How to make your first song in GarageBand for Mac, from a Drummer track to an exported MP3How to make your first song in GarageBand for Mac, from a Drummer track to an exported MP3

GarageBand, Apple's free music app for the Mac, can take a complete beginner from an empty project to a finished song file without any other software.

The current version is GarageBand 10.4.14, released on 22 April 2026. Its Mac App Store listing says it needs macOS 15.6 or later and is a 732MB download, before the extra sounds described below. That covers every Apple silicon Mac and the Intel Macs that can run macOS Sequoia. The steps here follow Apple's own GarageBand for Mac user guide, in the order we would suggest a newcomer works through them.

How do you start a new project in GarageBand?

Choose File, then New, or press Command-N. That opens the Project Chooser. Under Project Templates, pick Empty Project if you want to build the song yourself. Before clicking Choose, open the Details triangle in the lower-left corner, where you can set the tempo with a slider or Tap Tempo, pick a key and whether it is major or minor, change the time signature, and choose the audio input and output.

Apple's guide says projects are saved by default in a GarageBand folder inside your Music folder. The first File, Save asks for a name and a location.

Download the full Sound Library first

A fresh install does not include everything. Choose GarageBand, then Sound Library, then Download All Available Sounds, and click Get. Apple's guide gives no size or count for the full library, so do it on a fast connection with room to spare.

Add a drummer

Choose Track, then New Track, or press Option-Command-N, select Drummer and click Create. GarageBand makes an eight-bar region by default, or one region per section if the project already has arrangement markers. To add more, Command-click an empty part of the Drummer track, or click the plus icon at the right edge of the last region. The Drummer Editor is where you choose a genre and a drummer, each with a different playing style.

Build the rest from Apple Loops

Click the Loop Browser button in the control bar, or choose View, then Show Loop Browser. Loops can be found by instrument, genre and feel, previewed before you add them, and marked as favourites. Apple colours them by type: blue loops are audio recordings, green loops are MIDI that can be edited note by note in the Piano Roll and Score editors, and yellow loops carry a Drummer performance.

Once added, a loop plays at the project's tempo and key, so loops recorded at different speeds and in different keys work together.

Record your own part

Click the header of an audio track, or a guitar or bass track, and move the playhead to where you want to start. Turn on the metronome and count-in, press R or click the Record button, and press the Space bar to stop. The take appears as a new region on the track. Press B, or choose View, then Show Smart Controls, to adjust the sound of the selected track, usually EQ, reverb and instrument controls.

How do you export a song from GarageBand?

Choose Share, then Export Song to Disk. GarageBand offers AAC, MP3, AIFF and WAVE, with a Quality pop-up menu, and can save to the Mac or to iCloud Drive. It trims silence from the start and end, and can export only the cycle area or the selected regions.

The Project Chooser also has Learn to Play, with Guitar, Piano and Artist Lessons, each shown full screen with video and an animated fretboard or keyboard. Apple's guide notes that further lessons are sold separately.

Our take

The order above is deliberate. A drummer and two or three loops give a beginner something that sounds like a song within minutes, before they have recorded a note, and that early result is what keeps people going. Recording comes after, over a backing that already works.

Two small choices save trouble later. Export to MP3 when the song is going to a phone, a friend or the web, since it plays almost anywhere, and to AIFF or WAVE when it is going on to another app, because those keep the full quality. And do not skip Learn to Play if you cannot yet play an instrument. Loops will carry a first song, but the lessons are the part of GarageBand that makes the second one yours, and a free piano or guitar course built into the same app is easy to overlook.

GarageBand is also the first rung of a ladder Apple sells. Logic Pro opens GarageBand projects, which Apple's Logic Pro guide lists among its supported formats, so nothing made here is stranded. Logic costs $199.99, or £199.99 in the UK, as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, or comes inside Apple Creator Studio, which Apple prices at $12.99 a month or $129 a year in the US, and $2.99 a month for students and teachers. APPDOOK's advice is to stay in GarageBand until it says no to something specific. For a first song, it rarely will.

Two caveats. GarageBand 10.4.14's release notes list only stability improvements and bug fixes, so these steps describe the app as it has stood since April. And the macOS 15.6 requirement is a reminder that the app will eventually move past older Macs. Intel Macs are already near that line, since Tahoe is the last macOS Apple will ship for them.