Reset Garageband

The higher the BPM, the faster the song will play. By default, Garageband starts a new project with a BPM of 120, which is a very common tempo for many types of songs. Key – This button lets us change the musical key of our project. By default, Garageband starts a new project in the key of C Major. Go to GarageBand - Preferences - Audio/MIDI, if it says there are 0 MIDI devices detected, press the “Reset MIDI Drivers” button and it should detect the PEDpro. There is no more setup required to start using MIDI. Your MIDI commands will come through to GarageBand and affect your virtual instrument in real time. Therefore, GarageBand is a better alternative for people who don’t have access to a computer, or who would rather just do it all on their iPhone. With this app, you can trim your favorite parts of a song and set them as your default ringtones, or contact-specific ringtones, provided they’re under 40 seconds in length. Time for another reading roundup, where I highlight helpful iPad articles I’ve recently added to my reading list. In this collection you’ll find tips on using your iPad when traveling, getting AirPlay to work with apps on the iPad, resetting your Apple ID and using GarageBand on the iPad to make a podcast.

Cutting and editing music in Garageband is as simple as using the (Command + T) option on your keyboard.

For instance, you line up the “Ruler,” to the point you want to isolate, and then use the (Command + T) function. You can do this in two separate areas of your workspace, in the “Piano Roll Grid,” or in the regular workspace.

One can also edit the music using the Marquee line within the “Piano Roll Grid.” For example, when you zoom in on the audio file, you can highlight the part of it you want to eliminate down to the tiniest detail.

You simply highlight it by hovering the ‘+’ sign over the Audio Region, clicking and dragging over the part you want to delete and then hit the “delete” button your keyboard. This comes in handy for audio rather than MIDI recordings.

However, you have to make sure that you’re isolating just one track, whether it be a sample, an audio recording, or a software instrument track, etc. You can’t cut and edit more than one piece of music at once. It has to be just one.

by the way, I have a list of all the best products for music production on my recommended products page, including the best deals, coupon codes, and bundles, that way you don’t miss out (you’d be surprised what kind of deals are always going on).

How To Undo the Previous Command (Command + Z)

In case you make a mistake, you can always hit the (Command + Z) function to go back to where you were before.

As I’ve explained in my 12 things you should know about Garageband article, one of the great things about Garageband is that all of the commands used for day-to-day use on the computer are transferable to the software. It’s all fairly intuitive.

Many of the commands that you’ve grown accustomed to as a Mac user are all the same functions for Garageband.

Use Melodyne 5 As An Editing Tool for Vocals and Instruments

My comprehensive tutorial on Melodyne 5 explains everything this amazing plug-in can do. Celemony’s Melodyne 5, from Plugin Boutique, is an editing tool that allows you to spot correct vocal recording errors and other mistakes that are made during the recording process.

You can use this to do things that you would never be able to do with Garageband’s default pitch correction tool, includng spot-correcting errors, converting tracks to MIDI, and the list goes on and on.

How To Zoom In And Out (Command + Left and Right Arrow Key)

You can zoom in and out on your MIDI region to see the audio file in more detail by separating your fingers or moving them closer together.

This is especially useful for when you’re trying to edit minute details, that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to see and thus, isolate.

You can also zoom in and out through the (Command – Left or Right arrow key).

Merging Tracks Together (Command + J)

Another incredibly useful editing tool in Garageband is the (Command + J) function, which allows the user to essentially combine or merge the tracks together.

This stops the user from having to copy and paste every little individual track. Instead, one can just merge all of the music together as one track, and then put it on a loop.

To do this, just select the two or more regions you want to combine and hit the (Command + J) function and it will all come together.

It’s a great way of saving time and energy during the editing process.

Using The Cycle Area For Editing

The cycle area on top of the workspace in Garageband is used for repeating the same bar of a recording over and over again. There are a few purposes for this, including practicing a part just before recording, multiple takes, and editing.

For instance, a user can loop the same part repeatedly to judge whether the proper changes have been made during editing.

