Incredible music.
In the key of easy.
GarageBand is a fully equipped music creation studio right inside your Mac — with a complete sound library that includes instruments, presets for guitar and voice, and an incredible selection of session drummers and percussionists. With Touch Bar features for MacBook Pro and an intuitive, modern design, it’s easy to learn, play, record, create, and share your hits worldwide. Now you’re ready to make music like a pro.
Start making professional‑sounding music right away. Plug in your guitar or mic and choose from a jaw‑dropping array of realistic amps and effects. You can even create astonishingly human‑sounding drum tracks and become inspired by thousands of loops from popular genres like EDM, Hip Hop, Indie, and more.
To install GarageBand on Mac and MacBook, you have to follow some step, but they are extremely easy. Use the latest version of Mac OS X to install this app and the exact steps to install GarageBand is here. But before we move to the steps, first take a look at system requirements. System Requirements: To run GarageBand at full capacity, you. Get more Learn to Play lessons in GarageBand on Mac. GarageBand includes a complete series of Learn to Play lessons that teach you the fundamentals of guitar and piano. One guitar and one piano lesson are preinstalled on your Mac, and you can download additional lessons in GarageBand.
More sounds, more inspiration.
Plug in your USB keyboard and dive into the completely inspiring and expanded Sound Library, featuring electronic‑based music styles like EDM and Hip Hop. The built‑in set of instruments and loops gives you plenty of creative freedom.
Plug in your USB keyboard and dive into the completely inspiring and expanded Sound Library, featuring electronic‑based music styles like EDM and Hip Hop. The built‑in set of instruments and loops gives you plenty of creative freedom.
The Touch Bar takes center stage.
The Touch Bar on MacBook Pro puts a range of instruments at your fingertips. Use Performance view to turn the Touch Bar into drum pads or a one-octave keyboard for playing and recording.
The Touch Bar on MacBook Pro puts a range of instruments at your fingertips. Use Performance view to turn the Touch Bar into drum pads or a one-octave keyboard for playing and recording.
Plug it in. Tear it up.
Plug in your guitar and choose from a van-load of amps, cabinets, and stompboxes.
Plug in your guitar and choose from a van-load of amps, cabinets, and stompboxes.
Design your dream bass rig.
Customize your bass tone just the way you want it. Mix and match vintage or modern amps and speaker cabinets. You can even choose and position different microphones to create your signature sound.
Customize your bass tone just the way you want it. Mix and match vintage or modern amps and speaker cabinets. You can even choose and position different microphones to create your signature sound.
Drumroll please.
GarageBand features Drummer, a virtual session drummer that takes your direction and plays along with your song. Choose from 28 drummers and three percussionists in six genres.
GarageBand features Drummer, a virtual session drummer that takes your direction and plays along with your song. Choose from 28 drummers and three percussionists in six genres.
Shape your sound. Quickly and easily.
Whenever you’re using a software instrument, amp, or effect, Smart Controls appear with the perfect set of knobs, buttons, and sliders. So you can shape your sound quickly with onscreen controls or by using the Touch Bar on MacBook Pro.
Whenever you’re using a software instrument, amp, or effect, Smart Controls appear with the perfect set of knobs, buttons, and sliders. So you can shape your sound quickly with onscreen controls or by using the Touch Bar on MacBook Pro.
Look, Mom — no wires.
You can wirelessly control GarageBand right from your iPad with the Logic Remote app. Play any software instrument, shape your sound with Smart Controls, and even hit Stop, Start, and Record from across the room.
You can wirelessly control GarageBand right from your iPad with the Logic Remote app. Play any software instrument, shape your sound with Smart Controls, and even hit Stop, Start, and Record from across the room.
Jam with drummers of every style.
Drummer, the virtual session player created using the industry’s top session drummers and recording engineers, features 28 beat‑making drummers and three percussionists. From EDM, Dubstep, and Hip Hop to Latin, Metal, and Blues, whatever beat your song needs, there’s an incredible selection of musicians to play it.
Each drummer has a signature kit that lets you produce a variety of groove and fill combinations. Use the intuitive controls to enable and disable individual sounds while you create a beat with kick, snare, cymbals, and all the cowbell you want. If you need a little inspiration, Drummer Loops gives you a diverse collection of prerecorded acoustic and electronic loops that can be easily customized and added to your song.
Powerful synths with shape‑shifting controls.
