GarageBand: Using an Audio Interface with and XLR Microphone 

Thanks for the kind words - glad you found it helpful!

Awesome, thank you and thanks for subscribing!

Check the GarageBand Preferences, under Audio/MIDI, to see if your interface appears in the drop-down list. If it does, be sure it is selected. Then go back to the audio track and make sure it is assigned to a channel from that interface. Another issue MAY BE that your mic is a condenser mic that requires phantom power (48v boost your interface can add IF it has a built-in pre-amp). Usually you can turn on phantom power by pressing a button or flipping a switch on the audio interface. Good luck!

Glad to help, and God bless you too! :)

I don't know that interface, but the only thing I can guess is that when you plug the unit into your Mac, GarageBand tells you it detects it, asks you if you want to use it, and you say yes. But then - in most cases - you need to go into the GB Prefs and change the Sound Out from the Saffire to Built-in Output. You probably already are on top of that though...sorry I can't think of anything else.

You're welcome!

I can't think of a common reason why that would be...sounds like a weird glitch :(

Hmm.....is the M-Box USB powered, or does it need a "wall-wart" type power adapter? I think there was a time when M-Box only worked with Pro-Tools, but if your gear is newer you should be OK. I can't imagine your M-Box needs a "driver" - something you almost never need anymore for a Mac to recognize a peripheral such as an audio interface. Have you tried any other audio interface (maybe borrow a friend's) to see if the problem isn't your M-Box? I have had fairly consistent success with my MacBook Pro and both M-Audio and Focusrite USB audio interfaces.

Check the GarageBand Preferences, under Audio/MIDI, to see if your interface appears in the drop-down list. If it does, be sure it is selected. Then go back to the audio track and make sure it is assigned to a channel from that interface. Another issue MAY BE that your mic is a condenser mic that requires phantom power (48v boost your interface can add IF it has a built-in pre-amp). Usually you can turn on phantom power by pressing a button or flipping a switch on the audio interface. Good luck!

Absolutely. Even that older version of GarageBand was very useful.

I'm not sure since I don't have that interface, but... Check the GarageBand preferences to see what audio in is set to. If GB recognizes your interface, it should appear in the drop-down there to choose from.

Not to be contentious, but you're definitely wrong about that. The sound card on a MacBook Pro is at least as good as on the M-Audio audio interface I showed (MobilePre)...probably better.

I don't use GarageBand iOS much. I assume you are using a USB-to-Lightning adapter for your interface, and that you adjusted the Input Level on the GarageBand iOS's audio track. Other than that, it's anybody's guess without being right there to see everything. Sorry, but good luck!

Lots that can go wrong: mic could need phantom power, interface might need to be manually configured in GB Prefs, for instance.

Check the GarageBand Preferences, under Audio/MIDI, to see if your interface appears in the drop-down list. If it does, be sure it is selected. Then go back to the audio track and make sure it is assigned to a channel from that interface. Another issue MAY BE that your mic is a condenser mic that requires phantom power (48v boost your interface can add IF it has a built-in pre-amp). Usually you can turn on phantom power by pressing a button or flipping a switch on the audio interface. Good luck!

Glad it was helpful!

Great to hear!

Exactly, and insert that mic's cable into your interface's channel 2 port.

You may need to go into GarageBand ->preferences, under Audio-MIDI tab, and make sure that the output sound is coming from your computer, rather than the interface.

@@ScottWatsonMusic i’ve realized that my interface doesn’t works with high sierra, i had to buy another interface, thank you anyway 😅

Try this: Go into Garageband's PREFERENCES--> Audio?MIDI and make sure OUTPUT is set to Built-in.

@@ScottWatsonMusic got chu I figured it out ty

Thanks for subbing!

There are lots of reasons yours might not "work," but I need some specifics in order to help :) Can you describe what you're trying to do, with what equipment, and the exact steps you are taking? Or...maybe you already figured things out!

Scott Watson thanks for responding, when I plug in the whole kit (Mic, audio interface, laptop) the mic doesn’t turn on. And I can’t record is there a on button I need to click ?

A simple explanation: I've been making these tutorial videos for a while now....my earlier videos were using previous MacOS.

I think what you're hearing is the output of the entire video (which was produced using Camstasia software), which is stereo.

I imagine that the sound from the Focusrite is quite good. I mostly use GarageBand in a school music technology lab where it is just more convenient to use the built-in (computer's) sound for playback, which is routed into the sound system for the lab.

Great to hear!

You're welcome! Glad it helped you.

Glad it was helpful!

If I understand the scenario you describe, I'm stumped too. Have you tried manually editing EQ settings to see if that changes anything?

I know GarageBand allows for up to 8 different tracks to be recorded simultaneously (w/an 8-channel audio interface, assigning each track to a different input). Go into the this menu train: Track->Track Header->Show Record Enable Button. Then click on the Record Enable button in each track and assign each track to the input from your interface. This video explains it well: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vuu96EUJcZ0.html

I'm not sure what software you mean. If you mean a "driver" (software that enables your interface to work with your computer), most Mac OSX computers don't need a specific driver to work with the M-Audio interface, but if you visit the M-Audio website there is probably a "download" area for obtaining drivers for specific items. But maybe the interface came bundled with some digital audio workstation such as Abelton Live, etc. and for that I wouldn't know. Good luck!

