Using GarageBand With VoiceOver

Hello,

I have been working on a GarageBand tutorial for VoiceOver users on MacOS for a little over a year now. It is currently more than 250 pages long. I hope to complete it in the next few months. I too had a hard time figuring out how to use GarageBand in spite of being a former computer programmerand I too searched for tutorials for the VoiceOver user with no luck. The need for a comprehensive tutorial is still unmet. I haven't decided how to publish my comprehensive tutorial yet but that will come. I will post to this forum when it is available.

In the meantime, I will be happy to try to answer specific questions if the effort to provide an answer isn't too much of a burden on my time and energy.

A quick tip for MacBook Pro users is that a full external keyboard is the only way to go.

Sorry, I didn't realize I should reply to a previous post instead of posting a new one.

Adding the Gain Plug-in to a GarageBand Track

Have you ever encountered the situation where you have maxed out the volume of a track and it still isn't loud enough? One way to deal with this situation is to turn up the volume on the Master track (press Command+Shift+M to show the Master track). After raising the volume of the overall project, you can then turn down the volume on individual tracks as needed. This effectively raises the volume on those individual tracks whose volume is not turn down. Another technique is to double a track. It should become somewhat louder because now there are two of them.

Or, you can use a plug-in to add additional gain to the track. Here's how.

Note: In the following instructions the letters VO are shorthand for VoiceOver. When VO is used in combination with other keys to describe a keyboard shortcut, VO means that you are to use the Control+option keys in combination with other keys. For example, VO+Spacebar means that you are to simultaneously press the Control key plus the Option key plus the Spacebar.

1. In the Tracks Header Group, select the track that needs gain.
2. Press the letter "B" to open the Smart Controls Editor window.

Note: If, after pressing the letter “B,” VoiceOver fails to say, Smart Controls Group, press the letter “B” two more times. This will close and reopen the Smart Controls window. For some reason, VoiceOver almost always speaks when the window opens the second time.

3. The VoiceOver cursor should now be on the Smart Controls Group. Interact with it by pressing Shift+VO+Down Arrow (Shift+Control+Option+Down Arrow).
4. VoiceOver should tell you that the VoiceOver cursor is on the Smart Controls Toolbar. Interact with it.
5. VoiceOver should tell you that the VoiceOver cursor is on the Show Inspector checkbox. Press VO+Spacebar to check it.
6. Stop interacting with the Smart Controls Toolbar by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow.
7. VoiceOver should tell you that the VoiceOver cursor is back on the Smart Controls Toolbar. Press VO+Right Arrow one time. VoiceOver should say, “Scroll Area.”

Note: Checking the Show Inspector checkbox in step 5 caused the Scroll Area to appear in the Smart Controls Group. Conversely, unchecking the Show Inspector checkbox will cause the Scroll Area to be hidden.

8. Interact with the Scroll Area by pressing Shift+VO+Down Arrow.
9. Locate the Plug-ins button at the bottom of the Scroll Area. Pressing VO+End will often jump the VoiceOver cursor right to it. Otherwise, use your VO+Up and Down, or VO+Left and Right Arrow keys as needed to locate the Plug-ins button.
10. With the VoiceOver cursor on the Plug-ins button, press VO+Spacebar to activate it.
11. Press VO+Right Arrow several times until the VoiceOver cursor lands on the Audio FX group. This is the name of the Plug-ins table.
12. Interact with the Audio FX Group by pressing Shift+VO+Down Arrow.
13. The VoiceOver cursor should now be on the first entry in the plug-ins table. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the last entry in the table.
14. If the VoiceOver cursor lands on either an Insert pop up button or an Audio FX pop up button, press VO+Spacebar to activate it. Otherwise, press VO+Left Arrow until the VoiceOver cursor lands on either an Insert pop up button or an Audio FX pop up button. Then press VO+Spacebar to activate the button.

Note: Since the Plug-ins table can contain four or more plug-ins, these last two steps make sure that when the Gain plug-in is added to the table, it will be added to the end of the table.
The Insert pop up buttons and Audio FX pop up buttons are essentially the same thing. They both represent empty slots where plug-in can be added to the table.

15. When either an Insert pop up button or an Audio FX pop up button is activated, VoiceOver should say something like: menu, checked, No Plug-in.
The VoiceOver cursor should now be on the first item in a menu. Except for the first item, the menu contains a list of Plug-in categories. When the first item, No Plug-in, is checked, it means that this slot in the plug-ins table is currently empty. This is what you want because your goal is to add a Gain plug-in to the table. To do this, press VO+Down Arrow until the VoiceOver cursor lands on the Utility submenu.
16. Press Right Arrow one time. VoiceOver should say, Gain. This may be the only plug-in currently in the Utility category.
17. Press the Enter key to select the Gain Plug-in. This will add the Gain plug-in to the table, and open the Settings window for the Gain plug-in.
18 When the Settings window first opens, VoiceOver should speak the name of the track that you selected back in the Track Headers Group. This track name text field lets you know that you haven’t accidentally selected a different track along the way. Press VO+Right Arrow several times until VoiceOver tells you that the VoiceOver cursor has landed on the Scroll Area.
19. Interact with the Scroll Area. VoiceOver should say something like:
“In scroll area 3 items Gain:” The VoiceOver cursor is on a text label that says, "Gain:".
20. Pressing VO+Right Arrow one time brings the VoiceOver cursor to the dB slider. Pressing VO+Right Arrow a second time brings the VoiceOver cursor to the percent slider. Changing the value of one slider automatically changes the value of the other slider, so choose which control you prefer to adjust. For example, you could adjust the percent slider up to 90 or 95% to boost gain above the default value of 80%.
21. When done, stop interacting with the Scroll Area by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow.
22. Press VO+Command+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Setting Window Close button. Press VO+Spacebar to activate it.
23. The Settings window should close, and the VoiceOver cursor should be in a new window that you haven’t yet seen in this exercise. It is the Gain plug-in’s main window. It contains three controls:

• Bypass checkbox – Checking this box turns the plug-in on, and unchecking it turns the plug-in off.
• Setting button – Takes you to the Settings window you just visited. Here you can adjust the gain level.
• List button – Takes you to the menu of plug-in categories that you were in earlier. Here you can replace the current plug-in by selecting a different one. Or, you can select the No Plug-in option to remove the currently selected plug-in from the table.

24. Stop interacting with the Gain window by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow. VoiceOver should say something like: Out of Gain Group. The VoiceOver cursor should now be back in the Plug-ins table on an item labeled Gain Group. The Plug-ins table may contain other plug-ins such as Compressor Group or Channel EQ Group. And it should contain some empty slots labeled either Insert pop up button or Audio FX pop up button. Interacting with a plug-in (group) allows you to make changes to it.
25. Stop interacting with the Plug-ins table by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow. The VoiceOver cursor should be back in the Smart Controls Inspector Scroll Area.
26. Stop interacting with the Inspector Scroll Area by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow. The VoiceOver cursor should be back in the Smart Controls Group. Stop interacting with the Smart Controls Group by pressing Shift+VO+Up Arrow.

Note: There are navigation shortcuts but in the instructions above, I chose to demonstrate step-by-step navigation so that people with less experience may better understand the overall process.

Conclusion

You have now added a Gain plug-in to your track. You may need to interact with the track to adjust its volume control.

The above steps are intended to show you how to quickly add a Gain plug-in to one of your project tracks. Of course, you can generalize these instructions to add any of the other available plug-ins to a track as well. There is much regarding plug-ins that I didn’t discuss. For example, the order in which plug-ins occur in the table makes a difference since the outputs of earlier plug-ins become the inputs to subsequent plug-ins. You can search the Web for suggestions on order of placement (such as guitar effects chains) or you can just experiment.

Unfortunately, VoiceOver doesn’t speak the labels for all plug-in controls. The Gain plug-in happens to be easy to use. Some plug-ins, however, contain many more controls. When VoiceOver doesn’t tell you what slider controls or buttons are for, it becomes more of a challenge to use those plug-ins without sighted help.

Good luck

So one of the things I remember from my studio session days when I was younger; the engineers would, even with software, be able to quickly back up and replay a small segment. Just a bar, half a bar, etc.
Now I get using regions, etc. But what about when you're trying to specify a region? You want to be able to select and play in place. I see this described with the mouse all the time, dragging along a line, etc. Any way we can select in a track with VoiceOver? Seems like you could more quickly remove something by selecting it and then removing it if it's just one small sour note, etc.
Are there VO methods for doing this?

