Convert DRUMMER to a MIDI drum track in GarageBand iOS

richardyot

@JoyceRoadStudios said:
I take an hour sometimes to make a drummer track, then copy it to a second drummer track and break that one down over and over by turning off all but one component, then clicking “merge” so it converts the drum track to a new audio track at the bottom of the project. I do it over and over until I have individual dry (but normalized) drum stems. Then I export them one by one by soloing each and exporting just the one track, convert some to mono and leave others in stereo, and finally I have myself a 4-6 track drum set that I can individually turn down, pan, remix, and process, and then to a drum bus. It’s a real pain and I’m sure there are other multi out drummer apps that can do this. But one stereo track of all the drums among a multi track song doesn’t work for me. Perhaps I just haven’t figured out yet how to make it sound good in that context.

You can cut the time it takes to do this in half with the following tip: once you've merged each individual Drummer track to audio there is no need to solo each track and export individually - the audio you need already exists within the GB project, and you can extract it.

Just use the Files app to copy the entire GB project into Audioshare, and then in Audioshare you will be able to look into the GB project which is just a folder. In the media folder within you should be able to locate the audio for each merged channel, just grab it from there.

JoyceRoadStudios

@richardyot said:

@JoyceRoadStudios said:
I take an hour sometimes to make a drummer track, then copy it to a second drummer track and break that one down over and over by turning off all but one component, then clicking “merge” so it converts the drum track to a new audio track at the bottom of the project. I do it over and over until I have individual dry (but normalized) drum stems. Then I export them one by one by soloing each and exporting just the one track, convert some to mono and leave others in stereo, and finally I have myself a 4-6 track drum set that I can individually turn down, pan, remix, and process, and then to a drum bus. It’s a real pain and I’m sure there are other multi out drummer apps that can do this. But one stereo track of all the drums among a multi track song doesn’t work for me. Perhaps I just haven’t figured out yet how to make it sound good in that context.

You can cut the time it takes to do this in half with the following tip: once you've merged each individual Drummer track to audio there is no need to solo each track and export individually - the audio you need already exists within the GB project, and you can extract it.

Just use the Files app to copy the entire GB project into Audioshare, and then in Audioshare you will be able to look into the GB project which is just a folder. In the media folder within you should be able to locate the audio for each merged channel, just grab it from there.

Thank you for pointing this out, that is extremely helpful. I was doing it that other way because that’s what had been suggested before on the forum and YouTube. Looks like I can do this with a midi bass track too etc... It’s nice that even though GB calls it “merge” you don’t actually have to merge more than one track, so it’s really just a midi to audio “convert” (plus normalize, wish you could turn that off like in GB desktop). I like to work with audio stems personally so don’t need the midi data unless I actually need it in Auria Pro where I mix. Thanks again for the tip.

richardyot

@JoyceRoadStudios said:

@richardyot said:

@JoyceRoadStudios said:
I take an hour sometimes to make a drummer track, then copy it to a second drummer track and break that one down over and over by turning off all but one component, then clicking “merge” so it converts the drum track to a new audio track at the bottom of the project. I do it over and over until I have individual dry (but normalized) drum stems. Then I export them one by one by soloing each and exporting just the one track, convert some to mono and leave others in stereo, and finally I have myself a 4-6 track drum set that I can individually turn down, pan, remix, and process, and then to a drum bus. It’s a real pain and I’m sure there are other multi out drummer apps that can do this. But one stereo track of all the drums among a multi track song doesn’t work for me. Perhaps I just haven’t figured out yet how to make it sound good in that context.

You can cut the time it takes to do this in half with the following tip: once you've merged each individual Drummer track to audio there is no need to solo each track and export individually - the audio you need already exists within the GB project, and you can extract it.

Just use the Files app to copy the entire GB project into Audioshare, and then in Audioshare you will be able to look into the GB project which is just a folder. In the media folder within you should be able to locate the audio for each merged channel, just grab it from there.

Thank you for pointing this out, that is extremely helpful. I was doing it that other way because that’s what had been suggested before on the forum and YouTube. Looks like I can do this with a midi bass track too etc... It’s nice that even though GB calls it “merge” you don’t actually have to merge more than one track, so it’s really just a midi to audio “convert” (plus normalize, wish you could turn that off like in GB desktop). I like to work with audio stems personally so don’t need the midi data unless I actually need it in Auria Pro where I mix. Thanks again for the tip.

Happy to help!