More Sounds

I just found another useful royalty free sounds website ... Partners in Rhyme. They've got some useful sound clips for free, as well.

Color Correction in Final Cut Pro

I'm starting to play around with the power of color correction in Final Cut Pro. Even doing some white balancing in post-production seems to be helpful.

Here's an awesome video about color correction. The guy sounds like he's holding a pencil in his mouth at some points in the video. But he knows his stuff, so it's worth watching:

Even More Macs!

I recently reported that my brother Patrick Warneka, a professional photographer based out of Chicago, IL, had recently switched over to apple computers with his purchase of an iMac.

Patrick must really like it, 'cause a few days ago he bought a Macbook Pro Laptop.

Patrick's experience is not unique. It happened to him. It happened to me. And it's happened to many others I've spoken to.

Creative people seem to prefer Macs.

Sound Loops from the BBC

The BBC offers audio loops here.

Great place for Apple Loops

Loops are basically snippets of musical sound (or sounds in general) that you can use in music any way you want.

For example, early in the song I created in GarageBand, I've got the sound of a loon. That was a nature loop that I had in GarageBand.

A great place for Apple loops is BeatHive.

Resources for GarageBand ...

Just found GarageDoor, a very cool website with lots of links to all things GarageBand.

Check it out!

Apple's GarageBand

My workload has slowed down a bit for the end of the year, so I finally got a chance to sit down and play with Apple's GarageBand a bit. (Yes, it's spelled "GarageBand," one word, two capitals.)

GarageBand is Apple's software program that allows the user to create and record music. GarageBand is best, I've found, when paired with some type of MIDI compatible keyboard. The keyboard makes playing the music easier.

I use the M-Audio AXIOM 25 Advanced 25-Key Semi-Weighted USB MIDI Controller 9900-51411-10 keyboard ....

GarageBand is also capable of accepting input from a musical instrument, such as an electric guitar. To the extent that I play music, guitar is my main instrument. I didn't hook up my guitar for this piece, but I will definitely be doing so soon.

(NOTE: If you want to play your electric guitar in GarageBand (or if you want to use a better microphone then the one included in your Apple computer), then you'll need some type of interface. I use (and recommend) the Apogee Duet FireWire Interface)


Here's a song I made:



I don't consider myself to be very musically talented, but GarageBand makes it easy to compose music. Many professional musicians use this program to record their musical ideas.

GarageBand is a very powerful piece of software for the non-professional musician. Best of all, GarageBand is part of Apple's iLife suite of software, which is included free of charge with every Apple computer. (How awesome is that?!?)

If you're interested in creating music on the Mac, I highly recommend GarageBand.

Fun stuff! :-)

Making Movies? Two Great Sites for Sound and Music

If you're making video and you need some sound effects, here's a great site I found called Freesound:

http://www.freesound.org/index.php


Interested in music and re-mixing music?

ccMixter:

http://ccmixter.org/view/media/home

uses the Creative Commons licensing for non-commercial use.

Some very cool sounds here!