Customise the Loop Browser in GarageBand on Mac

When thousands of loops are installed on your hard disks, finding a particular Apple Loop can be a daunting prospect. Fortunately, you can use a number of key criteria — location and scale — to restrict your search or browsing results. You can also sort the search results.

Restrict loops by package

In GarageBand for Mac, click Loop Packs at the top of the Loop Browser and in the pop-up menu that appears, choose the Loop Pack or folder with the loops you want to view.

If you have one or more Loop Packs installed on your computer, you can display only the loops from a particular Loop Pack, or only the loops included with GarageBand. If you have Apple Loops from third-party manufacturers installed on your computer, you can choose to display just third-party loops. If you have created your own Apple Loops, you can display the loops for your user account, or loops shared by all users on your computer.

Restrict loops by scale

In GarageBand for Mac, choose Any, Minor, Major, Neither or Both from the Scale pop-up menu.

Restrict loops by loop type

In GarageBand for Mac, choose All Loops, Audio Loops, Software Instrument Loops or Drummer Loops from the Loop Types pop-up menu.

Sort Loop Browser results

In GarageBand for Mac, click any of the column headers to sort the results by that column type, in ascending or descending order.

Note: If the Tempo and Key columns aren’t visible in the Loop Browser, you can turn them on via the Loops preferences.

Change the keyword on a button

In GarageBand for Mac, do one of the following:

Control-click the button, choose a keyword category from the shortcut menu, then choose a new keyword from the submenu.
Drag a button over another button to switch the keywords on the two buttons.

To revert to the original layout of keyword buttons, click the Reset button in the Loops preferences.

Helpful?

GarageBand User Guide