Thanks,

Leo

Using the GarageBand Tuner with Greater Speed and Accuracy

Though the tuner in GarageBand is accessible using VoiceOver, as with any digital tuner, it can be frustrating at times. This post discusses my method for improving the speed and accuracy when using the GarageBand tuner.

Before I had access to a digital tuner, I tuned my guitar by ear, using recordings of the six pitches of standard tuning. This seemed to work well enough, but once I had access to a digital tuner, I realized that tuning to the six recordings wasn’t very precise, given my less than perfect hearing. So, the discovery of accessible digital tuners was exciting. Talking Tuner for iOS is one such tuner. GarageBand on the Mac is another.

If you are familiar with digital tuners, you know that you pluck a string, perhaps on a guitar, and the digital tuner indicates whether the string is below the desired pitch, or above it.
If the string is below the desired pitch, you tighten the tuning peg, and if the string is above the desired pitch, you loosen the tuning peg. You incrementally adjust the tuning peg until the digital tuner indicates that the string is in tune.

The way the GarageBand tuner on the Mac works is that you pluck a string, and a small display in the tuner dialogue indicates the closest note (pitch). For example, if you pluck the six string on your guitar, the note “E” might appear in the display. Suppose that you want to tune your six string to “D”. Loosen string six until the display indicates “D”. Since the display shows pitch in semitones, on the way from “E” to “D,” “D#” will appear before “D”. The next, step is to fine tune the string. Following the note display is the number of cents display. The cents display indicates how far above or below the string is from exact pitch by showing a number between positive fifty and negative fifty, with zero being exact pitch. So, for example, if the pitch display indicates “D,” and the cents display indicates negative 27, you tighten the tuning peg a bit. You repeat the process of plucking the string and checking the cents display until you arrive at zero. If you go too far and end up with a positive number, you know to loosen the tuning peg. In this way, you tighten or loosen the string until the cents display indicates zero. Therefore, when the note display indicates “D” and the cents display indicates zero, the guitar string is perfectly tuned to “D”.

Note: To hear numbers spoken as negative, you will want to set VoiceOver verbosity to speak most or all punctuation.

Now, if only getting the cents display to zero was as easy as it sounds. Actually, it is easy sometimes. But at other times, the cents value seems to resist getting to zero, jumping above, below, above again until you want to pull your hair out. So, to preserve your sanity, you might have to accept that negative two or positive one is close enough. And, instead of taking only a few minutes, tuning six strings might take a half hour. This is not just a Mac problem, I experience the same issue on iOS.

As discussed above, tuning my guitar by ear is not reliable, given my less than perfect hearing. And, using just the digital tuner has its own challenges. I have discovered that combining the two methods increases reliability and speeds up the process of tuning.

First, I created a GarageBand project which I named Standard Tuning. I then added a new software instrument track for each guitar string I wanted to tune. I created six tracks for the standard tuning of a six string guitar, and four tracks for the standard tuning of a four string electric bass. Interacting with the Tracks Header Group, the following tracks are shown in my project:

Track 1 “E4” group
Track 2 “B3” group
Track 3 “G3” group
Track 4 “D3” group
Track 5 “A2” group
Track 6 “E2” group
Track 7 “Input 1, Acoustic Guitar” group
Track 8 “Input 2, Electric Guitar/Bass” group
Track 9 “Bass G2” group
Track 10 “Bass D2” group
Track 11 “Bass A1” group
Track 12 “Bass E1” group
Track 13 “Master Track” group

My external audio interface supports two input channels. When I want to tune an acoustic guitar, I plug an instrument microphone into input one. Note track seven above. My interface has an hi-z switch on input two, so input two is where I plug in an electric guitar or bass. Note track eight above. Both tracks have Input Monitoring enabled.

Each guitar/bass track contains a single MIDI note. I have also created a one measure cycle region, and the cycle function is turned on by default. Furthermore, all guitar and bass tracks are muted by default (but not tracks seven and eight) .

Following is the procedure I use for tuning

1. After opening the Standard Tuning project, and ensuring that the guitar to be tuned is plugged into the appropriate input source, arrow up to either track one (guitar) or down to track nine (bass).

2. After selecting a track, press the letter “S” to solo the track. (Soloing a track overrides the muted status.)

3. Press the Spacebar to begin cycled playback of the soloed track.

4. Arrow down to either track seven or track eight, depending on the type of guitar to be tuned.

5. Jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Control Bar Toolbar, and check the Tuner checkbox. If The Tuner checkbox is dimmed, go back to the Tracks Header Group and make sure that either track seven or eight is selected.

6. When the Tuner dialogue opens, VoiceOver should verify (speak) the selected input source.

Note: Recall that the selected track is playing all the while.

7. Press VO+Semicolon to turn on VO lock.
With the VO keys locked, you can press the left and right arrow keys simultaneously causing VoiceOver to speak the item under the VoiceOver cursor. It is faster to pluck a guitar string and then quickly reach up to simultaneously press the two arrow keys than using two hands to press VO+F3. If the VO keys are not locked, pressing the two arrow keys will toggle quickNav on/off. I don't use QuickNav with GarageBand.

8. Since VO lock is enabled, simply right arrow past the 440 Hz reference pitch indicator, and stop on the note display. If a guitar string hasn’t been plucked in the last few seconds, the word “None” should be displayed.

9. Pluck the guitar or bass string corresponding to the selected track’s note, i.e., the note that is currently playing. Then reach up and simultaneously press the left and right arrow keys. VoiceOver should speak the name of the note, for example, “E”. If this is the note you want, go to the next step. Otherwise, use the string’s tuning peg to tighten or loosen the string, and then recheck the note display by simultaneously pressing the left and right arrow keys. Repeat this step until the desired note is displayed.

10. Next, right arrow one time to the Cents display. Pluck the guitar or bass string corresponding to the selected track’s note. Then reach up and simultaneously press the left and right arrow keys. VoiceOver should speak the number of cents. If the number is a positive number, loosen the tuning peg a bit and recheck the display by simultaneously pressing the left and right arrow keys. If the number is negative, tighten the tuning peg a bit and recheck the display. Repeat the process until zero is reached.

Note: If zero is reached, then great. However, if the tuner resists landing on zero, you can at least hear both the reference pitch (the track being played) and the pitch of your guitar. On those occasions where the cents number seems to jump above, below, above, you can hear that it isn’t the guitar string’s pitch that is jumping around, but rather, it is the tuner itself. Because you can hear both pitches, you have far greater confidence that the guitar string is acceptably in tune, even if the best number you can arrive at is something like positive one or negative one.

Note: I prefer to approach zero from the negative number side. In other words, I prefer to arrive at zero by slowly tightening the guitar string rather than loosening it.

11. Once the string is fine tuned to your satisfaction, press VO+Semicolon to turn off VO lock.

12. Press VO+J. This command will jump the VoiceOver cursor out of the tuner dialogue and into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. Press VO+J a second time and the VoiceOver cursor jumps to the selected track in the Tracks Header Group. The selected track should be either track seven or track eight.

Note: VO+J is the Go To Linked Item command. It is one of my most used navigation commands. If you are not familiar with it, play around with it with various combinations of editor windows open. One very important use for this command is when the Piano Roll editor is open. VO+J will eventually jump the VoiceOver cursor to the selected MIDI note in the Piano Roll Layout Area.

13. Arrow to the track whose guitar note is currently playing, and press the letter “S” to un-solo the track. The track’s muted status should resume and the note should stop playing.

Note: In the Tracks Header Group, I try to use the arrow keys without the VO keys because, for some reason, the VO+Arrow Keys don’t always move focus to the newly selected track, as they should

14. Arrow to the track corresponding to the next guitar string to be tuned, and press the letter “S”. That track’s note should start playing.

15. Arrow back to either track seven or track eight to reselect the appropriate input source.

16. While holding down the VO keys, press F2 twice to open the Window Chooser dialogue. Down arrow to the tuner dialogue and press the Enter key. The VoiceOver cursor should be back in the tuner dialogue. Press VO+Semicolon to turn on VO lock again

17. Repeat steps ten through sixteen until all strings are tuned. Once finished, you can simply close the Standard Tuning project.