Get creative with 100 EDM- and Hip Hop–inspired synth sounds. Every synth features the Transform Pad Smart Control, so you can morph and tweak sounds to your liking.
Learn to play
Welcome to the school of rock. And blues. And classical.
Get started with a great collection of built‑in lessons for piano and guitar. Or learn some Multi‑Platinum hits from the actual artists who recorded them. You can even get instant feedback on your playing to help hone your skills.
Take your skills to the next level. From any level.
Choose from 40 different genre‑based lessons, including classical, blues, rock, and pop. Video demos and animated instruments keep things fun and easy to follow.
Choose from 40 different genre‑based lessons, including classical, blues, rock, and pop. Video demos and animated instruments keep things fun and easy to follow.
Teachers with advanced degrees in hit‑making.
Learn your favorite songs on guitar or piano with a little help from the original recording artists themselves. Who better to show you how it’s done?
Learn your favorite songs on guitar or piano with a little help from the original recording artists themselves. Who better to show you how it’s done?
Instant feedback.
Play along with any lesson, and GarageBand will listen in real time and tell you how you’re doing, note for note. Track your progress, beat your best scores, and improve your skills.
Play along with any lesson, and GarageBand will listen in real time and tell you how you’re doing, note for note. Track your progress, beat your best scores, and improve your skills.
Tons of helpful recording and editing features make GarageBand as powerful as it is easy to use. Edit your performances right down to the note and decibel. Fix rhythm issues with a click. Finesse your sound with audio effect plug‑ins. And finish your track like a pro, with effects such as compression and visual EQ.
Go from start to finish. And then some.
Create and mix up to 255 audio tracks. Easily name and reorder your song sections to find the best structure. Then polish it off with all the essentials, including reverb, visual EQ, volume levels, and stereo panning.
Create and mix up to 255 audio tracks. Easily name and reorder your song sections to find the best structure. Then polish it off with all the essentials, including reverb, visual EQ, volume levels, and stereo panning.
Take your best take.
Record as many takes as you like. You can even loop a section and play several passes in a row. GarageBand saves them all in a multi‑take region, so it’s easy to pick the winners.
Record as many takes as you like. You can even loop a section and play several passes in a row. GarageBand saves them all in a multi‑take region, so it’s easy to pick the winners.
Your timing is perfect. Even when it isn’t.
Played a few notes out of time? Simply use Flex Time to drag them into place. You can also select one track as your Groove Track and make the others fall in line for a super‑tight rhythm.
Played a few notes out of time? Simply use Flex Time to drag them into place. You can also select one track as your Groove Track and make the others fall in line for a super‑tight rhythm.
Polish your performance.
Capture your changes in real time by adjusting any of your software instruments’ Smart Controls while recording a performance. You can also fine‑tune your music later in the Piano Roll Editor.
Capture your changes in real time by adjusting any of your software instruments’ Smart Controls while recording a performance. You can also fine‑tune your music later in the Piano Roll Editor.
Touch Bar. A whole track at your fingertips.
The Touch Bar on MacBook Pro lets you quickly move around a project by dragging your finger across a visual overview of the track.
The Touch Bar on MacBook Pro lets you quickly move around a project by dragging your finger across a visual overview of the track.
Wherever you are, iCloud makes it easy to work on a GarageBand song. You can add tracks to your GarageBand for Mac song using your iPhone or iPad when you’re on the road. Or when inspiration strikes, you can start sketching a new song idea on your iOS device, then import it to your Mac to take it even further.
GarageBand for iOS
Play, record, arrange, and mix — wherever you go.
How To Add More Bars On Garageband Mac
GarageBand for Mac
Your personal music creation studio.
Logic Remote
A companion app for Logic Pro.
Also in this series:
- Related podcast: The MacOS Audio MIDI Setup app
I've always used Audacity for digital recording projects, including ripping my vinyl collection for use in iTunes. A 64-bit Audacity build for Mac exists, but it doesn't work with VoiceOver. As a result, Audacity is no longer a viable option for blind Mac users.
I took this as a sign. It was finally time to learn GarageBand.
How would I learn it? Apple's GarageBand documentation was difficult to navigate, video how-to guides on the internet weren't helpful, and GarageBand information on AppleVis was scant. This GarageBand forum discussion has lots of information, but felt a bit like diving into the deep end of the GarageBand swimming pool.
