Turn Your Mac Keyboard Into a GarageBand Piano,GarageBand is Apple’s utility for creating, editing, and simply plain having amusing with music on your Mac. This unfastened down load from the App Store works nicely with MIDI contraptions, but in case you do not have a MIDI keyboard, you can turn your Mac keyboard into a digital musical instrument.
Turn Your Mac Keyboard Into a GarageBand Piano,Using the GarageBand Onscreen Keyboard
01. Open GarageBand through double-clicking it in the Applications folder or the usage of the Launchpad at the Dock.
02. Select File > New from the GarageBand menu bar. In the higher left nook of the window that opens, pick New Project.
03. Click the Empty Project icon in the crucial window after which select Choose inside the backside proper corner of the window.
04. In the pop-up window, choose Software Instrument and click on Create.
05. Select one of the Pianos inside the list of devices within the panel at the left facet of the window.
06. A keyboard should appear beneath the window. If it doesn’t, click Window > Show Musical Typing within the GarageBand menu bar to bring up the keyboard.
07. The Musical Typing window indicates the Mac keys that correspond to musical keys at the piano. The Musical Typing window also shows a keyboard above the keys, indicating which octave is currently lively. This is the same old setup for playing the piano in GarageBand.
08. Play the onscreen notes with the aid of pressing the keys for your keyboard that correspond to the notes in the Musical Typing window or by way of clicking the keys together with your mouse inside the Musical Typing window. GarageBand performs the notes and information the song.
Changing Octaves in the Standard Layout
The standard Musical Typing keyboard displays an octave and a half at any person time mapped to the “asdf” row of keys on a preferred pc keyboard. Changing octaves is achieved in one in all approaches.
- Click the x key on the Musical Typing keyboard to transport up one octave or the z key to transport down one octave. Move multiple octaves by means of time and again clicking the x or z keys.
- The second approach uses the illustration of a piano keyboard near the top of the Musical Typing window. Select the highlighted location at the piano keyboard, which represents the keys assigned to the typing keyboard, and drag the highlighted section left or right at the piano keyboard. Stop dragging whilst the highlighted section is in the variety you need to play.
Alternative Onscreen Keyboard
Besides the usual keyboard, you can opt to toggle to a piano keyboard with a 5-octave variety via clicking the keyboard icon inside the higher left corner of the Musical Typing keyboard. This piano keyboard does not assign any of the keys to correspond to your Mac’s keyboard. As a end result, you could most effective play this keyboard one note at a time, the usage of your mouse or trackpad.
This format gives the gain of a much wider variety of notes, and playing a single word at a time is helpful whilst modifying works you create.
Note: GarageBand is to be had as a free down load from the Mac App Store and from the App Store for iOS cell devices. The iOS app has a hint piano keyboard option that works in another way from the Mac model.
Connecting a MIDI Keyboard
If you have a MIDI keyboard, you could connect it to your Mac. When MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) became first evolved, it used a five-pin spherical DIN connector in conjunction with more than one cables to handle MIDI IN and MIDI OUT. These older MIDI interfaces have quite much long gone the way of the dinosaur. Most present day keyboards use fashionable USB ports to address MIDI connections.
As a result, you do not want any unique adapters or interface boxes or unique motive force software to attach a MIDI keyboard for your Mac. Just plug the MIDI keyboard into an available Mac USB port.
When you release GarageBand, the app detects the MIDI device. To try out your MIDI keyboard, move beforehand and create a brand new undertaking in GarageBand, the use of the Keyboard Collection choice rather than the Empty Project choice.
Once the challenge opens, touch a few keys on the keyboard; you should hear the keyboard via GarageBand. If not, reset GarageBand’s MIDI interface, as follows.
Resetting a MIDI Interface
01. Select GarageBand > Preferences from the GarageBand menu bar.
02. Select the Audio/MIDI tab inside the Preferences toolbar.
03. You have to see your MIDI tool detected. If not, click the Reset MIDI Drivers button.
You need to now be capable of play your MIDI keyboard via your Mac and file your sessions the use of GarageBand.