
Optimizing GarageBand performance
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 project you are playing. Performance can affect whether a project plays and how many tracks, instruments, notes, and effects it can have.
While a project 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 project. Yellow indicates moderate processor use, orange indicates high processor use, and red indicates that the project 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.
- Lock tracks, especially Software Instrument tracks or tracks that use many effects.
- Mute some tracks in the project.
- Turn off some effects, especially more complex effects such as Amp Simulation.
- If the project uses many Software Instrument tracks, convert some Software Instrument regions to Real Instrument regions.
- Disable recording for all tracks, including the selected track, by clicking the Record Enable button in each enabled track's header. You can also disable recording for all tracks by selecting the master track.
- Open System Preferences, click Energy Saver, click the Options button, then choose Highest from the Processor Performance pop-up menu. Click the Sleep button, then deselect "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible."
- Choose GarageBand > Preferences, click Audio/MIDI, then click the "Maximum number of simultaneous tracks" button in the "Optimize for" section.
- Choose GarageBand > Preferences, then click Advanced. 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 folder to be significantly slower. To improve performance, open System Preferences, click Security, and turn off FileVault, or move and keep your projects outside of your home folder.
- Your computer can read data more quickly from its hard disk than from removable media, such as a CD or DVD. Copy projects 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 projects to it before playing.
