GB - seamless flow between tracks

[Wee Beastie]

Hello,

I am using Garage Band to put together some tracks. I would like to create a seamless flow between some or all of the tracks. The best way to do this that I can think of is to take the end portion of one song and then insert it at the beginning of another song, then adjust to make it smooth. Then I was going to export into iTunes and set the tracks as a gapless album...then burn.

My first question is, does anyone know how to copy a whole chunk of a song and then paste it into a new one?

My second question is, does anyone have suggestions for a better way to accomplish this effect?

Thanks!
wee beatsie

 

[Tarkovsky]

You can downmix the song to a track and reimport it, but I think you may loose quality. I'm not so sure.

 

[Wee Beastie]

You can downmix the song to a track and reimport it, but I think you may loose quality. I'm not so sure.

Would I do that using the 'export to disk command?' I can export at CD quality if need be.

Ideally I'd love to be able to do it and maintain separate editable regions, that way I can tweak the tracks more effectively to make the transition nice and smooth. Is that just asking too much of Garage Band?

 

[Tarkovsky]

CD quality is one of the lowest qualities you can record in, it still means re sampling. If it doesn't bother you then you can just export the files and re import them to the other sessions and bounce it into one file that has all of them. That way you will have one track. Is that what you want?
If you want to have tracks but make them continuous just make sure they don't finnish with silence at the end and then burn them as a gappless CD like you said..

 

[zimv20]

does GB still export only in mp3? if so, yeah, you're gonna lose something.

one typical scenario is to mix each track as normal and bounce it with full resolution (aiff, wav, for example). after all the tracks are done, set up another session and import all the songs, once each per stereo track. line them up, draw any fades, and you've got your album.

depending on which DAW you're using or what other programs you have, you can either:

1. define the start/stop markers in the DAW, and bounce each region separately, or
2. bounce the thing as one big stereo file, and use some other s/w to define the stop/start markers and split it into tracks

GB may be a little under-featured here (dunno for sure, maybe someone else does), but just about any other DAW could handle it.

 

[Wee Beastie]

does GB still export only in mp3? if so, yeah, you're gonna lose something.

one typical scenario is to mix each track as normal and bounce it with full resolution (aiff, wav, for example). after all the tracks are done, set up another session and import all the songs, once each per stereo track. line them up, draw any fades, and you've got your album.

depending on which DAW you're using or what other programs you have, you can either:

1. define the start/stop markers in the DAW, and bounce each region separately, or
2. bounce the thing as one big stereo file, and use some other s/w to define the stop/start markers and split it into tracks

GB may be a little under-featured here (dunno for sure, maybe someone else does), but just about any other DAW could handle it.

Forgive me for being such a noob:
I am using GarageBand exclusively, but I can get my hands on Logic Express 7 quickly if need be. So when you say "bounce" do you simply mean export? I'm a little unclear on this one. Let's say I produce one ten minute track containing two distinct songs. That seems like an ideal way to maintain control and have the two songs flow into each other perfectly. Are you suggesting that I create start/stop markers in an appropriate spot in the transition? If I do that, and export that file, will it be read by music players as two distinct tracks?

Also, I haven't figured out how to export specific regions. Even being able to copy and paste a region into a separate file would be very helpful. I tried once but it didn't seem to work. Anyone have any thought/suggestions on this one?

Thank you both for the helpful feedback so far.