In other words, if you’ve recorded vocals (using my guide), and forgot the lyrics during one part and said “um,” or something like that, you can loop the same part over and over again, and figure out what needs to be eliminated down to the last millisecond, without having to press “Play” repeatedly.

You know that Cycle Mode is on when it’s displayed as a yellow trip in the top portion of the ruler. When it’s turned off, it’s no longer yellow.

There are two ways of turning it on and off:

You can press the Cycle button within the control bar, or simply press ‘C’ on your keyboard.

Changing at what point Cycle Mode starts and stops:

Select the top part of the ruler, then drag your cursor to the desired starting and stopping part of the recording.

How to Edit Using The Re-Size Pointer (Trimming)

Another way of editing the music is through the “Resize Pointer,” which is at the end of every piece of the “event,” as Garageband’s “Quick Help” section calls it.

Take the cursor and grab your recording, moving it from side to side, left to right. Using the “Snap To Grid” setting/function allows for the music to literally “snap” back to the line, and thus, stays more in time.

Snap to Grid Function (Command + G)

It’s a lot easier to edit music in Garageband when you have this option selected within the “Edit” menu on the toolbar on top. You can turn this function on and off, by hitting the (Command + G) function.

Essentially, as I mentioned above, what this does is it literally “snaps” the music right back to the lines on the grid, that way whenever you edit a piece of music, it falls back exactly on the beat.

If you want, you can turn this function off and see how difficult it is to edit music in Garageband. It becomes super annoying, however, there are moments where it’s worth your while to turn it off.

How To Copy and Paste in Garageband (Command + C and Command + V)

Once you’ve isolated the part you want, hit the (Command + C) function to copy it, and then the (Command + V) function to paste as many copies of it that you want.

Usually, after I’ve created a melody with the Steinway Grand Piano and PianoForAll as an accompaniment (their website), I’ll open up a new “Software Instrument” track, and then copy and paste the music into a different instrument track.

This function allows you to fill out your mix, without coming up with an entirely different musical section. In many cases, you can create an entirely different piece of music, just by copy/pasting it onto a new Instrument track.

Another Way Of Copying And Pasting an Instrument Track

1) Select the Audio file you want to copy.

2) Hold down the “Option” key.

3) Drag the cursor to the left or right

4) While holding down the “Option” key, release the mouse and voila, you’ve just copied and pasted a new MIDI region.

Important Things To Note When Chopping Music

Whenever you want to isolate an audio recording, it’s worth noting that it may be helpful to understand at what beats-per-minute the song is, that way you can trim music at a specific beat.

This is especially important whencreating music with samples which I’ve explained how to do before.

For instance, in a track that I made using the theme song written by Bear McCreary for The Walking Dead, I had to figure out the BPM of the track, that way I could make a different drum track for it.

If you don’t have the proper BPM set up, it’ll be almost impossible to make drums for the song, because nothing will line up, and will sound unsynchronized.

Then, when you try and add other melodies through software instruments and so on, synchronization will be almost impossible. So knowing the Beats Per Minute is essential.

The best way of doing this is just counting along to the song by hitting the table with your hand or bobbing your head along to the beat.

Then, grab a metronome – or use one online, on your phone, or in your DAW – and match the tempo of the song with how fast you were slapping the table.I’d recommend using a real metronome like this one from Amazon because they’re better to use.

There are other ways of figuring out the BPM of a song, of course, but this is how I do it.

(Every person knows how to count the BPM intuitively because whenever you’re jamming along to a song by bobbing your head, you move along to the beat. I’ll write a more in-depth article on this topic later).

Moreover, you can check whether you’ve calculated it properly or not through the way the MIDI Region lines up in your DAW.

*There are other options available online, including songbpm.com, and beatsperminuteonline.com. The latter is superior for calculating the beats-per-minute because it’s manual and can be used for the most obscure of music. However, the former is more for commercially available songs.

Using the Score Editor to Fix Your Music (For People Who Can Read Music)

I imagine this topic will be too much for the average DAW user, because frankly, most music producers, especially nowadays, don’t know how to read music. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just the way it is.

1) You can access the Score Editor simply by double-clicking on your music or “Midi Region.”

