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Building Your Song Over Time

Now that you’ve set up a groove with your rhythm section, you’ll want it to last longer than a few measures. For example, you might want your song to be the same length as an iMovie project or iPhoto slideshow you made.

You can stretch your loops to any length you want in the timeline.



Tips

Zoom the timeline to see your whole song

You can use the zoom slider below the track headers to see more of your song when you’re trying to decide how long to make your song.

Quickly change tempo with the tempo slider

You can experiment with the tempo of your song with the tempo slider. Click the tempo in the control window and then drag the slider up or down to increase or decrease the tempo while your song is playing back.

Switch the beat ruler between beats and time

Sometimes you may want to view the beat ruler in seconds, for example if you’re trying to make a song that’s a specific length. Other times you may want to view it in beats, so you can organize your loops relative to one another and keep them within the rhythmic structure of your song. In the control window click the clock icon to view absolute time, or click the note icon to view musical time.

Drag the playhead to any point you want to listen to

In addition to using the transport controls, you can drag the playhead to any part of your song for fast and precise alignment of loops or playback.

Undo changes

Whenever you work on creative projects you’re bound to make something you don’t like. You can Undo as many steps as you’d like to take your project back to where you liked it. Simply choose Undo from the Edit menu.

Resize the GarageBand window

To make the best use of your display area, you can drag the lower-right corner of the GarageBand window, or click the green window control to enlarge the GarageBand window to better fit your display.

Steps

Extend your rhythm section loops

  1. Hold down the Shift key and click your drum loop, and then click the bass loop.
  2. Position the cursor in the upper-right corner of one of the loops until the looping icon appears.
  3. Drag the loops to play for 16 measures (until you see the number 17 in the timeline ruler). Notice that the loop duration is marked by a bubble shape for each loop.
  4. Click the Cycle button to turn off cycling.
  5. Click the Play button to hear your song.
  6. Click Tempo and use the slider to hear your mix at different tempos.