Essentially, yes. I send that CPU output to the input of a mixer, along with a few other inputs (keyboard, etc.) and the output of my mixer can go to either the room Monitors or to my headphones.

Thanks, Kam, for the kind words - very encouraging and glad I could help :)

Sorry for the slow reply - I just saw your question. Another viewer had a similar question so I'm going to quote myself here: "I don't have first hand experience with that mic or audio interface, but I have had a few instances with the old GarageBand in which I set up an audio track for a mic and/or interface and GB didn't recognize it (VU meter didn't move to show signal sounding), so....I set up a 2nd audio track, then after that when I clicked back on the first audio track it suddenly worked. You might try that. I have no idea why this did the trick, but I had to use it quite a few times with students (I teach music production at a high school). Just be sure before all of this that in the GB Preference you have selected the interface/channel and confirm the same in the "Input Source"area at the bottom of the track Info (letter "i" icon) window." Let me know if this helps.

Glad to help!

Wow - thanks for the kind words. I've never done "voiceover" work, except for my own vids :)

I've never used that audio interface, but I would assume it works similarly. I just looked on Sweetwater.com and judging from the price, it probably is a very good unit.

So glad the video tutorial was helpful. GOOD LUCK with your audition!

You're welcome

+Rapzone Productions I'm really not sure about what you are asking? If you are recording with a single channel microphone then you probably have a mono audio track. You can record into a stereo audio track. You can chose that in a number of ways: when you first set up an audio track you can choose mono or stereo, and from the Input drop-down menu in the Inspector you can choose mono or stereo.

thanks a lot for your feedback very helpful

you can also record your mono track, duplicate it, and pan one all the way left, and the other all the way right to give you your stereo effect from a single mono input

yes true thanks for advice but even when we record in mono the playback comes automatically in stereo as we need to change some setting in individual software in audio section much appriciate that you replied thanks

Glad to help...have fun creating music with GarageBand :)

Sorry for the slow reply - I just saw your question. Although I've never used an audio interface with a wireless mic, I believe a lot will be the same, only you'll have to figure how to route the mic feed to the interface. My guess would be that the wireless receiver has an audio out port.

Glad to help :)

The one I use now is Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (about $130).

+JayFonzerrelli Once you make all the DSP additional/adjustments to an audio track, you can save those settings to recall later. To do this: 1) Click the LIBRARY icon to open that area on the left of the program. 2) Click on the SAVE button on the bottom. 3) Create a unique name for your audio setting (i.e. "Fat compressed vocals") - this will be stored in the Library's USER PATCHES folder to recall whenever you want. Hope this helps!

+Scott Watson thank you for the quick reply.

I've only seen Shure SM58's with XLR - not 1/4 phone - jacks....that seems odd. Since I know that mic is a dynamic mic it would not require phantom power (48v pre-amp), so I'm not sure why you are getting such a low signal. The only other settings I can think of that might affect the sound are the main volume and track volume assigned to that signal. Let me know if you figure this out - would love to hear the solution.

Scott, thank you so much for your response. I think I did find the solution to the problem. There is a "virtual" control panel--an app(?) you open up on your computer) for the Roland QUAD-CAPTURE. I had kind of ignored it before. But I finally fiddled with it and got what I think I needed. The control panel has three sections: preamp, compressor, and mixer. The mixer is, I believe, irrelevant to me since I'm not using the audio interface for output. The preamp has a volume control ("sens") that seems to be tied to the physical volume knob on the audio interface unit itself. (There are also some other controls I still don't understand.) The surprise for me was the compressor section. There are two controls there that made the difference (and four others that don't seem to make a difference to what I'm doing): "gate" and "gain." I need to have the gate at a low setting or it suppresses/cuts off the signal. And I need to have the gain very high or even full. So now I'm getting adequate gain. Thanks again for your response though!

Actually "gain" is always part of the settings for compressors. I've used increasing the gain there as a work around when I has an especially weak signal, but I still think there's something else going on. I get the idea you are using an XLR-to-TRS mic cable (with the XLR plug on the mic side and the TRS plug on the audio interface side). If I was you I would borrow a conventional XLR (both sides) mic cable (or bite the bullet and spend about $20 to purchase one like this bit.ly/2q5pBxw) and use that to connect your Shure SM58 mic to your interface. I'd just like to see if that would help. I think there's something fishy about the TRS input to your interface (either the cable or the jack). But good for you for digging deeper and discovering the software compressor!

Thanks again, Scott. I will definitely look into trying an XLR cable!

Scott, it's been a long time since I asked you about this (What? Only 8 months? I actually thought it was even longer!) I've been using another mic in the meanwhile, but I did finally get an XLR (both sides) cable, and that did indeed solve the problem. Thanks so much for your advice!

Assuming you have at least a 2-channel audio interface (like the one shown in my tutorial), just set up TWO different tracks in your software - one for each channel/mic, OR set up a single STEREO track that has a different channel/mic from the interface assigned to it. It's really not that much different than the single mic approach shown in the video. Just be careful in most situations to use fairly matched mics. you wouldn't want, for instance, to use one dynamic and one condenser mic with a 2-channel interface such as the one I used since it has to either have the pre-amp ("phantom power") ON or OFF for both channels. Often interfaces with more channels allow two of the channels to have phantom power ON while the other channels don't have it. That way you could record with a condenser mic (phantom power ON) and a dynamic mic (no pre-amp) at the same time. Hope this helps.