Note: Guitarists will know that E2 is the note (pitch) designation for string six on a six string guitar in standard tuning.
It is important to understand that different manufacturer’s of MIDI software and hardware may have somewhat different note designations for the exact same pitch. For example, GarageBand designates standard tuning E2 as E1. This means that to match standard tuning E2, the note in the GarageBand Piano Roll Layout Area must be:

Note at 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick , E1 layout item

If you are not familiar with how MIDI data is represented in the Piano Roll editor, the word “Note” specifies that the item is a MIDI note event.
At 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick, is the starting position of the note on the time line. E1 is the pitch of the note.

Therefore, to match standard tuning E4 , the note in the Piano Roll Layout Area must be E3.
Standard tuning B3 must be designated in the Piano Roll Layout Area as B2.
Standard tuning G3 must be designated in the Piano Roll Layout Area as G2.
Standard tuning D3 must be designated in the Piano Roll Layout Area as D2.
Standard tuning A2 must be designated in the Piano Roll Layout Area as A1.
Standard tuning E2 must be designated in the Piano Roll Layout Area as E1, and so on.

Conclusion

All of the above may seem overly complicated, or even overkill, but the process goes very quickly once you know what to do. The benefit , at least according to my experience, is that I can tune my guitars and bass with much greater speed and accuracy.

All rights reserved, including copyright.

In GarageBand the second item in the control bar is the ‘Quick Help’ button. Is there any way to get VoiceOver to read the coaching tips that it provides? Thanks to Bo Jingles for helping to make the Accessibility features of Mac OS more Accessible.

Cheers,

John

Has anyone had any luck using automation in Garageband, I, E, setting a parameter to change during a track. automation is a super essential tool in audio editing, and it's the one thing I have never figured out how to do in Garageband. I'm pretty sure that it's simply not accessible.

Automation is not accessible using VoiceOver and-or the OS Mouse Keys function. In essence, automation is based on the ability to move control points around on automation curves, and to select values for each condtrol point. The one automation feature that VoiceOver can take advantage of is the Fade Out function. Fade Out is a good example to illustrate how automation works. A control point is moved to a point on the time line. Let's say that you would like to begin fading out at around eleven seconds before the end of the song. A control point would be moved to that point and then you would select the volume parameter and the volume level. You would then set another control point at, let's say, seven seconds, this time choosing an even lower volume level, and so on. Fortunately, the Fade Out function does a good job, because the VoiceOver user can't access the controls to adjust the duration of the Fade Out. It would be nice to have a Fade In funcgtion, or to be abel to construct one, but, unfortunately, we can't do it. The only global control I've ever been able to access is transposition track.
It involves use of both VoiceOver and extensive use of the OS Mouse Keys function. It is incredibly tedious and time consuming to achieve. So much so, that I didn't attempt to write up the procedure at the time that I learned it.

Accessible automation is high on my wish list. Another wish is accessible meter levels.

All rights reserved, including copyright.

This isn't directly related to the topic but I've heard the Logic Pro X is completely accessible if not more accessible that Garageband. I even took a basic class on it.

Again, not completely related, but Reaper is also highly accessible even with the Mac. It's a fully featured DAW, though it does unfortunately not come with its own virtual instruments like Garage Band. Still one of the best workstations on either Mac or PC in terms of power and accessibility - not to mention the low, low cost.

Any decent Digital Audio Workstation should allow you to map automatable parameters to the jobs and sliders of an external device, like a midi controller. This whould allow you to record automation with little fuss. I use Reaper, and so have no idea how to set something like this up in Garage Band or Logic.

The first track is just something I played on my keyboard using the default sound.
Now I'd like to take the data on that track, then copy it to another instrument track, so I would not have to play the same thing over again.
Kind of like layering piano with strings.

In response to Remy:

You make a good point with regard to MIDI controllers. GarageBand is capable of responding to, and recording, MIDI data from external MIDI keyboards and controllers. Your point is that even if you can’t manually create and edit automation events in GarageBand because VoiceOver cannot deal with automation’s graphical controls, it should at least be possible to create automation events by means of external MIDI controllers. For example, lets say you have a cool synth sound and you would like to cause it to pan around in the stereo field at certain points in the song. The implication is that you have an external MIDI controller with knobs or faders or pedals that can be assigned to various MIDI control parameters such as volume or pan. Then, the knob or fader or pedal assigned to pan would be adjusted in real time while the synth track is being recorded.

The answer posted by stevel on the following forum gives a good overview of the process and things to consider:

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/assinging-midi-controls-in-garageband.1709222/

While the possibility of achieving automation through performance is good, it has its limitations. Primarily, a VoiceOver user won’t be able to edit the performance after the fact unless a sighted friend helps out. In any case, your insight on achieving automation via external MIDI control is a good one.

Dear VoiceOver User:

If you are wondering whether it is worth the time and money to upgrade to Logic Pro X, the short answer is yes. While there are still some limitations to accessibility, not only can you do everything that you can do in GarageBand, but you can do so much more.

Even though GarageBand and Logic pro X share the same basic user interface, I quickly discovered that Logic Pro X is organized very differently. With my struggles to figure it out fresh in mind, I decided to write this primer to make it easier for GarageBand users to upgrade to Logic Pro X.

Who Is This Primer For?

This primer is written for people who are already familiar with VoiceOver and GarageBand. For example, if I say "navigate to the Smart Controls Group and interact with it," or, "open the Loops Browser and copy a certain loop into the Tracks Header Group," it is best if you already know how to do these things without needing step-by-step instructions. To get the most out of this primer, you should have access to both GarageBand and Logic Pro X, so that you can follow along as you read. You will be switching back and forth between GarageBand and Logic. As of this writing, the current version of GarageBand is 10.3.2, and the current version of Logic is 10.4.4.

This twenty-two page primer is free. I wrote it as a service to the blind community but, truth be told, the effort deepened my own understanding of both GarageBand and Logic Pro X. You may request a copy by emailing me at:
GB4MacVO@iCloud.com

Hi. So I have just started to get into midi and music production and I should hopefully be getting a mac very soon with garage band and logic. My question is, is there an accessible way to edit Midi notes, for example if you make a wrong note in a performance and need to change it's pitch or velocity? Thanks in Advance.

Yes, MIDI notes can be edited in GarageBand and Logic. You can edit pitch, velocity, note duration, and note start time. Not only can you edit notes from a performance, you can create MIDI sequences from scratch without playing an instrument at all. Furthermore, you can edit software instrument loops from the loop library to customize them to your liking.

While GarageBand and Logic are designed with the capability to edit other MIDI event types such as pitch bend, modulation, sustain, volume, pan, etc., those edit features are not currently accessible using VoiceOver. However, anything you can perform from your MIDI controller will be captured. So, you may need to perform over and over until you get it right. Suppose that you have a performance that is just right except for one thing. If the mistake is a MIDI note, you can edit it using VoiceOver. But, if the mistake is on some other MIDI event type, you will need to perform it again until you get it right.

Now, here is an interesting thing. If you reccord over a previously recorded software instrument track section with the Merge function enabled, you can first perform your sequence of notes and then subsequently add pan, volume changes, etc, by turning knobs or faders on yur external MIDI controller. If you didn't get the panning just right, for example, you can undo and try again. Even without an external controller, you can create pan changes, for example, by changing the pan control in the track header while recording. While it can be done, it may be awkward to get the exact results you want.

I am relatively new to Logic, so I don't have a firm grasp of what all you can and cannot do with MIDI control events. On the surface, the limitations seem to be the same as in GarageBand but I suspect that there may be a bit more possible in Logic.

There is currently a bug in Logic that I have reported. What is happening to me is that essentially, VoiceOver is failing to accurately report velocity values. There is more to the bug but I'll leave it at that. I will note that Logic seems to be working correctly. The problem seems to be with VoiceOver. Hopefully the problem will be fixed with the next release of Logic/VoiceOver.

Sam,

Email me at: GB4MacVO@iCloud.com and I will send you a write-up on the Piano Roll Editor. I wrote it for GB version 10.1.6 but it should still be mostly accurate since not too much has changed in the Piano Roll Editor.

Be Well

Getting Started - The Choose a Project Dialogue in GarageBand 10.3.4

When you launch GarageBand for the first time, you are presented with a couple of introductory screens. Once you have clicked through the introductory screens, the Choose a Project dialogue opens. These introductory screens only appear the first time GarageBand is launched. Once you have created your first project, launching GarageBand thereafter should open up the last project you worked on. To get back to the Choose a Project dialogue, close the current project by pressing Command+W. A Save dialogue may appear asking if you want to save changes to the current project. Clicking on Save or Don't Save will close the dialogue and open the Choose a Project dialogue.

