Scratch

Hi Chris,
The best method is probably to save the GarageBand song as either an mp3 or wav file on your computer and then you can import that sound file into your Scratch project. It's a little tricky to save a GarageBand file in this way because you have to go through iTunes. In GarageBand, choose "Export to iTunes" from the File menu. This will save the song in your iTunes library, but it will be in AIFF format. You can then convert the song to the correct format within iTunes in the following way:

(1) Choose the correct format to convert to:
Go to iTunes Preferences, click the Advanced tab and then the Importing tab.
From the "Import Using" pull down menu, select MP3 Encoder (or WAV encoder).
Click OK to save preferences.

(2) Convert file
Select the song in your iTunes library and choose "Convert selection to MP3 (or WAV)'' from the Advanced menu. This will save a newly formated copy of the song.

The new file is in your iTunes library, which can be accessed from your home directory through Music --> iTunes --> iTunes music --> (artist) --> (album). You can also select the song in iTunes and choose File --> Get Info (apple-I) to see where the file is saved in your computer.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, jhansel, for these good instructions. You can actually skip the format conversion steps, since Scratch can import AIFF files directly. You still need to export from GarageBand to iTunes, but then you can just import the resulting .aif file from the appropriate subfolder of the user's "Music" folder into Scratch. Your sound will be fairly large, so you may want use the "compress sounds" menu command at some point to reduce the size of the sounds. The "compress sounds" command just reduces the sampling rate, which also reduces the quality a little. (As noted elsewhere on these forums, Scratch could use better sound compression.)

Earlier there was a bug that affected the loading of some projects containing sounds inported from Garage Band, but that bug has now been fixed.

  -- John

Ansh98 your quesitons are answered above your post.

Actually you can download my Band Song 1 or 2 projects because I imported them

Just tell me either like pop rock or whatever. You can download the project and export the sounds to your computer.

It would be very nice if there were a way for scratch to take MIDI files (like garage band files) and convert them into scratch scripts containing play note commands and waits.  This would allow people to provide background music without running into the 10Mbyte limit so often.

I sort of do not understand like MIDI files and stuff because I am really young.

kevin_karplus wrote:

I don't know whether there is a single standard for the files---probably not

There is a set of standard instruments and drum sets that is defined as the "General MIDI" kit.  This is pretty universally implemented on newer equipment - though only as a subset of a much larger set of voices (even my relatively cheap Casio keyboard has at least 10X the options). Scratch's parameter values are consistant with General MIDI although I'm not sure it's a 100% match.

General MIDI is also what Microsoft Media Player uses and I'm sure Garage Band includes it at some level.  The parameters for note values and durations are also standard.  What is very non-standard are the control conventions, since they generally are hardware and application specific - but you have to be doing some pretty serious audio to worry about things at this level.  Also, like real instruments, one "trumpet" may sound quite different from another.

Note that if you have a MIDI out port on your PC you can play Scratch's music output on a MIDI instrument directly, see http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=768.

Last edited by DrJim (2007-08-23 13:05:55)

jhansel wrote:

Hi Chris,
The best method is probably to save the GarageBand song as either an mp3 or wav file on your computer and then you can import that sound file into your Scratch project. It's a little tricky to save a GarageBand file in this way because you have to go through iTunes. In GarageBand, choose "Export to iTunes" from the File menu. This will save the song in your iTunes library, but it will be in AIFF format. You can then convert the song to the correct format within iTunes in the following way:

(1) Choose the correct format to convert to:
Go to iTunes Preferences, click the Advanced tab and then the Importing tab.
From the "Import Using" pull down menu, select MP3 Encoder (or WAV encoder).
Click OK to save preferences.

(2) Convert file
Select the song in your iTunes library and choose "Convert selection to MP3 (or WAV)'' from the Advanced menu. This will save a newly formated copy of the song.

The new file is in your iTunes library, which can be accessed from your home directory through Music --> iTunes --> iTunes music --> (artist) --> (album). You can also select the song in iTunes and choose File --> Get Info (apple-I) to see where the file is saved in your computer.

I hope this helps.

It won't work. all you have to do is make some projects with garageband sounds and than let Chrisg download it, then he can export it

chrisg wrote:

Hi I need help from folks who use Scratch on a Mac. (I have a PC so I can't really try this out myself).  What's the best way to get a track that someone works on in Garage Band into Scratch. A number of the students in our club like to work on sound tracks for their scratch projects in garage band, but getting the tracks into scratch is cumbersome. Right now their preferred method is to take two macs next to each other, have the one in scratch 'record' a sound and have the adjacent mac play the sound track (loudly).  Needless to say this is not an ideal situation.

Thanks,
--Chris

Well, I use Macs, and for one thing, The ONLY way to do that (without recording and trust me, you do not wan't to) is to go to apple.com and download a FREE Application called iTunes (for mac and PC) Then you can export your songs with iTunes by going to (share or export depending on the virsion of Garageband and then go to share or export to iTunes) and put them into scratch.

Your Welcome --- Jman720

chrisg wrote:

Hi I need help from folks who use Scratch on a Mac. (I have a PC so I can't really try this out myself).  What's the best way to get a track that someone works on in Garage Band into Scratch. A number of the students in our club like to work on sound tracks for their scratch projects in garage band, but getting the tracks into scratch is cumbersome. Right now their preferred method is to take two macs next to each other, have the one in scratch 'record' a sound and have the adjacent mac play the sound track (loudly).  Needless to say this is not an ideal situation.

Thanks,
--Chris

Chris, just get a youtube video or whatever your source is for your sound. MAKE SURE A MIC. IS NOT CONNECTED. Open up sound recorder, and just hit record! You can get High-Quality recordings without saving anything as a goofy file!

pntjr wrote:

burn it on to a data CD and pu it into your PC (I have one too)

If you have a desktop computer or laptop, you have a PC. Anyhow, this topic is older than time itself, so I figure we should leave it in retirement.