Using loops on GarageBand for iPad

You should be familiar with loops if you've ever used GarageBand for the Mac. Loops are little snippets of music that are provided by Apple that you can use in your projects to build your music. There are bits of music for every instrument as well as vocal loops, sound effects and more.

Loops are available for you to use once you've recorded something into the timeline. Tap the icon that looks like a little loop near the upper-right. You can sort these by instrument, genre or descriptors, and you can tap a loop to preview it. To use it, just tap it and drag it onto your timeline. That loop will automatically be repeated until the end of the section that you're working on, though you can adjust this somewhat.

As we showed you in the previous episode, you can edit parts of your project by selecting them in the timeline. The same is true with loops. Tap your loop twice and you'll see your options come up. You can

trim your loop

, though that will shorten every recurring instance of that loop. You can also trim the loop so that it doesn't play through your entire section. On the other hand, you can also tap loop to have a section repeat through your project.