The Choose a Project dialogue allows you to specify what type of activity you wish to work on. An activity is specified by interacting with the Choose a Project table. The table contains five options:

New Project - Use the Empty Project template to create a new project
Learn to Play - Choose a musical instrument lesson
Lesson Store - Purchase additional lessons
Recent - Choose an existing project that has been recently opened
Project Templates - Choose a template that creates a project populated with suggested track types. For example, choosing the Hip Hop template creates a project containing a number of suggested tracks that may be commonly found in a Hip Hop project. The tracks are only suggestions. Once the project has been created, tracks can be changed, deleted, or new tracks can be added.

Note: The New Project option uses the Empty Project template which contains no suggested track types at all . Instead, it opens the New Track dialogue which allows you to specify a single track type of your choosing. Once the project has been created with that single track, additional tracks of any type may be added to the project.

The Choose a Project table has gone through a number of changes since version 10.1. In version 10.3.4, notice that the first item in the Choose a Project table is New Project and the fifth/last item is Project Templates. In earlier versions, these two options were combined under the single option New Project.

Each option in the table has a related set of controls that appear on screen as you move through the options in the table. So, when New Project is selected in the table, its related controls appear in the dialogue. If you then select the Learn to Play option, the controls for New Project go away and the set of controls for Learn to Play appear in the dialogue, and so on for each option in the table.

This article focuses on the first option in the table (New Project) and the fifth option in the table (Project Templates). These two options are used to create music projects containing one or more tracks. For best results, you should have a working knowledge of VoiceOver commands.

To select an option from the Choose a Project table, interact with the table by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow (Shift+Control+Option+Down Arrow. Navigate through the table options using VO+Up and Down arrows (Control+Option+Up Arrow or Control+Option+Down Arrow). To leave the table, stop interacting with it using VO+Shift+Up Arrow (Shift+Control+Option+Up Arrow). After you stop interacting with the table, you can then use VO+Right and VO+Left Arrows to navigate through the controls related to the selected table option.

The New Project and Project templates options have an identical set of related controls. In GarageBand 10.3.4 this is how VoiceOver identifies them:

Choose a Project - text field describing the next control in the dialogue which is the Choose a Project table.
table, New Project, row 1 selected - This is how VoiceOver labels the Choose a Project table when row one, New Project, is selected.
Collection - another table, this one containing the available templates.
Create an empty project - This is a text field describing the selected template.
Details collapsed disclosure triangle - if collapsed, press VO+Spacebar to expand, thus revealing/showing the Details Group.
Details Group - contains project parameter such as tempo, key and time signatures, etc.
Open an existing Project… button - skips templates and shows existing projects.
Choose default button - activate to launch selected template. The word default indicates that this control can be activated by simply pressing the Enter key.

As you can see from the list of controls above, When you select the New Project option from the Choose a Project table and stop interacting with the table, the first press of VO+Right Arrow brings you to a control named Collection. Collection is a table containing available templates. In the case of the New Project option, the Collection table only contains a single template named Empty Project, which is selected by default. The second press of VO+Right Arrow brings you to a text field containing a brief description of the selected template. In the case of the Empty Project template, the description is "Create an empty project".

When you select the Project Templates option from the Choose a Project table and stop interacting with the table, the first press of VO+Right Arrow also brings you to a control named Collection. Collection is a table containing available templates. In the case of the Project Templates option, the Collection table contains six templates: Keyboard Collection, Amp Collection, Voice, Hip Hop, Electronic, and Songwriter. The second press of VO+Right Arrow brings you to a text field containing a brief description of the selected template. In the case of the Project Templates option, the Keyboard Collection template is selected by default in the Collection table. the description of the Keyboard Collection template is "A diverse collection of keyboards and synthesizers". To choose a different template, interact with the Collection table and use VO+Right Arrow or VO+Left Arrow to navigate between the available templates. Once you have selected the desired template, stop interacting with the Collection table. Notice that the contents of the text description field changes to reflect the selected template.

Power User Tip: Choose either New Project or Project Templates from the Choose a Project table and then simply press VO+J. This command will jump the VoiceOver cursor to the first template in the Collection table, eliminating the additional steps of stopping interacting with the Choose a Project table, VO+Right Arrowing to the Collection table, and interacting with the Collection table. Pressing VO+J again will jump the VoiceOver cursor back to its previous location in the Choose a Project table. VO+J does different things depending on where you are in GarageBand. I use this command frequently to navigate around in GarageBand. Experiment with it to learn what it can do for you elsewhere in GarageBand.

In the case of the New Project option, you don't need to interact with its Collection table because it only contains the Empty Project template which is selected by default. Therefore, if you are willing to use the default project parameters, you can navigate to the Choose button and activate it to launch the Empty Project template. Or you can simply press the Enter key because the Choose button is selected by default.

In the case of the Project Templates option, you don't need to interact with its Collection table if you want to use the default template, Keyboard Collection. Otherwise, interact with the Collection table and use VO+Right Arrow or VO+Left Arrow to choose a different template. Once you have made your choice, stop interacting with the Collection table. If you are willing to use the default project parameters, you can navigate to the Choose button and activate it to launch the Empty Project template. Or you can simply press the Enter key because the Choose button is selected by default.

What are project parameters?

Project parameters are controls for specifying project tempo, key signature, time signature, etc. Project parameters are accessed by interacting with the Details Group. To learn what the default project parameters are, interact with the Details Group to examine the values assigned to the various controls. After examining the default values or after making changes, stop interacting with the Details Group, VO+Right Arrow to the Choose button, and activate it. This will launch the selected template with either the default project parameters or with the project parameter changes you made. Different templates may have different default project parameters. For example, the default tempo for the Empty Project template is 120 BPM, while the default tempo for the Songwriter template is 96 BPM.

Note: Project parameters may be changed even after a template has been launched. This is done by interacting with the Control Bar Group found within the Control Bar Toolbar located at the top of the GarageBand main window. I have assigned a hot key to the Control Bar Group so that I can jump to it with a single keyboard command.

Caution: Changing project parameters after you have recorded tracks may have undesired consequences.

FYI, to view the current list of GarageBand Keyboard shortcuts, visit:

https://help.apple.com/garageband/mac/10.3/index.html?localePath=en.lproj#/gbnd58362a62

I continue to offered the first four chapters of my unpublished GarageBand book for free. It was current as of GarageBand 10.1.6 so it is somewhat out of date. However, you may still find it helpful. You may request a copy by writing to me at GB4MacVO@icloud.com.

All Rights Reserved including Copyright

Understanding Bars & Beats vs. Hours & Minutes, and Time Display Modes

This is probably an intermediate to advanced topic. If you are new to GarageBand, you may benefit from reading it anyway.

In GarageBand 10.3.4, time can be displayed in terms of bars and Beats. This mode is the default and it is typical for music projects. Time may also be displayed in terms of hours and minutes. This is typical for movie and podcast production.

Before getting into the details, an analogy may be helpful. We are all familiar with sandwich baggies. There is the older style where we close the baggie using our fingers to press the seal from the left edge all the way to the right edge. To open the baggie, we use our fingers to pull the seal open. There is a newer style of baggie that has a plastic tab that we pull from the left edge all the way to the right edge to seal the baggie, and we pull the tab all the way to the left edge to unseal the baggie.

Expanding the analogy, we all know how to use a ruler or tape measure to measure the distance between two points. We place the left edge of the ruler at the first point and we look along the ruler to see where the second point is located on the ruler. We may determine that the distance between the two points is two and three-quarter inches. Now suppose that, like baggies with a plastic tab, the ruler was equipped with a little plastic tab that can be pulled along the top edge of the ruler. We line up the left edge of the ruler with the first of the two points to be measured. The tab is marked with a line or arrow. The tab is pulled along the top edge of the ruler until the arrow on the tab lines up with the second point. We can then look at the ruler to see where the second point lines up with the divisions and subdivisions on the ruler. Again, we may determine that the distance between the two points is two and three-quarter inches.

