.

The best way to fix a bad take? – re-record a better one. Simple as that.

As I said earlier, the amount of compression required varies and depends largely on what instrument or sound you have recorded and what genre or style you are working in.

In pop music nowadays there is a lot of compression, on pretty much everything. Subtle dynamics simply aren’t as important as overall volume is.
With Jazz music however, dynamics are usually preserved as much as possible to capture and convey every nuance of a performance.

When it comes to your sounds, experimentation is key, but before you spend a lot of your time figuring out individual compressor settings from scratch, check out the supplied Compression pre-sets.
In Garageband the compressor comes with many contextual presets that can come close to sounding half decent and make for a great starting point to work from.

 

Garageband compressor pre sets

 

To give you an idea how these compression pre-sets sound, i’ve put together several audio examples for you to wrap your ears around…

 

The first part of each example let’s you hear how the instrument or track sounds without any compression applied. The second part of each example has the same instrument or track, this time with a compression pre-set applied.

 

Guitar

With guitars it all depends on the kind of part you’ve recorded. If it’s a lead guitar part, enough compression so that all the different notes maintain a consistent volume would be just fine.

Remember, you don’t want to overdo it – ruining your performance by squashing it to death with compression isn’t going to impress anyone…

If it’s a rhythm guitar part and you want it to kind of sit in the background and maintain the same volume throughout, you might not really be worried about the dynamic aspect of the performance.

This isn’t fixed remember, you need to experiment and find out what works best for YOUR project!

In the following clip you’ll hear a guitar melody in a mix without compression, then again with one of Garageband’s compression presets applied.

 

 

Did you hear the difference?

Notice in the first example it’s harder to make the notes out clearly – it doesn’t stand out much in the mix.

In the second example the lead guitar is much more at the forefront of the mix and it’s much easier to make out the notes being played.

 

Drums

Hmmm. Drums are a bit trickier.

Usually, all the separate parts of the drum kit will have different amounts of compression added to each of them.
Kick drums and snare drums will usually (not always) have compression added in some form, whereas you would rarely see cymbals compressed.

If you’re using Garageband’s Drummer Track (you really should – it’s awesome!), you need to be extra careful that you don’t completely flatten the highs and lows while adding enough punch that it will sit well in your mix.

Again – Experiment. Experiment. Experiment!

In this clip you’ll hear a Drummer Track in a mix without compression then again with a preset applied.

 

 

The drums are a lot quieter in the first example and sound a little buried in the mix. In the second example they really pop and add energy.

 

Vocals

With vocals, especially a lead or main vocal part, a little compression goes a long way.
In this situation, you really want to preserve as much of the natural dynamics of a performance as much as you can, while making sure the vocal sits front and centre in the mix.
Backing vocals can usually be compressed a bit more.

In this last clip, you’ll again hear the vocals without compression first, then again with a compressor preset applied.

 

 

You can really notice how much more well defined the vocal is in the second example. With the compression added, The vocals really come to the front of the mix, whereas without it added they struggle to be heard over the rest of the instruments.

 

 

I know I’ve said it a million times already, but EXPERIMENT! There is no right or wrong way to use the compressor, there’s only what works best for YOU!

Now that you’re equipped with the know how to bend Garageband’s Compressor to your will, get out there and start squashing!

Show Comments (48)
  1. it sounds pretty complicated but I guess it would with someone like me who is just really only starting to figure out recording. Thanks for the tips.

  2. Hi Patrick,
    The sound examples really make it easier to figure the results. Thanks a lot!

  3. Wonderful and very useful website. Got your ultimate guide for garageband yesterday. Now I know what all the technical jargon means. Recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to use garageband..

    Thanks

    Sarbjit (Dr)

  4. Thanks, Patrick. I’ve read the guides before, but this time it finally clicked, and I think I see how to use the compressor. Now, as you said, time to experiment…

  5. Hello. I’ve got a question. I’m using GarageBand’s SoCal drum kit and recording real guitars. But when I export the song to iTunes the drum track gets quieter halfway through the song. This didn’t happen before I exported the song. And now I see little transparent vertical bars on my drum track which I take to be compressions. I can manually change the volume again while the song is playing but each time the play head reaches one of those lines the volumes gets lower again. Any idea how I can fix this? I don’t want the volume to go down at all.