I decided to learn GarageBand by starting with a simple project. My goal was to record and save a short passage of spoken dialog. I learned a blog's worth of beginner GarageBand material and took my first steps to eventually record a podcast. I'll blog about more complex GarageBand features as my knowledge grows.
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This blog covers
- Creating a GarageBand project
- Recording a short vocal track
- Using the playback controls
- Exporting to MP3 or the Music app
The information in this blog is accurate for GarageBand v10.3.4 running on MacOS Catalina 10.15.1.
Note: This blog is for users who know how to navigate controls and interact with groups using VoiceOver. GarageBand's many controls has turned me into a big fan of the Item Chooser (VO+I). I refer to controls by their exact name where appropriate, so you can easily locate them with the Item Chooser.
Note: Set VoiceOver verbosity to Medium when using GarageBand. With Low verbosity, GarageBand's many similarly named controls become impossible to differentiate.
Creating a Project
Launching GarageBand opens the Choose A Project dialog. Creating an empty project is confusing, as the dialog contains invisible text that VoiceOver reads as Create An Empty Project regardless of the current selection. Here's how I created my new project.
- In the Choose A Project dialog, find the table and select New Project.
- In the Collection, select Empty Project.
- Skipped over the Details. They're irrelevant for a simple spoken audio project.
- Find and select the Choose button to create the new project, or just hit Enter.
After the Choose A Project dialog closes, the New Track dialog opens. Here's how I created my vocal track.
- Find the radio button labeled Audio, Microphone and Line In and select it.
- The Details group controls track output. I didn't change any of these values.
- Find and select the Create button, or just hit Enter.
Recording
With a new project and empty audio track, you're ready to record some simple spoken audio. GarageBand is set up for music by default, which means it plays a click track while recording. That might be useful if I were Allen Ginsberg recording beat poetry, but it's not 1955 and I'm no Ginsberg. So I turned off the click track with the K keyboard shortcut.
Start recording with the R keyboard shortcut.
By default, GarageBand plays a four-click count-in prior to recording. I could disable it with Shift+K and start recording immediately after the R keypress, but I like the count-in and kept it enabled.
After the four-click count-in, I made my speech. To stop recording, I hit the Spacebar. Woo! I just recorded my first audio track in GarageBand.
If you make a mistake in your recording, use Command+Z to undo, then rerecord the track.
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In GarageBand parlance, recording creates a region. Using regions is essential to unlocking GarageBand's full potential and could be the subject of its own blog. For this blog, I'm starting simple, so I have only one region on one audio track.
Playback Controls
With the recording complete, you're ready to play it back.
GarageBand starts playback from the playhead position. After recording, move the playhead to the start of the recording with the Enter key. For those of you old enough to remember cassette tapes, this is the digital equivalent of hitting the rewind button.
To hear your recording, use Spacebar to start playback. GarageBand doesn't automatically stop playing at the end of the recording, it simply continues playing nothing. Stop playback by hitting Spacebar again.
Here's a little more about the playhead. VoiceOver announces the playhead position with bars and beats. This doesn't make a lot of sense in a spoken word recording, but it's still useful to move the playhead in small increments. The Comma and Period keys move the playhead backward and forward one bar.
GarageBand has a cycle feature to play the same passage repeatedly. Toggle cycling with the C key.
The default cycle region is the first four bars. Move the cycle region with Shift+Command+Comma and Shift+Command+Period.
To enlarge the cycle region beyond the four-measure default, do the following.
- With playback stopped, hit the C key to enable cycle mode.
- In the Item Chooser (VO+I), select the first item called Right Locator Handle.
- Interact with the Right Locator, and move it forward a measure at a time with VO+Right Arrow.
If anyone knows a better way to specify the cycle region, please post in the comments.
Exporting to MP3 or the Music App
To export the recording in MP3 format, open the Share menu and select Export Song To Disk. In the dialog, find and select the MP3 format radio button. You can listen to my MP3 audio clip by playing the following audio file.
![For For](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126351757/550068943.jpg)
To export directly to the Music app, select the Song To Music option on the Share menu. Grant permission for GarageBand to access and modify your Music Library. If you keep the Playlist field blank, GarageBand will create a default playlist called GarageBand and add your recording to it. The exported audio file uses M4A format.
Accessibility Issues
Audio software has specific appeal for visually impaired users. The recording, editing, mixing, and mastering processes should be non-visual and completely accessible. Sadly, many audio recording apps suffer from a lack of accessible design, and GarageBand is no exception despite Apple's accessibility pledge.