In the GarageBand main window, there is a ruler with a small graphical tab that moves along the top edge of the ruler that indicates the position in the project's time line. In GarageBand, music tracks are displayed horizontally from left to right across the screen. If there are multiple tracks, track one sits above track two, track two sits above track three, etc. The ruler, called the Time Ruler, sits Above track one. The Time Ruler is divided into divisions and subdivisions called bars and beats. Analogous to the plastic tab, the graphical tab that moves along the top edge of the Time Ruler is called the playhead. The graphical tab is in the shape of a triangle with one of its points pointing straight dow to the Time Ruler. Descending downward from the point of the triangle is a vertical line that crosses over the Time Ruler and continues down across the tracks below. It is kind of like a kite with its string hanging straight down. As the triangle moves along the top of the Time Ruler, the vertical line moves along with it. The triangle and its attached vertical line are called the playhead. The vertical line allows the sighted user to easily see the position of the playhead on the Time Ruler. Likewise, the vertical line makes it easier to identify the position of the playhead down in the tracks below the Time Ruler.

The playhead moves along the Time Ruler during playback or recording. The playhead can also be manually moved to an exact point on the Time Ruler to perform an edit or to start playback from that point. The sighted user can use a mouse to drag the playhead along the Time Ruler. In this article the VoiceOver user will learn how to accomplish the same task.

So, in the GarageBand main window, the time ruler sits above the project tracks. Above the time Ruler is a toolbar called the Control Bar Toolbar. The toolbar runs left to right across the entire screen and contains about twenty controls. GarageBand has a number of specialized editors that can be opened or closed using checkboxes on the toolbar. There are checkboxes for enabling or disabling various functions such as cycle mode, click track, and count-in. The toolbar also contains checkboxes to start/stop playback, start recording, jump the playhead to the beginning of the project, etc. Most important to the subject of this article is a group of controls in the middle of the toolbar called the Control Bar Group.

The control bar Group contains controls for tempo, key signature, and time signature. It also contains two controls related to the position of the playhead on the time Ruler and to how time is displayed. The first control is called the Playhead Position scrubber Group, and the second control is called the Display Mode pop up button.

Let's place a hot spot on the Control bar Group so that you can jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Control Bar Group with a single key command.
1. Press VO+I to open the Item Chooser.
2. Type "control" into the search box.
3. From the results list, choose Control Bar Group and press the Enter key.
4. The VoiceOver cursor should now be on the Control Bar Group. Press VO+Shift+0 to assign Hot Spot 0 to the Control Bar Group.
Tip: You need to use the 0 from the row of numbers on the top of the keyboard. The 0 on the NumPad will not work for this purpose. You can use any number from 0 through 9 as a hot spot assignment.
5. Now, pressing VO+0 will jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Control Bar Group.
6. Interact with the Control Bar Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. The Control Bar Group contains the following controls along with there current values:

1 bar 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group
120 Tempo slider
4/4 Time Signature pop up button
C major Key Signature pop up button
Beats & Project Display Mode pop up button

The Playhead Position scrubber Group performs two functions. First, it displays the position of the playhead on the time Ruler. Second, you can interact with the Playhead Position scrubber Group to change its values, thus moving the playhead to a new position. The Playhead Position Scrubber Group is accessible to VoiceOver.

Let's also put a Hot Spot on the Playhead Position Scrubber Group. Follow the procedure above but this time use the number 9 for the new hot spot. Now, pressing VO+9 will jump the VoiceOver to the Playhead Position Scrubber Group.
Tip: Pressing Control+ Option+Command+9 will cause VoiceOver to read the contents of the hot spot without moving the VoiceOver cursor to it. This will come in handy when you are somewhere else in GarageBand but want to know the playhead position.

When you interact with the Playhead Position Scrubber Group, you will find one slider control for changing the number of bars and another slider control for changing the number of beats. To change the number of bars, for example, interact with the Bar slider. VO+Left Arrow and VO+Right Arrow change the number of bars by ten. VO+Shift+Left Arrow and VO+Shift+Right Arrow change the number of bars by one.

Recall that the default in GarageBand is to display time in bars and beats. In this mode, the Time Ruler is divided into bars and bars are subdivided into beats. And, as you will learn later, beats are subdivided into divisions, and Divisions are subdivided into ticks.

How many bars are there in a project? This depends on the total length of your project. A shorter song may be fifty or sixty bars long, while a longer song may be more than one hundred bars long.

How many beats are there in a bar? This depends on the time signature. If the time signature is 4/4, there will be four beats per measure (bar) with each quarter note counted as a beat. If the time signature is 3/4, there will be three beats per measure (bar) with each quarter note counted as a beat.

How many divisions are there in a beat? This depends on the time signature as well. One division is always equal to one sixteenth note. So, for time signatures where the quarter note gets the beat (e.g., 3/4, 4/4) there are four sixteenth notes in one quarter note, hence, one beat equals four divisions.
For time signatures where the eighth note gets the beat (e.g., 5/8, 6/8) there are two sixteenth notes in one eighth note, hence, one beat equals two divisions.
For time signatures where the half note gets the beat (e.g., 2/2) there are eight sixteenth notes in one half note, hence, one beat equals eight divisions.

How many ticks are there in one division? There are 240 ticks in a division. Since one division always equals one sixteenth note, 240 ticks equals one sixteenth note.

Since one sixteenth note equals 240 ticks, doing the math:
120 ticks equal a thirty-second note
60ticks equal a sixty-fourth note
30 ticks equal a one hundred twenty-eighth note
And so on.

When the playhead is at the very beginning of the project, its position is 1 bar, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. Suppose we start playback. When the playhead reaches the beginning of bar two, the playhead position will be 2 bars, 1 beat, 1 division, 1 tick. When the playhead reaches the mid point of bar two, the playhead position will be 2 bars, 3 beats, 1 division, 1 tick. When the playhead reaches the mid point between beats three and four, the playhead position will be 2 Bars, 3 Beats, 3 divisions, 1 tick.
Note: the last two playhead positions assume that the time signature is 4/4.

Are your eyes glazing over yet? Are you thinking: What the heck, I don't want to know this stuff. All I want to do is make music. Fine.Just hit the record button, do your thing, and if you don't like the results, delete the take and start over. Repeat as necessary until you achieve the desired results. However, suppose that you have a nearly perfect take and if you could only fix that one little thing, the take would be great. GarageBand allows you to do this. But, to do precision editing, you need to understand how time is represented and how to position the playhead to precise locations in your project. Admittedly, thinking of time in terms of bars, beats, divisions, and ticks may seem a bit abstract. Well, it is, but it gets easier with familiarity.

How about watching a movie? Do you want to know that the halfway point in your movie is 2400 bars, 2 beats, 1 division, 168 ticks? Of course not. If your movie is ninety minutes long, it is far easier to say that the halfway point is at forty-five minutes. Fortunately, GarageBand provides a mode whereby time can be represented in terms of hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds. In this mode, one hours subdivided into sixty minutes. One minute is subdivided into sixty seconds. And One second is subdivided into one thousand milliseconds. Not only does this mode make more sense when working on movies, it also makes a great deal of sense for podcasting. Suppose that five minutes and twelve seconds into your podcast, you had a coughing fit that you want to remove. Hold on, stop, freeze! Did you notice how natural it was to think of the coughing fit starting at the five minute, twelve second point? And how long did the fit last? Ten bars, four beats, three divisions, 211 ticks? Get out of here! We would much rather know that the coughing fit lasted twenty-three seconds.

So now we arrive at the Display Mode pop up button. It can be set to one of four values: Beats & Project, Beats & Time, Beats, or Time. We will discuss all four modes.

Beats & Project
This is the default mode. When the display mode is set to Beats & Project, the Control Bar Group contains the following controls:
1 bar 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group
120 Tempo slider
4/4 Time Signature pop up button
C major Key Signature pop up button
Beats & Project Display Mode pop up button
Note that in the Beats & Project mode, only bars and beats are displayed. Divisions and ticks are not shown.

When the display mode is set to Beats & Time the contents of the Control Bar Group changes. It now contains the following controls:
33 bars 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group
1 minute 4 seconds Playhead Position scrubber group
Beats & Time Display Mode pop up button
Note that in the Beats & Time mode, there are two occurrences of the Playhead Position Scrubber group, one displaying bars and beats, and the other one displaying time in minutes and seconds. Note also that tempo, key signature, and time signature are not shown.

When the display mode is set to Beats, the Control Bar Group contains the following controls:
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead Position scrubber group
Beats Display Mode pop up button
Note that in this mode, divisions and ticks are now shown. Note also that tempo, key signature, and time signature are not shown.

