How To Speed Up A Track In Garageband

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Written By Sarah Barlow

Chief Music Officer

If you are recording music in Garageband and want to know how to speed up a song, or one track of a Garageband song, you have come to the right place.

There are numerous ways you can speed up the audio in Garageband. The process differs depending on whether you are wanting to speed up the whole song (project), just one track in the song, or part of a single Garageband track.

Each will be addressed in turn.

How To Speed Up A Song in Garageband

Speeding up the overall tempo, or speed, of a GarageBand song overall is quite easy.

In the top middle of the display area, the current tempo of the song is displayed.

Screenshot of Garage
Screenshot of Garageband Tempo setting, highlighted in pink.

In this particular screenshot, you can see that the tempo for this track is set at 93 beats per minute (bpm).

There are two different ways you can increase the tempo of a Garageband song.

The first thing you can do is double click on the tempo, then type in a new tempo using the numerical keys on your keyboard. Obviously, the higher the tempo, the more you are speeding up the Garageband audio.

I(f you would rather not have to use your keyboard there is a way to speed up the audio in Garageband using the mouse alone.

To use the mouse method, click down on the tempo number and hold (don’t release the click), and then drag your mouse down to decrease the Garageband song tempo, or drag your mouse up to increase the tempo.

This tempo adjustment method is the easiest way to adjust the Garageband playback speed.

How To Speed Up A Track In Garageband

The process of speeding up the tempo of one track within a Garageband song is different. Garageband does not provide a simple way to change the tempo of one track, separate from the overall tempo of the song.

You can easily adjust the tempo of a track so that it adjusts to the overall tempo of a song. But if you are wanting to intentionally make a certain track conform to a tempo other than the overarching tempo of the song then there is no simple way to achieve that.

To make a track conform to the same tempo as the other tracks of a Garageband song:

  1. Double click on the audio track, so the appears in the highlighted view at the bottom of the screen
  2. You will then have the option of either ‘Track’ or ‘Region’ view, select Region.
  3. Then click on the radio button labeled ‘Follow Tempo and Pitch’

To adjust the tempo of a track independent of the overall song tempo:

  1. Start a new project, create the audio and set it to the tempo you desire
  2. Export it as a loop
  3. Import the loop as a new audio track into your existing Garageband project, where you want the of tempo track placed

How To Speed Up Part Of A Garageband Track

It is also possible to change the tempo of a particular part of your song. This gives you the chance to speed up or slow down certain sections of the song, and you can also manipulate how the sound gets from one tempo to another.

The first thing you need to do is add the ‘Tempo’ track to your editor window. You do this by clicking ‘Track’ from the top menu, then clicking ‘Show Tempo Track’.

Alternatively use the Garageband shortcut by typing Shift + Command + T.

Screenshot of Garageband selecting ‘Show Tempo Track’.

Once you have the tempo track visible, you select points within your Garageband track that you would like the tempo to change.

When you click on the tempo line, a dot appears. You then click on this dot and move it up or down to adjust the tempo.

You can add as many dots as you would like to achieve significant influence over the way the tempo of the Garageband track evolves, and this method can also be used to fade in and fade out if you are trying to achieve that impact.

You can decide whether the tempo instantly changes, or slowly changes from one tempo to another.

This Youtube video gives a good demonstration of how this could be achieved.

If you want to know about how to slow down tracks in Garageband, we cover that in this post here.