Many of GarageBand's features require VoiceOver users to be adept at using mouse-like functionality. For example, drag and drop to add a loop, and interact with resize handles to resize the cycle region. This type of mouse-centric design demonstrates a lack of consideration for blind users.
According to Apple, technology is most powerful when it empowers everyone. I hope Apple will take steps to resolve the following issues so that all users can access GarageBand's functionality.
Accessibility issues for low vision users:
- The main window has a dark background and most other dialogs and windows have light backgrounds. This interferes with the Invert Colors feature.
- The main window and some dialogs fail to respect the selection of Dark and Light Mode. Other GarageBand dialogs respect this setting.
Accessibility issues for blind users:
- Pressing an unsupported hot key produces a visual flash without audible VoiceOver feedback.
- Selecting tracks with Up or Down Arrow changes the track highlight without audible VoiceOver feedback.
- The Y keyboard shortcut shows or hides the Library without audible VoiceOver feedback.
- The track type is displayed using color coding only. There's no non-visual way to obtain the track type.
- Many control actions don't have menu equivalents. Because menu actions also include the keyboard shortcut, there's no simple way to discover the keyboard shortcut to activate the control. As an example, there is no menu equivalent to start or stop playback, and therefore no easy way to learn that the keyboard shortcut for this action is the Spacebar.
- The Quick Help feature, which displays a popup window when mousing over a control, is not accessible.
- The Automation feature is not accessible.
Finally, Apple's GarageBand documentation lacks Next and Previous links, making it nearly impossible for blind users to read sequentially.
Conclusion
GarageBand and Audacity are quite comparable. They're both powerful multi-track digital recording tools, they're both free, and accessibility issues make both applications a challenge to learn and use effectively. GarageBand outshines Audacity due to superior effects with real-time controls and a large library of prerecorded loops.
I'm glad I took the time to work through the accessibility issues and learn simple recording with GarageBand. As a possible future podcaster and amateur musician with only moderate needs, GarageBand enables me to easily produce polished audio. I won't be going back to Audacity. GarageBand is my new digital recording solution.
GarageBand has several features I've barely begun to explore, providing opportunity for future blogs. I'll post about Loops, Regions, and other features as my knowledge grows. You can look forward to future articles on editing, mixing and mastering, and podcasting. Let me know what you're doing with GarageBand—or what you want to be doing—in the comments below.
Reference - Keyboard Shortcuts
How To Get More Bars On Garageband For Mac Catalina
This is a non-exhaustive list of GarageBand's keyboard shortcuts. It covers the shortcuts I use in this blog plus many others. For a complete list, see GarageBand's keyboard shortcuts.
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Description | Shortcut |
---|---|
Toggles playback; also stops recording. | Spacebar |
Starts playback from beginning of selected region. | Shift+Spacebar |
Moves the Playhead position back or forward one bar (as determined by the project tempo). | Comma and Period |
Moves the Playhead to the beginning of the recording. | Enter |
Moves the Playhead to the end of the last region. | Option+Enter |
Moves the Playhead to the beginning of the selected region. | Control+Home or Function+Left Arrow |
Horizontal zoom out (shrink track view). | Command+Left Arrow |
Horizontal zoom in (expand track view). | Command+Right Arrow |
Toggles the metronome click track on/off. | K |
Toggles the count-in prior to recording. | Shift+K |
Toggles the cycle mode. | C |
Moves the cycle region forward and backward. | Shift+Command+Comma or Shift+Command+Period |
Toggles the Musical Typing window. | Command+K |
Selects the track, with VO focus in the Tracks group. | Up and Down Arrow |
Creates a new track. | Command+Option+N |
Creates a new audio track. | Option+Command+A |
Duplicates current track. | Command+D |
Renames the selected track. | Shift+Enter |
Deletes the selected track. (The Tracks menu lists this keyboard shortcut as Command+Delete, but Command+Backspace appears to be correct.) | Command+Backspace |
Splits the selected region at the Playhead position. | Command+T |
Joins regions that have been multiple-selected. | Command+J |
Mutes the selected track. | M |
Solos the selected track. | S |
Toggles recording on the selected track. | R |
Toggles the Smart controls window for the selected track. | B |
Toggles the audio editor window for the selected track. | E |
Toggles the Library window. | Y |
Toggles the Loop browser window. | O |
reads help tag. Useful for getting the extent of a region. | VO+Shift+H |