Using GarageBand to Transpose a Song Imported from iTunes

by David on January 22, 2009

Do you need to transpose the pitch of a song in your iTunes library? Then this post is for you! Be forewarned, though. You can make the song sound really bad by doing this, but if you stay within one or two half-steps (one or two clicks of the slider in GarageBand), you can get a song into a more playable (or singable) key.

If you recorded the song yourself, with your own “real instrument” or with a microphone, then GarageBand will transpose the key without any special intervention. The track will be purple in color, and you can just edit the track. But if the track is orange, you need to follow the steps below to transpose the song.

First, create a new song in GarageBand

Open GarageBand and create a new song. Command-N will create a new song, too.

Next, drag the song you want to transpose from iTunes into GarageBand

When you drop the song into GarageBand, it will create a track and color it orange. This means that it is an imported song. (In GarageBand a recorded song is purple).

Next, click in the track region to see the audio graph.

Here’s the trick! Press control-option-G and click the track again.

This trick is not documented in the help file for GarageBand, but it is a great tip for changing an imported track from orange to purple, making it available for more editing options.

Now we Edit the Track

Press the Show Editor button (or press Command-E).

The Show Editor button is highlighted in blue above.

Here’s how the Editor looks at this point:

Now, click the box for “Follow Tempo & Pitch”

Slide to Your Heart’s Content

But don’t get crazy. You can make the song sound pretty bad. If you want crazy vibrato or if you don’t mind the change in tempo, by all means, move the slider all the way to -12 or +12. A more reasonable amount might be (+ or -) 2.

There you have it. Your song has been transposed for you. It’s really amazing.

Press Play and Listen to your Transposed Song

That’s It, Take Care!

That’s all there is to it. Of course, this should be used with great care. The tempo and pitch are both changed. This might just be the gig-saving trick to get everybody playing in a new key. Let me know how you used this trick. Best wishes!

{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }

Thanks so much! March 3, 2009 at 6:29 pm

Works like a charm… exactly what I was looking for. Thanks so much! :-)

RV March 27, 2009 at 5:49 pm

This is exactly what I was looking for! thanks, -RV

christian April 27, 2009 at 9:24 pm

thanks alot! it works perfect

brett May 3, 2009 at 8:17 am

for our band, this was perfect! Thanks a million!

David Chusid May 10, 2009 at 6:49 pm

I don’t have a “follow tempo & pitch” check box! What version of GarageBand are you using? (Mine is GarageBand ‘08 4.1.2)

David May 10, 2009 at 8:58 pm

David: The example in this post is from iLife ‘08, so it should be the same as yours.

You must click on a track and then edit it (by pressing Command-E or by hitting the Edit Track button). When you are editing a track, the option to following pitch will appear. Since you are trying to edit an imported track, make sure it is purple (not blue) by pressing control-option-G as noted above.

Does this help?

I have upgraded to iLife ‘09 since writing this post, but it works the same way. The editing window looks different, but there is still a way to follow pitch.

commentor May 11, 2009 at 12:20 pm

We absolutely needed to transpose a key because the song was too low. This is the best! How do you figure it out?

Jake Gulledge May 18, 2009 at 12:57 pm

You’re a lifesaver dude! Thanks for the heads up. It works great!

anon May 29, 2009 at 12:40 am

Wow this is amazing thanks!
I was looking for this functionality in August and was trying to find it in Garage Band 4, but I could not find it. (I found the steps for the purple files, but not the orange ones and there was no easy way to convert orange into purple.) Thanks for showing us this!!

Too bad I did not read this in August, instead, I ended up paying $50 for the software ‘Transcribe!’ to transpose songs to learn. (Still, ‘Transcribe!’ is streamlined to do what it does, and do it well, so it’s not money lost. )

Shannon June 29, 2009 at 4:33 am

OMG! You are a life-saver!!! Thank you so much!

Santiago July 14, 2009 at 12:56 am

Thanks for the great advice, it is just amazing the possibilities that this program offers [as long as there is somebody willing to explore beyond the limits]

susie August 15, 2009 at 7:26 pm

I’m getting the track to go purple but when I change the Key it just doesn’t change. I’m in Garage Band 09.
Can you help please?
Thanks

Given September 9, 2009 at 6:58 am

Thats wat am talkn bout, thanx much love

Pepijn de Vos September 13, 2009 at 8:49 am

I used this to convert a song from Coldplay from the original A-flat to G for practice.

What is actually happening when you press ctrl-alt-G?
It seems like it’s some sort of secretly hidden feature or something like that.

Gina November 12, 2009 at 12:49 am

I love you so much!! this is going to help me with tons of work for my students!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nena November 16, 2009 at 11:22 pm

THANK YOU …THANK YOU….. THANK YOU……..

Nadia November 30, 2009 at 4:15 am

Thank you, thank you thank you! There is a song I’ve been trying to sing for years, but it’s simply too high for me. They don’t sell it in any other key, and I’ve been trying to transpose it using other means, but the quality was just so poor using any other software.
I used the help query in GB, but that was of absolutely no help. I had no clue about the orange/purple conversion until I Googled it.
This was exactly what I was looking for!
Thanks again!

Emma December 5, 2009 at 9:14 pm

Sweet! You’re a lifesaver! :)

Bridget December 13, 2009 at 11:02 pm

AWESOME!!!! I just found this just in time to transpose a song for an audition later this week. I have a sore throat and was so worried I wouldn’t be able to sing it but now I transposed it down by -1 and its made all the difference. Thank you so much!

mistaker maker January 9, 2010 at 8:26 am

A little bit of advice.
If you are using musical typing make sure you have it switched off when you try to do this.
Doesn’t work otherwise.

peace,
mskm

Sammeebee January 21, 2010 at 2:29 am

That’s amazing. Just what I wanted, thank you sooooooo much! X

oriol January 22, 2010 at 5:30 am

Thank you for this lesson!, I was really looking for such information!
By the way …
do you know how to convert a purple track to orange? that is, to convert a “real instrument recording” to an “audio file”
I also would like to know also how to change a “blue track” to an “orange track”.
I need this because sometimes if you have more than two tracks and you want to speed up some of them in different parts, then is a complete mess …
Thanks

oriol January 22, 2010 at 5:34 am

In the last post I said
“I need this because sometimes if you have more than two tracks and you want to speed up some of them in different parts, then is a complete mess …”
because when you turn a track to purple, you can transpose it but also change the tempo, and so slow down or speed up a track.

Mikaela February 15, 2010 at 10:39 am

OH great thank you so much for the lesson.
very helpful!

Now I have another question:
how do you lower a high pitch in a voice recording ?

Kathy March 10, 2010 at 6:15 am

THIS SAVED MY LIFE!

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