Embarrassing Problem with Garage Band playback

[telorg]

Hi folks

Really new to this, but my band has an Alesis Multimix 8 connected to our macbook which is running garage band, and we're having trouble when playing back more than one track.

Basically, if we single out the tracks everything's fine, but when we play everything at once, it's a mess. The more live tracks we add, the quieter we have to keep the mix to keep it from peaking.

This is very disconcerting and has us all in the most atrocious tizzy, I'm happy to clarify where needed.

 

[songwritten]

Hi folks

Really new to this, but my band has an Alesis Multimix 8 connected to our macbook which is running garage band, and we're having trouble when playing back more than one track.

Basically, if we single out the tracks everything's fine, but when we play everything at once, it's a mess. The more live tracks we add, the quieter we have to keep the mix to keep it from peaking.

This is very disconcerting and has us all in the most atrocious tizzy, I'm happy to clarify where needed.

Ok...I'll give you some ideas since I use Garageband heavily:
-If your listening through the Multimix, mute the laptop speakers by hitting F3 on the keyboard.
-Turn down the individual levels for each track.
-Turn down the master volume level
-If it still is peeking after all of this, then you probably have a bunch of tracking problems (Meaning- your tracks weren't played consistently enough, or you peaked on the multimix while recording the tracks).
-You can try compressing these tracks...but you can't polish a terd. If the tracks are too hot, then you'll have to re-cut the tracks with a lower level.

Note: You won't get a very loud overall recording from garageband, so there is no point in cranking the volumes and master volume. Just worry about a good sounding mix, not one that is high in volume.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

 

[THX1136]

How do you have the tracks panned? If everything is in the center that would give you an increase in overall level due to all the tracks being summed to the middle.

When I fool around with just the loops in GB I notice that if I have too much in the center I get master levels that are too high. I'm assuming the same thing might happen with live tracks.