  6. Hello Patrick, I just bought your Ultimate guide to GB n really like your writing n informative how to ‘s. I’m using current version of GB to transfer ( via SD cards ) tracks I perform on guitars n piano n virtual GB tracks to my Tascam 24 DP workstation which is a 24 track digital recorder. Am I correct that if any of the GB tracks have effects assigned to the track that when loaded to my Tascam there will be fidelity or muddy audio ? I’ve tweaked vocals n music tracks before n post transfer to the tascam but they sound muddy or muffled. I’m avoiding tracks being over saturated n hitting into the red in GB n tweaking EQ on tracks in the Tascam , so is it necessary to transfer tracks from GB to Tascam completely dry with no effects to have the best audio clarity ? Thx Patrich……John

    1. I don’t use Garage Band Nick, but I’ve been a voice actor in Hollywood for 40 years, and I can say this about compression for VO’s. Never, but never, go higher than a 3-1 ratio for spoken voice work. Usually, from 2-2.5 does very well. If you go above that, radio stations (which recompress everything on the air) will not air the material. The magic doesn’t come from effects. It comes from the actor, his voice, and most of all, believe it or not, his ear. When I do cartoons, film narration, or high-end commercial work at Pro studios, the engineer will always keep dry take masters and continuously experiment with compression in the mix. But making sure your mic is right for your style is the best single thing that you can control. Great compression with bad EQ or vice versa is also a disaster, so before you mix to final, if your dry take doesn’t sound good to begin with, then do it over. You’ll save yourself much heartache in the future. You simply can’t fix a bad vocal take with electronics.

  7. When mastering, how do I access and record compression and other effects? I can’t seem to find info about this for GB. Do you have a step by step on GB mastering (10.1.4 or later)? Thanks.

  8. Umm… Bass? Yeah. Bass!!! What’s the first audio enhancement (don’t you dare call it an effect, my friend) bass players are turned on to? Hmm? Love your vids, man. But bass and compression go together like French fries and ketchup. Or, asparagus and butter. It’s the secret sauce, bro. Can’t believe you eat your ‘taters and ‘sparagus plain. To paraphrase Mr. Horse, “No sir, I don’t like it.”

  9. Thank you sooooo much!
    your site is very clear even for newbies like me!
    I’m gonna try and improve my recordings thanks to you

  10. Your tutorial on Compression helped me to understand this concept completely! Thanks so much, Patrick! I loved your examples. I also loved your encouragement about Garageband 10.0.03 I think it is ( am I correct?). Good to have the compressor plug-in back!
    I would love to see a tutorial by you on EQ in Logic.
    Is EQ in the new version of Garageband as well?
    Thanks a million, Patrick. Feel free to email me back. You are an excellent teacher. Warm Regards, Dori

  11. Thank you for the enlightening tut, really handy to understand the delicate subject of compression most struggle with. Happy New Year and the best to you and yours!

  12. I’m trying to use the compressor in garageband to at least somewhat master some tracks. Where is the release? If I don’t control it, is there some way to know how it’s set in relation to the attack setting? Thanks.

  13. What a great guide for me to understand the basics of compression, thanks a lot! I’ve been wondering about it and I’m gonna start experimenting with it now 🙂

  14. Hi Patrick , I have been away from self recording for so long , I appreciate your video’s very much . Question: Is it possible to to experiment and find your best compression , reverb and eq and just start recording with them ? rather than going back after you’ve recorded? Now that we are in this pandemic , I can no longer go to a studio . I wish I would have paid attention to what the technicians were doing , but thinking back on it they were so fast I doubt it would have helped , they would actually be fixing things before they came up on play back . Those people are all teaching protools video classes now. I like garage band , I’m happy I ran across your site . – billy freeze

  15. Excellent and beneficial article. I have completely understood, “What is Compression.” This topic is very informative and easy to understand. The information you have provided is very useful for my sound project. Thank you so much!!

  16. Very informative article. Thank you, but the maths in your explanation of ratio is not quite right. There is no way that the volume of the instrument suddenly dives down 30 dB by pushing 1dB above the threshold on a 30 to 1 ratio. What it really means is that you would need to hit it with 30 dB more level once the threshold has been struck to get 1 more dB out of it. 30 to 1 is a brick wall limiter. Any ratio over 10 to 1 is considered a limiter. 4 to 1 would mean 4dB above the threshold would push 1dB more out of it and 8dB above threshold pushes 2dB more out of it. Generally people just use their ears to decide where to put the knobs, so no harm done. The point you made was that bigger numbers is more drastic behaviour, which is indeed true, but every 1 db over threshold certainly does not get turned down 30 dBs or your signal would disappear pretty quick.

    Gregg Jackman. old, successful, retired engineer.

  17. Thanks for the tutorial. The maths in your description of ratio is not correct though. if you push 1db above the threshold at 30 to 1 it certainly does not turn the audio down by 30 dB. It would keep getting quieter and quieter very rapidly. What it really means is that you need 30dB over the threshold to get 1 dB more out of it. This is pretty drastic of course….. a brick wall limiter. Anything over 10 to 1 is considered a limiter.
    4 to 1 is a very commonly used ratio. 4dB above threshold will push 1db more out of it therefore 8dB above threshold gets you 2dB more out of it. Hopefully you will correct this mistake.

  18. Any tips of mapping control surface keyboards with garageband? Is it even possible? Looking to map transporter, knobs and sliders. Cheers

  19. Hi –
    I’m an experienced songwriter, recording at home.
    I want to get the most out of GarageBand on my 2021 Macbook Air.

    Thanks and God bless!

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