GarageBand 1: Optimizing Performance

  • Last Modified: June 07, 2005
  • Article: TA27607
  • Old Article: 93618
GarageBand performance depends on your computer's processor speed, the amount of memory installed, the speed of your hard disk, and the complexity of the song you are playing. Performance can affect whether a song plays and how many tracks, instruments, notes, and effects it can have.

Products Affected

GarageBand

While a song is playing, the playhead changes color from yellow through orange to red to show how much of your computer's processing power is being used to play the song. Yellow indicates moderate processor use, orange indicates high processor use, and red indicates that the song is close to not being able to play completely. If this occurs, a dialog will appear.

To optimize performance, try one or more of the following:

  • Quit other open applications.
  • Mute some tracks in the song.
  • Turn off some effects, especially more complex effects such as Amp Simulation.
  • If the song uses many Software Instrument tracks, convert some Software Instrument regions to Real Instrument regions. To learn how, see the "Tips" page.
  • Open System Preferences, click the Energy Saver tab, click the Options button, then choose "Highest" from the Processor Performance pop-up menu. Click the Sleep button, then turn off "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible."
  • Choose GarageBand > Preferences, click the Audio/MIDI tab, then click the "Maximum number of simultaneous tracks" button in the "Optimize for" section.
  • Choose GarageBand > Preferences, then click the Advanced tab. Choose lower settings from the "Real Instrument Tracks", "Software Instrument Tracks"or "Voices per instrument" pop-up menus in the Advanced pane.
  • FileVault can cause reading data from your Home directory to be significantly slower. To improve performance, open System Preferences, click the Security tab, and turn off FileVault, or move and keep your songs outside of your Home directory.
  • Your computer can read data more quickly from its hard disk than from removable media, such as a CD or DVD. Copy songs to your computer's hard disk before playing them.
  • Some external hard disks may read data more quickly than your internal hard disk. If you have a high-speed external hard disk, try copying songs to it before playing.

Note: Certain links that this article refers to may not be available in this context; please consult the relevant product Help guide page on your computer for full access to these links.