GarageBand/The Loop Browser

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In addition to letting you record your own musical performances (see the next chapter), GarageBand comes stocked with a library of musical building blocks called "loops". These beats, basslines, hooks, and other assorted bits of music are best taken along with other, more varied sounds that you record yourself, but for the purposes of learning how to use GarageBand, your first project will be composed exclusively from loops.

  1. This column is a filter for all the loops. You can click on the buttons to filter the loops out that you want. In this case 'Urban Bass' loops which show up on the right side of the panel.
  2. In this column you can see if a loop is a midi track or an actual recording. The loops with green icons are midi and the ones with blue icons are actual recordings.
  3. This column shows the name and also the description of the loop.
  4. This column shows the original tempo of the loop. When your project is a different tempo, the loop will adjust to it. If the tempos of your project and the loop differ greatly, the loop might not sound very good.
  5. In this column you can find the key of the loop. In case you do not know the meaning of key, use loops from the same key and they are likely going to sound nice together. Still you can use a mix of keys and this will make your song sound more experimental.
  6. This column shows the length of the loop in beats.
  7. You can also use the search function to search for loops.