2) And then go down into the Smart Controls, and click on the button that says “Score.”

In this section, you can edit the music through standard notation which I talked more about in my guide on using the score editor. I actually use this every once in a while, because I learned how to read music when I was a kid (although, I’m not nearly as good as I was as a kid).

I usually use it for creating bass lines. Sometimes, it’s harder to hear if your bass line is off-key, so you can either push it up a few octaves so you can hear it or, you can look at the standard notation to figure out if the music is off-key or not.

Naming Your Tracks

If you want to name your track, use the “Secondary Click” function (“right-click,” and that’ll bring up your options where you can see where it says, “Rename Track.”

You can do the very same thing to the actual MIDI Region.

This seems like an obvious one because it is. If you’re going to be making music in a DAW, naming each track region will save you a ton of time, running through each one, trying to figure out which one is the kick and which one is the snare.

Reordering Tracks Through Drag and Drop

By clicking on and dragging the “Track Headers,” Garageband users can actually easily move each software instrument track to and from wherever they want.

For instance, grouping the guitars together, or the kick and bassline. You don’t have to manually move the MIDI Region either; it will move with the Track Header.

Time Quantizing

As you’d know if you’ve read my piano roll guide, rather than dragging and dropping each note so it falls exactly on the grid-lines in the Piano Roll, which is normally what I would do, you can use the Time Quantize function down in the DAW’s Smart Controls.

For instance, if you’ve recorded music with a MIDI Keyboard, and some of the notes are offbeat, using the Time Quantizing function will bring each note to where it needs to be, rather than doing it all manually (more time quantizing tips in my guide).

1) First things first, in the Software Instrument track, choose the option “Region,” rather than “Notes,” in the Smart Controls.

2) In your Smart Controls, underneath the setting, “Time Quantize,” select 1/8 Note, and keep your Quantizing strength at around ’75 to 100.’ This should suck in all of the notes accordingly.

Obviously, there are more Timing settings one can use, but this is as far as I’ve ever used the quantizing function.

Some people argue against the use of Time Quantizing, accusing the practice of robbing the music of its “soul.” The argument goes that there are idiosyncrasies and personality traits eliminated from the music through the quantization practice.

For instance, when playing a guitar riff, if something is slightly off-key or not in proper time, the inaccuracy and “incorrectness” of the note may precisely be, the exact thing that gives it its unique flavor.

The Blues Scale, probably one of the most used scales in guitar playing, is the epitome of this. The Blues Scale isn’t classically “correct,” due to its flattened fifth in relation to the minor pentatonic scale, or flattened third in relation to the major pentatonic.

How to Select and De-Select Options Way Faster

This is another one that I just came across. Rather than manually selecting, say, for example, the “Mute” button on a bunch of tracks, and having to go through each one individually, there is a way of hitting all of them at once.

For instance, if I want to hit the “Mute” button on 10 of my 20 Software Instrument tracks, I’ll hover my cursor over the “Mute” button, and then click the track-pad and hold it while I drag the cursor down the screen. This will hit every “Mute” button on the way down.

It’s the same practice for turning them off.

Conclusion

That’s all for now. I hope this helped you out. Be a trooper and share it on social media.

Changing the tempo in Garageband is as easy as walking and chewing bubble gum.

Let’s do like DeFranco and just jump right into it.

To change the tempo in Garageband

1)Click on the number in the Tempo Display which sits at the top-center of Garageband in between the Key Signature, Time Signature, and Beats Position display
2) Double-click on the Tempo number to highlight and then delete it
3) Type in the desired tempo.

Now, using this tool is helpful in a number of different ways, but for the moment, we’ll talk about another handy feature recently introduced into the Garageband user’s arsenal.

I believe in 2014 (although I could be wrong), Apple released the new tempo system where you can introduce different tempos at different times of the song.

That’s right, you can actually play a song at separate tempos in corresponding regions of your music, and if you have one of the newer iPad Pros like the one I recommend from Amazon, there are even more things you can do.

In fact, you can change the tempo of your track as many times as you’d like or even in the middle of the song like I showed in my other guide. It doesn’t all have to be the same pace.

