How To Get GarageBand Songs Off Your iPad
Posted on August 26th, 2012 in iPads, Music Tech Tips, Tutorials.Sharing GarageBand For iPad Files
As intuitive as GarageBand for iPad is, one of the more confusing tasks is getting songs off the iPad and on to your computer or other device. After creating some instructions use in my iPad music workshops and online courses I thought I would share it here as well in case others find it useful.
So, once you or your students have finished creating a piece, do the following:
- Tap the My Songs button to return to the main menu
- Tap and hold on one of the song icons
- Everything should start to “jiggle” and some new buttons will appear at the top left of the screen
- Tap on the Share button (it looks like a curved arrow)
From here, there are a few options:
1. You can share your song directly to Facebook, Youtube, Soundcloud (an audio-sharing site) or iMovie (available if you have iMovie installed on the iPad)
2. You can also share the song to iTunes or Mail
Sharing to iTunes
When you choose to share to iTunes you can choose one of two formats: as iTunes (audio) file, or as a GarageBand project file.
1. iTunes
Choosing iTunes means that the file will be exported as an audio file and will be playable in iTunes itself, or in any other program that accepts audio files. This means that you can do some further editing of the file in programs like Mixcraft, Acid Music Studio, GarageBand, Logic, Pro Tools and Audacity. Note that the audio file is just a single track – all the separate tracks that appeared in GarageBand on the iPad will be mixed down to one track, so it’s worthwhile making sure the balance between tracks is OK before you share.
2. GarageBand
Choosing the GarageBand option is only useful for people that have a Mac computer with GarageBand on it. If you choose this option, the project will be exported as a GarageBand file with all the separate tracks intact, allowing you to further edit (or add to) each one in the desktop version of the program.
Sync and Retrieve The File
Next, sync your iPad with your computer, then locate your file following the steps in the image below:
Click on the image for a large version.
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Thanks, I sure couldn’t find this info within the app.
thankx! great job, hard to find at apple support!
Thanks Lucaz!
Thanks so much! This is by far the most straightforward and easy to follow guide I have seen. You made it SO simple.
Thanks Sal!
Can I do this? I’m in UK and have Garageband on ipad 3. I have a song project i want to share with another composer. He has Garageband on his ipad2. He lives abroad so i want to email it to him. However, the file (as it’s all the tracks including audio) is over 25 megabytes !! Even when zipped. So, can i send this huge file over my normal broadband using Outlook?
Hi Paul,
I only send files up to around 10-15MB over email at most and for some people, even those sizes are a problem. A better way is to use something like Dropbox – you can set up a free account and then put your file in the Dropbox folder. You can then send your friend a link to the folder (it lives online) and he can download the file from there. I can highly recommend it – it’s a tool I use everyday! There’s more information about Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/home
All the best
Katie
Katie, would love to be able to export direct to my Dropbox account.. but how can I do it? Can’t do directly from Garage Band, still has to go via iTunes to get it off the iPad. Jonathan
Oh sorry, I see now you were referring to a previous question about sharing an already exported file, cheers
Making music is one of my aims in life & i use to find it very hard to do as i am just an beginer,but when Garageband came up i found it bit easier & very userfriendly than others & secondly you don’t have to buy all those expensive consoles & instuments to creatwe music, Ipad is awesome as it have garageband specially for a guy like me, still after i bought it i was not getting anything that easily to work it out because if you don’t know how it really works, then it can be very complex. It is very sophisticated, which now i feel is one of the best reasons to buy this app & Katie i wanted to ask that if u can provide me with some more user friendly tips, which you think can be useful for a beginer to kickstart work in Garage band, I have also opted for the garageband for ipad tutorials course from Mike Klinger which I have found very useful to me. I will be following this blog post as I need some more knowledge of people like you & him to sharpen my skills more.
Thanks,
Nik
Thanks Nik! Mike offers some great courses so you’ll definitely benefit from what he has to offer. I also run an iPads online course – especially for music teachers – and we spend quite a bit of time looking at GarageBand (you can find out more about that by clicking on the Online Course link in the menu bar). I’m hoping to publish some more tutorials in the near future too.
All the best
Katie
Hi katie, went through your blog and you have provided with this great information regarding garageband in a very impressive way. I work for WizIQ.com, we deal in online courses & we have a variety of music courses too(http://www.wiziq.com/courses/music), so if you are interested in teaching online, we can help you with that & with your way of presenting i believe, you will attract descent amount of students for youself.
Thanks,
Adi
Hi Adi,
Thanks for your comments – I’m happy you like the blog. I’m already running quite a number of online courses myself, but will take a look at the link you’ve shared. Thanks for making contact. – Katie
Great. Thanks a lot.
We ran into an issue with school students using Garage Band and submitting their work. Email doesn’t work for them to submit large files (the email system limits attachment size.)
Most other apps are able to “Open in” another app, so students can export documents (e.g. Pages etc) to our Webdav file management app (MobilEcho) so teachers can receive it from there and check their work. Garage Band doesn’t have “Open in” option. Students can’t use iTunes, because once they get the file off to their computer at home, they still have to get it to school somehow, and can’t email!
Our workaround was this:
1) From Garage Band a student shares the file to iMovie. The result is a blank movie with the song.
2) From iMovie export to Camera Roll.
3) From Camera Roll we then have a file that we can share to MobilEcho wirelessly.
Phew!
Hi Jonathan! Thanks so much for sharing this – it’s a workaround I hadn’t thought of. It’s the only frustrating thing about the GarageBand app – if only Dropbox was an option in the Share menu it would make life a lot easier. I agree that although email is a simple option, it’s not really workable when you have 20-30 students submitting assignments! I’m also recommending that teachers explore setting up a free Soundcloud account and testing that as an alternative. Thanks again – I really appreciate you sharing your experiences. – Katie