When the display mode is set to Time, the Control Bar Group contains the following controls:
2 seconds 231 seconds fraction Playhead Position scrubber group
Time Display Mode pop up button
Note that a subdivision of seconds now appears called "seconds fraction". In the above example, there are 203 seconds fraction. This means that there are 203 milliseconds. I don't know why they didn't just use milliseconds as the label rather than the more confusing label of seconds fraction.

Note: With regard to the Playhead Position Scrubbers for time, a time of zero is not indicated. When time is zero, only the label of the control, "PlayheadPosition Scrubber Group" appears. But once the playhead has moved a few seconds along the time line, seconds will display. If the playhead moves past the one minute point on the time line, minutes and seconds will display. And, if the playhead moves past the one hour point on the time line, hours, minutes and seconds will display. You can see this for yourself by doing the following:
1. Choose Beats & Time from the Display Mode pop up menu.
2. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the track if it isn't already there.
3. Press the Spacebar to begin playback.
This will work even if the track hasn't been recorded to yet.
4. Every few seconds, use Hot Spot 9 by pressing VO+Control+9. This will cause VoiceOver to read the Playhead Position.

Note: Only when Display Mode is set to Time, will seconds fraction (milliseconds) be displayed. In Beats & Time mode, hours, minutes, and seconds will be displayed but not seconds fraction (milliseconds).

When the display mode is set to Beats & Project, Beats & Time, or Beats, the Period key moves the playhead forward one bar at a time and the Comma key moves the playhead back one bar at a time. However, when the display mode is set to Time, the Period and Comma keys move the playhead a specific number of seconds with each key press rather than one bar with each key press. So, even though tempo is not shown when the display mode is set to Time, tempo still has an effect on how many seconds a single key press of the Period and Comma keys move the playhead. You can see this for yourself by doing the following:
1. Set the display mode to Beats & Project to show the tempo control.
2. Set tempo to 60BPM.
3. Reset the display mode to Time.
4. Press the Period and Comma keys to hear how many seconds each key stroke moves the playhead.
When tempo is set to 60 BPM, the Period and Comma keys move the playhead four seconds with each key press.
When tempo is set to 120 BPM, the Period and Comma keys move the playhead two seconds with each key press.
When tempo is set to 240 BPM, the Period and Comma keys move the playhead one second with each key press.

Let's summarize what we know about the GarageBand main window. Running across the top of the window is the Control Bar Toolbar which contains about twenty controls. In the center of the Control Bar Toolbar is a group of controls called the Control Bar Group. Below the Control Bar Toolbar is the Time Ruler. Recall that, like a wooden ruler or tape measure, the Time Ruler shows various divisions and subdivisions of time.
Note: When the display mode is set to Time, the Time Ruler is divided into hours, minutes, and seconds instead of bars and beats.
The playhead is a graphical object that moves along the top edge of the Time Ruler. Actually, the playhead is a small triangle with one of its points pointing straight down. A vertical line extends downward from this point across the Time Ruler and continues down across all visible tracks in the project. The Triangle and the line move together along the Time Ruler. So, the playhead consists of the triangle and its vertical line. At the top of the window then is the Control Bar Toolbar. Below it is the Time Ruler with its playhead. And below the Time Ruler are one or more tracks. I realize that you don't really need to know all this if you are blind, but if you are like me, you may find it helpful to have some concept of what is happening on the screen.

We have discussed the effects of display modes on various controls in the Control Bar Group. Display modes have an effect on another set of controls in the GarageBand main window. Instead of being located on the Control Bar Toolbar, these other controls are located on the Time Ruler. Let's navigate to that other set of controls. In other words, let's navigate to the Time Ruler.
1. Stop interacting with the Control Bar Group.
2. Stop interacting with the Control Bar Toolbar.
3. VO+Right Arrow to the Tracks Group and interact with it.
4. VO+Right Arrow to the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
Note: As an alternative to steps one through four, you could press VO+I to open the Item Chooser and type the word "ruler". Choose the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line from the results list and press the Enter key. The VoiceOver cursor should now be on the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
5. Interact with the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.

The Tracks Time Ruler Time Line contains the following controls along with their current values:
off cycle region layout item - VoiceOver tells us that cycle mode is off.
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator - VoiceOver tells us the playhead position.
6.8% zoom slider - VoiceOver tells us that the zoom slider is set to 6.8 %.
32. bars End Marker value indicator - VoiceOver tells us that the end marker is set to 32 bars.

Notice the control on the Time Ruler that shows the position of the playhead, namely, The Playhead Thumb Value Indicator. I have no idea what thumb value means but this is what the control is called. This control is actually the playhead itself.

Note: A sighted user can put the mouse pointer on the playhead and drag it along the Time Ruler. The VoiceOver user can do this as well. Using the Mac OS Mouse Keys function, it is possible for the VoiceOver user to drag the playhead. But that is a topic that I won't discuss in this article. It is really an academic issue because it is actually far easier for the VoiceOver user to simply interact with the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to adjust the position of the playhead.

Recall that in the Control Bar Group, the control that shows playhead position is called the Playhead Position Scrubber Group, while in the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line, the control is called the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator. Both controls show the position of the playhead. The difference is that the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator always shows the full playhead position in terms of bars, beats, divisions, and ticks. Recall that in the Control Bar Group, the Playhead Position Scrubber Group only shows bars and beats when the display mode is set to Beats & Project or Beats & Time. It is only when the display mode is set to Beats, that divisions and ticks are also shown in the Playhead Position Scrubber Group. But, the display mode affects the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator. When the display mode is set to Time, The Playhead Thumb Value Indicator will show hours, minutes, seconds, and seconds fractions (milliseconds).

So, the advantage of the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator is that it will always show the full playhead position in terms of bars, beats, divisions, and ticks, or hours, minutes, seconds, and seconds fraction (milliseconds) depending on the display mode. But, the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator has a significant disadvantage. This has to do with how hot spots work in GarageBand.

In earlier versions of GarageBand, hot spots depended on a control to remain in the exact spot on the screen exactly where it was when the hot spot was created. If the control got shifted over a number of pixels, the hot spot would stop working. The fact is, controls get shifted all the time. While the tracks area usually remains on screen, various editors may be opened and closed as needed. Some of these windows open to the left, to the right or underneath the tracks area. For example, Library opens up as a narrow vertical window on the left of the GarageBand main window. When the Library opens, the tracks area is shifted to the right to accommodate it. When the Library is closed, the tracks area shifts back to the left. So, if a hot spot was placed on the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator when the Library was closed, it would stop working when the Library was open, because the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator had been shifted to the right along with the entire tracks area. I am quite sure that many VoiceOver users have been frustrated with hot spots because they worked one minute but not the next. Now you know why.

In contrast, the Control Bar Toolbar never gets shifted by opening and closing editors. Therefore, hot spots anywhere on the Control Bar Toolbar always work. This makes the Playhead Position Scrubber Group the more reliable control for querying the playhead position or changing its values. Once a project's tempo, key signature, and time signature have been set, they typically don't change. This means that the display mode can be changed to either beats or Time to show the full playhead position. The display mode setting gets saved with the project just like tempo, key signature, and time signature settings.

Now, after giving you all this historical background, I have noticed that in GarageBand 10.3.4, hot spots now seem better able to follow the control even if it gets shifted on the screen. While the situation has improved, hot spots still fail once in a while. So, if you choose to put a hot spot on the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator, or on any other control in the tracks area, be aware that it may fail once in a while. In this case, just reassign the hot spot and keep going. It would be nice if hot spots could be saved with projects like tempo or display mode, but hot spots are part of VoiceOver and they are not saved to individual projects.

Display mode affects other controls in the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. Let's now look at the cycle region layout item. GarageBand provides a function (cycle mode) whereby a section of a song can be made to loop over and over. The section that loops is called the cycle region. The default cycle region for most templates is bar one through bar four . The entire four bar cycle region can be moved anywhere on the Time Line. Furthermore, the left and right edges can be extended to lengthen the cycle region in either direction. Or, the cycle region can be shortened to make it shorter than the default four bars. Cycle Mode can be toggled on/off by pressing the letter C on your keyboard from almost anywhere in GarageBand. It can also be toggled on/off by pressing VO+Spacebar when the VoiceOver cursor is on the cycle region layout item. When cycle mode is on, you can interact with the cycle region layout item to move the left and right edges of the cycle region to lengthen or shorten it. The left edge is called the Left Locator handle and the right edge is called the Right Locator handle. The left edge cannot be moved if it is already at bar one. Interact with either locator handle and use VO+Left Arrow or VO+Right Arrow to move the handles one bar at a time.
The entire cycle region can be moved by pressing Command+Shift+Period or Command+Shift+Comma. For example, if the cycle region is bars one through four, pressing Command+Shift+Period will move the cycle region to bars five through eight. If the cycle region is bars eleven through twenty, pressing VO+Shift+Period will move the cycle region to bars twenty-one through thirty. Command+Shift+Comma moves the cycle region to the left.

