How to Edit songs in GarageBand

See your sounds

Tap the handle on the right of the track instrument icons and drag it out to the right. This displays volume controls and various monitors alongside the tracks themselves, making quick mixing easy.

Silence and solos

The speaker and headphone icons at the left of each track control Mute and Solo. Mute silences the selected track; Solo turns all the other ones off, leaving only the soloed track or tracks playing.

Trim a track

To trim a recording, just tap it. You’ll see grab handles appear at the left and right; drag them to trim the track. Tap again to see additional options for copying, pasting, splitting, and renaming.

Go global

You can adjust global settings – the tempo, time signature, key and metronome – by tapping the icon of a spanner at the top right. You can also add an automatic fade-out by checking a single option.

Loop the loop

To loop a section of a recording, trim it to just the part you want to loop, and then tap it to show the track options. Select Loop and the selected part of the track will now repeat until the end of the current section.

Adjust entire tracks

Tap the Track Settings icon – it’s the “sliders” symbol at the top right – to change how the track sounds. You can add echo and reverb, adjust the equalizer and add compression to even out the volume. These apply to just that track.

Hit the beat

Don’t worry if the timing is a bit off in one of the virtual instrument recordings: quantizing automatically fixes the timing of notes in any MIDI track. Tap the Track Settings icon, then Quantization. Select the timing you want.

Make MIDI better

The MIDI editor enables you to correct any bum notes or add new notes in MIDI-based tracks. Double-tap the track, choose Edit and press to move notes around. The strip at the left shows where you’re playing on the instrument.

Go FX crazy

If you tap FX, you can mess with your tune while it plays back live. The left panel is for changing the overall sound, the right is for repeating the current bit, and the middle for adding live effects. Play around and see how it sounds!