How To Use Yamaha MG10XU With GarageBand explains how to use the mixer as a USB audio interface, a USB sound card, an audio mixing console, perform Yamaha mg10xu setup, and as a mixer connected to a Mac computer.
The video below will play the companion video to refer to in understanding the instructions in this post.
Channel One Settings – Yamaha MG10XU
Let’s look at the first channel. I’ve got a phantom-powered microphone plugged in. There’s a red button lit up signifying the use of a phantom-powered microphone. Notice the “Peak” and the “Gain” are set up below what some tutorials list as minimums. My experience is that a phantom-powered mic is very sensitive.
GarageBand Audio Signal
On this screen, I have already set up an audio track of input and recorded a short sample. Let’s check the metering. It’s green and that’s good. Yellow is ok and red is bad. It’s bad because it indicates overloading the track and digital distortion.
I want to show you how two tracks would be recorded using the Yamaha MG10XU mixer. First I’ll record a guitar track, then a vocal track. I’m using headphones in order to hear the metronome for the beat. The “TO MON/TO ST” button should be out.
GarageBand Tracks recorded through Yamaha MG10XU
On this screen, you can see the two tracks I recorded. I’ll show you how I set the metronome using the “Record / Count In” option set at one measure. It’s hard to hear from the computer speakers so I’ll show you how to use my studio monitors to more easily hear what was recorded using the mixer.
Studio Monitors output with Yamaha MG10XU
To wrap up – one more thing you might want to know is how to use studio monitors instead of computer speakers. Let’s go through that. The first thing to notice is that Channel one “Peak” and “Gain” knobs are turned all the way to the left. That’s because the microphone is very sensitive and feedback is quite possible. The volume is controlled on Channel 9/10. But to begin I also turn it all the way to the left. Make sure the USB button is pressed in. Also the button showing “TO MON/TO ST is pressed in also. Note that cables for the speakers are plugged into the “Stereo Out”. Now I’ll start playing the track and raise the volume on Channel 9/10 gradually. Follow along with the companion video, (link is above), to hear the example.
Conclusion
This article outlines how to use the Yamaha MG10XU with GarageBand.