How to fade out in GarageBand

GarageBand has a one-click fade and it is tucked away where nobody looks: Mix, then Fade Out.

It creates a volume automation curve on the master track that fades the last few seconds of your project to silence. It works out where your project ends and places the fade there.

The limitation is that it always applies to the very end of the project and always uses its own length. If you want a fade somewhere else, or a different duration, you edit the curve it made or draw your own.

To undo it, choose Mix and Fade Out again to toggle it off, or delete the automation points from the master track.

Press A to show automation on a track. A horizontal line appears across it, set to Volume by default.

Click on the line where you want the fade to begin to place a control point. Click again where you want it to end, and drag that second point down to the bottom. The volume now falls between them.

That first point matters. Without it, the fade starts from the very beginning of the track rather than where you intended, which is the most common mistake with automation.

Drag points to adjust, and drag a point off the track to delete it. On a fade you can also curve the line between two points by dragging its middle, which gives a smoother result than a straight ramp.

Intro music that plays, drops under the host, and comes back at the end is four automation points, not two.

Place one just before the voice starts at full volume, one just after at the lower level, then a mirror pair around where the voice stops. The music falls as the voice arrives and returns when it finishes.

Set the ducked level far lower than feels right while you are working on it. Background music under speech generally wants to sit around 15 to 20 per cent of the voice level, and it always sounds too quiet when it is the thing you are listening for.

GarageBand also has an automatic Ducking option in the track header, which drops other tracks whenever the designated track has signal. It is quicker and less precise, and worth trying before doing it by hand.

For a short fade at the edge of one region, you do not need automation at all. Select the region, open the editor, and use the Fade In and Fade Out controls there.

This is the right tool for smoothing an edit that clicks, or softening the start of a clip that begins abruptly. A fade of a few hundredths of a second is inaudible as a fade and removes the click entirely.

Region fades belong to the region, so they move with it. Automation belongs to the track and stays where you put it, which matters if you are still rearranging.

Three to five seconds is a normal outro fade. Ten seconds sounds like the show cannot decide whether it has ended.

Do not fade speech. A sentence fading away reads as a technical fault rather than a conclusion. Cut speech cleanly and fade only music and ambience.

And if the music already resolves on its own, let it finish rather than fading over its ending.

For a podcast where every episode should sound the same, drawing the same curve weekly is where consistency slips. Hilite applies the same intro, outro and fade treatment on every export, and we make it, so weigh that as you like.