How To Change Only A Portion Of A Song’s Beats Per Minute

First things first.

1) Head into the Garageband settings where it says, “Track.”

2) Select, “Show Tempo Track” (or use the ‘Shift + Command + T’ shortcut)

3) Now, you’ll see that Garageband has shown the tempo track where you can adjust at which point precisely, the tempo will change.

4) Similar to the volume automation function, create automation dots wherever you want to begin.

5) Create one dot where you want the automation to begin. Click the other dot where you want the automation to end.

6) Now, drag and drop the line created to your desired tempo, and you can turn off the ‘Tempo Track.’

It functions a little bit different than the yellow Automation lines which I explored more in-depth in my automation tutorial, but it still works perfectly, nonetheless.

*Unfortunately, you can’t adjust the tempo by decimal places in the same way that you can with volume automation. Although, minuscule changes in tempo aren’t particularly useful anyway.

Tips and Tricks Involving Tempo Changes

The ‘Enable Flex’ button.

This button down below in the smart controls allows one to do a couple of different things.

1)To bring up the ‘Enable Flex’ option, double-click on your ‘MIDI Region’ within the DAW’s ‘Workspace.’

2) Then, click on the option, ‘Track,’ rather than ‘Region,’ and you’ll see right away three different options, ‘Pitch Correction,’ ‘Limit to Key,’ and ‘Enable Flex.’

The ‘Enable Flex’ function is useful for changing the tempo and key signature of an uploaded sample – or un-checking the box in case of the opposite, which we’ll explore right now.

How To Change The BPM of an Audio Recording

Firstly, you can change the BPM of an audio recording by hitting the “Enable Flex,” and then adjusting the BPM at the top centre of the DAW.

1) Click “Track” down in your smart controls.

2) Check the box “Enable Flex.”

3) Change the BPM at the top-center of the DAW.

You’ll notice that it’ll actually change the BPM of the audio recording now, rather than just adjusting the track’s position in the Workspace according to each beat and time signature.

*It’s worth noting that if you don’t want to change the audio recording at all, and just want to re-arrange the way in which the recording falls in time for the sake of synchronization, just don’t hit the ‘Enable Flex’ button. But we’ll explore that in the next section below.

How To Change The Song’s BPM Without Changing The Audio

From what I understand, it’s not actually possible to do this in Garageband without jumping through significant hoops. However, there is a way of doing it in a way that takes a bit of time.

You can’t adjust the beats-per-minute without changing the way the audio sounds in the DAW, unless, it’s an audio recording, rather than a MIDI file. However, through the use of Apple Loops, one can actually do this(more on what can be done with Apple Loops in my guide).

If you adjust the beats-per-minute then pretty much every sound in GarageBand will change unless you’ve used loops.

Let’s say, for example, you’ve just uploaded an Apple Loop in your Workspace.

If you want to adjust the tempo of your music, without touching the tempo of the Loop, it’s as simple as changing one of the settings in the Smart Controls.

Down in the Smart Controls, in the ‘Region’ section, there is a button that says, “Follow Tempo and Pitch.” If you haven’t checked the box, the Loop won’t change in accordance with Tempo and Key Signature adjustments

For a step-by-step process:

1)Highlight the Track and Go into the Smart Controls.

2) Click on ‘Region.’

3) Uncheck the box, “Follow Tempo and Pitch.”

This should allow you to change the rest of the song, without messing with the tempo and pitch of the Loop. Unfortunately, however, we can’t use this feature for MIDI or audio recordings.

How To Change The Tempo Of Just One Track

Due to the limitations of GarageBand as a software, there are some things we cannot do, but on the other hand, many we can. With that said, it’s still a great program for a beginner or intermediate music producers and musicians.

Fortunately, through trial-and-error, there are ways of making things possible with a little bit of innovation, initiative, or even just practice – on that note, PianoForAll (their site here), is one way to brush up on your MIDI keyboard skills. While it’s technically “not possible” to change the tempo of just one track region in GarageBand, it actually is if we create Apple Loops.

