GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Troubleshooting

The truth is, most of the troubleshooting you’ll do in GarageBand has to do with accommodating its horsepower demands. You’ll know there’s a problem when you see the Playhead turn orange or red, get skips in the music, or see a note that “Some parts were not played.” In that regard, Chapter 10, the one about speed, is the real troubleshooting chapter.

Still, a few other things can go wrong, or at least can baffle you. Here, for your headache-relieving pleasure, are recipes for solving the most common problems.

Trouble with Loops

Loops, as described in Chapter 2, are among the greatest joys of GarageBand. So when they don’t work, they’re among the biggest disappointments.

Your Loop Browser is Empty

Adding more loops to GarageBand isn’t just a matter of stuffing them into a certain folder on your hard drive. You also have to make GarageBand aware of them. To do that, you force GarageBand to index any new loops, building an internal card catalog of which loops you have and where they’re stored.

If anything goes wrong with GarageBand’s loop index, you may discover that all of the buttons in the Loop browser are dimmed and no loops appear in its list. Other wackiness can result, too, like loops that exist in name only or simply misbehave.

In all of these situations, the solution is to rebuild the GarageBand loop index. You do it like this:

1. Quit GarageBand. In the Finder, open your hard drive window. Then open the Library → Audio → Apple Loops Index folder (see