When display mode is set to Time, the locator handles move by seconds rather than by bars. When tempo is set to 240 BPM, the locator handles move by one second. When tempo is 120 BPM, the locator handles move by two seconds. When tempo is set to 60 BPM, the locator handles move by four seconds, and so on.

A third control in the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line is affected by the display mode setting, namely, End Marker value indicator. When you first create a new project, you can press the Spacebar to begin playback. The playhead will start moving even if no track has been recorded. The playhead moves along the Time Ruler until it reaches the end marker. When the end marker is reached, playback stops. Most templates set the end marker at bar thirty-two. You can test this by creating a new project using either the Hip Hop, Electronic, or Songwriter templates. These templates all include a drummer track that is eight bars long.
1. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project.
2. Press Spacebar to begin playback.
3. You will hear the drums for eight bars. When the playhead passes bar nine, the drums will no longer be heard but the playhead will keep on moving until it reaches the end marker.
4. If you press the Enter key before the playhead has reached the end marker, the playhead will jump to the beginning of the project and automatically resume playback. So, when you hear the drums stop, press the Enter key and the playhead will jump to the beginning and start playing the drums again. When the playhead reaches the end marker and has stopped, pressing the Enter key will jump the playhead to the beginning but playback will not resume automatically. In this case, press the Spacebar to resume playback. The end marker can be moved anywhere on the Time Ruler. The playhead only stops at the end marker during playback. When recording, when the playhead reaches the end marker, the end marker gets pushed along the time line a few bars ahead of the playhead. When recording stops, the end marker remains in the new location. After recording, you may want to manually reposition the end marker. When display mode is set to Time, the end marker Value will be displayed in hours, minutes, and seconds rather than in bars.

FYI, to view the current list of GarageBand Keyboard shortcuts, visit:

https://help.apple.com/garageband/mac/10.3/index.html?localePath=en.lproj#/gbnd58362a62

~All Rights Reserved including Copyright

Podcast Setup and Essential Audio Track Editing Techniques

This article is based uponGarageBand 10.3.4. Familiarity with GarageBand and VoiceOver keyboard commands will be helpful. For example, you should know how to use project templates to create a new project. If you don't know how to work with project templates, you may want to read my article before continuing. Here is the link:

Getting Started - The Choose a Project Dialogue in G_B 10.3.4
https://www.applevis.com/comment/108697#comment-108697

Have you ever heard Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address? It starts out: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". In this article, we will perform step-by-step exercises where we will first record: "Four score and seven years ago, um, our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". We will learn how to eliminate the "um", replace a larger section of speech, and append additional speech to the end of the original recording. When finished, we will end up with: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation. Abraham Lincoln, from the Gettysburg address".

In the first part of this article, you will learn how to set up GarageBand for recording a podcast. Basically, this involves setting GarageBand's display mode to "Time". In this mode, you will be able to work with hours, minutes, and seconds rather than bars and beats. When display mode is set to "Time", there are a few quirks in the way playhead position is expressed. These quirks will be discussed in detail.

As a refresher, here is an example of a VoiceOver command: VO+Spacebar. VO is an acronym for VoiceOver. The VO keys are Control+Option. Whenever VO is specified as part of a keyboard command, substitute Control+Option for VO. So, if the command is VO+Spacebar, you should press Control+Option+Spacebar. Likewise, if the command is VO+Shift+Down Arrow, You should press Control+Option+Shift+Down Arrow.

This next section is a brief overview of how VoiceOver and GarageBand work together.

GarageBand supports multiple track types. Track types fall into two basic categories, music tracks and control tracks. Control tracks include tracks for controlling automation, tempo changes, transposition changes, etc. Control tracks are not discussed in this article. Music tracks include audio tracks, software instrument tracks, and Drummer tracks.

Each music track consists of two main parts, its track header and its track contents area. Track headers contain controls such as Mute, Solo, Volume, Pan, and the track name/edit field. What about a track's contents area? Suppose you record a vocal track. The vocal recording will be contained in the contents area. Until a track is recorded, its contents area will be empty. Musical data such as vocal/acoustic instrument recordings or software instrument/MIDI recordings are represented by icons called regions. Why the name region? I suppose that it is because each recording has a start time, a duration, and an end time. Hence, the recording occupies a region of time. Regions may vary in length. A podcast recording may be represented by a single region whose duration is the length of the entire podcast. But suppose that later you insert some ads into the podcast. The ads would be shorter segments that may be represented by shorter regions. A track's contents area may contain one or more regions. Regions may be split into smaller pieces, deleted, looped, or renamed. Also, regions may be cut or copied and pasted elsewhere on the same track or to other compatible tracks.

VoiceOver gathers the headers for all music tracks into a table that it calls the Tracks Header Group. To access the header controls for track three, for example, we interact with the Tracks Header Group, and navigate down to track three where We can access its header controls. Likewise, the contents areas for all tracks are gathered together into table called the Tracks Contents Group. To access the track contents area for track three, we interact with the Tracks Contents Group, and navigate down to track three where we can access its regions.

Note: The VoiceOver cursor behaves differently in the Tracks Header Group than it does in the Tracks Contents Group. In the Tracks Header Group, project focus follows the VoiceOver cursor. So, if you navigate to track three using the VO+Arrow keys, track three will become the project track with focus. If you then navigate to the Tracks Contents Group and use the VO+Arrow keys to select track five, you will discover that track three is still the project track with focus. This is because project focus does not follow the VoiceOver cursor in the Tracks Contents Group. To give track five project focus, go back into the Tracks Header Group and VO+Arrow down to track five. Understanding which track has project focus is important because it has a bearing on certain types of edits. For example, if you want to paste a region to track five, but track three actually has focus, the paste command will try to paste the region to the track with project focus, in this case, track three instead of track five. So, if you try to make an edit and you don't understand why it didn't work correctly, check to see which track has project focus.

Let's get started with our first exercise.

1. Go to the Choose A Project dialogue and create a new project with the Empty Project template. When the New Track dialogue opens, select Audio - Microphone & Line In, and press the Enter key. VoiceOver should say:
Untitled - Tracks window Control Bar toolbar.
The message tells us that the VoiceOver cursor is on the Control Bar Toolbar.
2. Let's take a quick tour of the GarageBand main window. Press VO+Right Arrow one time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on the Library Group. Press VO+Right Arrow once more. The VoiceOver cursor should land on the Tracks Group. Press VO+Right Arrow one more time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on the Smart Controls Group. The Library Group and the Smart Controls Group are windows that were opened automatically by the Empty Project template. They can be closed when not needed. The Control Bar Toolbar and the Tracks Group are always on screen.
3. The Smart Controls Group contains audio recording settings that are good to be aware of even though we won't change any of their default values in this exercise. So, interact with the Smart Controls Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Smart Controls group 3 items Smart Controls toolbar.
The message tells us that the VoiceOver cursor is on the Smart Controls Toolbar. Press VO+Right Arrow one time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on an item called "scroll area". This is the Smart Controls Inspector.
4. Interact with the scroll area by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In scroll area 16 items Recording Settings button.
VO+Down Arrow one time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on "Record Level:". VO+Down Arrow one more time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on "Input:". Now, VO+Right Arrow one time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on "mono button".
This button toggles between mono or stereo input. Press VO+Right Arrow one more time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on "1 (Built-in Microphone) menu button". This menu button allows you to choose an input source for the current track. As you can see, channel one of my laptop's builtin microphone is currently selected for my project.

Note: Depending on your computer and whether you are using an external audio interface, you may have a number of possible input sources to choose from. Also, if you need to troubleshoot microphone or line-in problems, these input settings are one of the first places to check. Refer to the following help page for additional details:

GarageBand for Mac: Connect a microphone
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH24929?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

5. Explore the rest of the controls in the Inspector scroll area on your own if you wish. Since we are done with the Smart Controls Group, press the letter B to close it. The Smart Controls Group should close and VoiceOver should say:
Tracks group. Interact with the Tracks Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow.