It takes a little bit of work to make this happen, but it is possible. Basically, what you want to do is upload a MIDI region into Apple Loops, save it as a “One Shot” loop, rather than a “Loop.” And once the Loop has been added to the Loop Library , you can add it to an Audio Track Region in your DAW without worrying about pitch or key signature adjustments.

Without further ado, here is the step-by-step process:

1) Highlight the track of which you want to change tempo.

2) Now click “File” in Garageband’s Toolbar.

3) Click the button, “Add Region to Loop Library,” or, you can use the Keyboard Shortcut, “Control + Shift + o” (the lower-case letter not the number).”

4) It’ll bring up the options for adding loops to the library, and you want to click on the check-box that says, “One-Shot.” So now you’ve created your loop.

5) Make a new “Audio” track as you normally would: (I use the Shift + Command + A option because it’s a lot faster).

6) Go into your Loop Library now by clicking on the “Loop” icon that looks like a hose on the top-right-hand side of the DAW.

How To Reset Garageband On Mac

7) Find the loop you just created.

8) Now, drag and drop the loop into the Audio Track that you just created. *It’s important to note that you have to drag and drop the Loop into an Audio Track Region rather than a MIDI one.

9) And voila! Now you have a region of music in your DAW that won’t change whenever you adjust the tempo (beats-per-minute) or the key signature.

How To Change The Tempo By Just One Decimal Point

This is quite straightforward, but it’s a feature that not a lot of people are aware of. GarageBand users can actually adjust the tempo of the music by decimal points, rather than just whole numbers.

It’s intuitive. Just type in the number including the decimal places you want where you normally would in the BPM/Tempo part of the DAW.

How To Identify The Tempo Of A Song

As I explained in my editing guide,identifying the tempo of a song can be challenging as a beginner, but after a few tries, you should be able to figure it out.

Every person, or most of them anyway, has the ability to find the beat of music naturally.

For instance, when a person nods their head to the beat or dances to the music, one has to have a natural feel for the tempo and beats-per-minute to do so.

There are a number of different ways of determining the tempo, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll outline how I do it.

Essentially, what I do is I tap my finger on the desk along to the beat of the track, and then I begin typing in the number that I feel is the closest to the Tempo, then I turn on the metronome in GarageBand and make sure that it matches the music.

Usually, it takes more than one try, but I’ll continue typing numbers until it has matched completely.

If you don’t already own a metronome, I highly recommend getting one. They’re great for practicing as well as recording.

Even though Garageband comes with one built in, an authentic wooden metronome like this one from Amazon is a lot better to use.

Reset Garageband Defaults

In my editing guide, I explained that you can tell that the song/sample/track is perfectly in time based on how the region lines up in the DAW. It works the same way as it does in more advanced DAWs like Pro Tools from Plugin Fox.

In the image above, you can see that the sample doesn’t line. up perfectly because the tempo hasn’t been set correctly. *It’s important to note, however, that this won’t work if you have the option, “Follow Tempo and Pitch,” turned on.

As you can see, the tempo is set at 90 beats per minute, the correct BPM, so the sample lines up perfectly in the DAW.

What Is The Best Tempo For GarageBand

For obvious reasons, this is a question whose answer depends almost entirely on what kind of person you are and the style of music you’re into.

Reset Garageband Ios

Because I’ve been making a lot of hip-hop/jazz/rock style tracks lately, I usually create songs between 90 and 120 beats per minute.

Some people choose 150 beats-per-minute. For reference, I’ve included a chart below to illustrate each BPM setting.

You’ll notice that the terminology is in Italian, which is normal for standard musical notation due to its origins in Italy and Germany.

As you can see from the tempo ranges I’ve laid out, each range has a specific quality, and it’s up to you to figure out what tempo you want.

However, a good rule of thumb is in between 90 and 120 beats per minute, although, truthfully, it doesn’t matter that much, because the tempo is just how fast the beats are counted.

Conclusion

Reset Garageband On Ipad

That’s all on tempo for today. I hope it helped and you enjoyed it too. Do me a favor and share this on social media to help out all of your producer friends.