Song settings in GarageBand

When

working with GarageBand

, there are a few things you'll want to set up before getting down to creating a song. One of these is the tempo of the song while the other is the key of the song. Both of these will affect many core aspects of your project. Tapping the wrench icon in the upper-right will bring you to Song Settings.

In Song Settings, you can turn the Metronome on or off, and also change the tone of the metronome. Count-In allows you to change the count-in time, which is how many beats will play before the song actually starts recording. Tempo controls the speed of the song; higher tempo equals a faster song, while a lower tempo will slow it down. All of the parts of your song will adjust their speed to match tempo. You can also change the key of your song from here.

One way that

iPad version of GarageBand

differs from the Mac version is in the way it breaks up a song. The puzzle piece icon near the upper-left allows you to access the Song Section menu, which is where you can create song sections, adjust the length in bars or even duplicate the section. You can also turn Automatic on in the song section settings, which will tell GarageBand to continue a section until you choose to stop. Tapping on a particular section will bring you to that section. You can also tap All Sections to view all of the sections at once.

Another thing you might want to turn off if you're a beginner player is quantization. This automatically adjusts the notes of your song to make up for incorrect timing. Tap the icon that looks like a set of three mix sliders to bring up the instrument settings. Tap on Quantization and you'll be brought to a menu where you can set how accurate you want the quantization to be. Lower values, like 1/32 or 1/64, will tell the app that you want to use those notes in your song, while higher values like 1/4 or 1/8 limit the song to quarter notes or eighth notes, respectively.