I can almost guarantee that at some point in your Garageband career, you’re going to want to get more sounds and add some new instruments and/or loops to the ‘vanilla’ selection that comes with the program.
Maybe you’re looking for a specific instrument sound or want to fill out your project with loops from a particular genre.
Whatever the reason, you’ll be happy to hear that there are a few different options for adding to Garageband’s sound library.
Free Garageband Loops
Way way back in ye olden days of 2013, I put a video together demonstrating how you could grab around 1GB of free Garageband compatible Apple loops by signing up for a free account with Loopmasters.com.
Never heard of Loopmasters.com? They’ve been around since 2003 and pride themselves on offering flexible sample libraries for producers and musicians who require top quality playing from seasoned professionals to integrate into and inspire their music.
Well, that same technique still works today, though Loopmasters chopped the amount of free loops on offer by half. Still, that’s 500MB of 100% free loops, which ain’t too shabby.
Here’s a refresher on how it works:
Register for a free account at Loopmasters.com
They’ll send you a confirmation email.
Log into your shiny new account, head to ‘My Account’ and choose the ‘My Orders’ tab. Click ‘Download’.
When the download is complete, Extract the .zip file then open Garageband. Open the loop browser and drag the Loopmasters welcome samplepack folder right into the bottom half of the loop browser
When prompted, make sure you choose to move loops to the loops folder
Boom! 500MB of completely free loops for you to get stuck in to! I would definitely recommend giving them a go, though you should note that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to use any of your demo loops in that world changing, #1 über hit you’re putting together – the creators of the loop packs do still own the rights to those loops, until you purchase the pack they came from..
Even More Garageband Loops
Ready for more? Find out how to truly supercharge your Garageband instrument library or even increase your available loops a thousand fold in my latest video:
Phew! I think that about covers it. Apparently I really wanted you to Bear quite a lot of things in mind :/ Obviously not enough caffeine was consumed while I was recording this…
You can sign up for your free account/grab those free loops over at Loopmasters right here:
Loopmasters.com
You can have a gander at what Mainstage has to offer right here:
Mainstage
That should give you plenty to keep yourself busy with – let me know what you make of these new sounds (and share the projects you’ve used them in) in the comments below, or get in touch via The Garageband Guide Facebook page or on Twitter!