Our project contains a single audio track. Recall that each music track has a track header and a track contents area. Let's check them out for our audio track.

6. Press VO+Down Arrow until the VoiceOver cursor lands on the Tracks Header Group. The Tracks Header Group is the table that contains the header controls for our audio track. VO+Right Arrow to the Tracks Contents Group. The Tracks Contents Group is the table that contains the track contents area for our audio track.
7. Interact with the Tracks Contents Area by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks contents group 2 items Track 1 “Audio 1” Track Background.
The message tells us that the name of track one is "Audio 1". VoiceOver appends the label "track background" to the end of all track names in the Tracks Contents Group. With experience, we will come to know that whenever we hear "track background" we will know that we are in the Tracks Contents Group. Interact with track one by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Track 1 “Audio 1” Track Background content is empty.
The message tells us that the track content area is empty because it contains no regions. This is because the track hasn't been recorded to yet.
8. Stop interacting with Track 1 "Audio 1" track background by pressing VO+Shift+Up Arrow. Then use the same keyboard command to stop interacting with the Tracks Contents Group. VO+Left Arrow to the Tracks Header Group.
9. Interact with the Tracks Header Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “Audio 1” group.
The message tells us that the name of track one is "Audio 1". VoiceOver appends the label "group" to the end of all track names in the Tracks Contents Group. Let's examine the Audio 1 track header to see what controls it contains. Since our project only has one track, the Tracks Header Group only contains one header. Therefore, the VoiceOver cursor is already on the Audio 1 track header. Interact with the Audio 1 track header by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow.
10. By default, the track header contains the following controls along with their default values:
Mute unchecked checkbox
Solo unchecked checkbox
-24.0 dB Volume slider
0 Pan circular slider
Audio 1 text (this edit field shows the track's name and can be used to rename the track)
11. Notice that the track volume slider is set to -24.0 dB. This control adjusts playback volume for this track. If this control is set too low, playback of our recorded audio might not sound as loud as expected. Use the VO+Arrow keys to move the VoiceOver cursor to the volume slider and interact with it by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow.
12. Set the volume to +0.0 dB. Use VO+Left Arrow and VO+Right Arrow to change volume in larger increments. Use VO+Shift+Left Arrow and VO+Shift+Right Arrow to change volume in smaller increments.

Note: By default, our project's Audio 1 track has no effects applied to it. If we record to it now, playback of the recording will be "dry", meaning that, during playback, the track's audio signal will be unaffected by EQ, compression, reverb, etc. A track is said to be "wet" when, during playback, the track's audio signal is processed by EQ, compression, reverb, etc. GarageBand contains a Library of presets, called patches, that contain various configurations of EQ, compression, reverb, etc. While it is not necessary to apply a patch, let's select a Voice patch for our audio track.

13. Stop interacting with Track 1 "Audio 1" Group by pressing VO+Shift+Up Arrow. Then stop interacting with the Tracks Header Group. Then stop interacting with the Tracks Group. Then press VO+Left Arrow one time. VoiceOver should say:
Library Group.
Interact with the Library Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Library group 7 items Audio 1.

Note: I am not going to discuss all the various controls in the Library. I am just going to show the steps necessary to select a Voice patch.

14. VO+Right Arrow until the VoiceOver cursor lands on the control called Library browser and interact with it by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. The Library Browser contains categories of patches such as Voice, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar and Bass. Different patch categories will appear for different track types. Use the VO+Up and VO+Down arrows to navigate through the list of patch categories. Select the Voice category. Then VO+Right Arrow to open the list of Voice patches. VO+Down Arrow to the patch named Narration Vocal. You don't have to press Enter or press VO+Spacebar. By simply exiting the Library at this point, the selection is made.

Note: In practice, you can choose any vocal patch you prefer. I am just choosing Narration Vocal as an example. For this exercise, choose Narration Vocal.

15. Let's go back to the Tracks Header Group, so, press the letter Y to close the Library window. VoiceOver should say:
Tracks Group.
Interact with the Tracks Group. VO+Arrow down to the Tracks Header Group and interact with it. VoiceOver should now say:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “Narration Vocal” group.
Notice that the audio track has been renamed to “Narration Vocal”. This happened automatically when we selected the Narration Vocal patch from the Library.

We have looked at the track header and track contents area for our audio track and have applied a patch named Narration Vocal to it. Now, let's set display mode to "Time" and learn about the quirks associated with this display mode.

16. Stop interacting with the Tracks Header Group by pressing VO+Shift+Up Arrow. Stop interacting with the Tracks Group. Press VO+Left Arrow one time. The VoiceOver cursor should land on the Control Bar Toolbar. Interact with the Control Bar Toolbar by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Control Bar toolbar 18 items Library checked checkbox.
Notice that the VoiceOver cursor is on an item named Library checkbox. The Library Group can be toggled open/closed using this checkbox. VO+Right Arrow two times to bring the VoiceOver cursor to the Smart Controls checkbox. The Smart Controls Group can be toggled open/closed using this checkbox. VO+Right Arrow until the VoiceOver cursor lands on the Control Bar Group.
17. Let's put a hot spot on the Control Bar Group by pressing VO+Shift+0. Use the zero from the row of numbers at the top of the keyboard. The zero on the numeric keypad will not work for this purpose. Now, from virtually anywhere in GarageBand, we can press VO+0 to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Control Bar Group. I frequently use this hot key.
18. Interact with the Control Bar Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Control Bar group 5 items 1 bar 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group.
The five controls and their default settings are:
1 bar 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group
120 Tempo slider
4/4 Time Signature pop up button
C major Key Signature pop up button
Beats & Project Display Mode pop up button

19. Since we are setting up our project for podcasting, it makes sense to work with hours, minutes, and seconds rather than bars and beats. VO+Down Arrow to the Display Mode pop up button, and press VO+Spacebar to open the display mode menu. In the menu, VO+Down Arrow to "Time" and press the Enter key to activate the option.
20. Changing the display mode to "Time" causes the contents of the Control Bar Group to change. The Control Bar Group should now only contain the following two items:
Playhead Position scrubber group
Time Display Mode pop up button

Notice that tempo, time signature, and key signature have been hidden when the display mode was set to "Time". Also notice that before we changed the display mode to "Time", the Playhead Position Scrubber Group looked like this:
1 bar 1 beat Playhead Position scrubber group.
But after changing the display mode, it now looks like this:
Playhead Position scrubber group.
Notice that no time value is shown. This is the way a time of zero is represented when the display mode is set to "Time". It would be less confusing if zero was represented like this:
0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds 0 seconds fraction Playhead Position Scrubber Group.
But this is not the way the control works.
21. Press the Spacebar to begin playback, and in a second or two, press the Spacebar again. VoiceOver should now say something like:
2 seconds 133 seconds fraction.

Note: Seconds fraction may be better understood as fractions of a second. There are one thousand fractions per second, Therefore, each fraction is equal to one millisecond. The above playhead position could have been written as:
2 seconds 133 milliseconds.

22. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead back to the beginning of the project.Press VO+Home to make sure the VoiceOver cursor is on the Playhead Position Scrubber Group. VoiceOver should again say:
Playhead Position Scrubber Group.
This is because playhead position is zero. Now that you know that this is the way the time of zero is represented, you should get used to it.

Note: This note is for nerds who like to know why things work the way they do. Press the Enter key to make sure that the playhead is at the beginning of the project. Press the Spacebar to begin playback but in less than a second, press the Spacebar again. VoiceOver should say something like:
465 seconds fraction.
Now, press Spacebar and wait a couple of seconds before pressing Spacebar again. VoiceOver should say something like:
3 seconds 188 seconds fraction.
Press Spacebar again and this time wait for about one minute until playback stops automatically. VoiceOver should say something like:
1 minute 4 seconds 31 seconds fraction.
Playback stops automatically when the playhead reaches the End Marker which by default is set to 1 minute 4 seconds. The End Marker will be discussed later in this article. If the End Marker was set to more than one hour, VoiceOver might eventually say something like:
1 hour 6 minutes 39 seconds 336 seconds fraction.
The point is that GarageBand first only shows seconds fraction. Then as the playhead reaches beyond the one second point, GarageBand then shows only seconds and seconds fraction. Then, if the playhead travels beyond the one minute point, GarageBand shows only minutes, seconds, and seconds fraction. The playhead must move beyond the one hour point before GarageBand will show hours, minutes, seconds, and seconds fraction. So you can see that if hours are zero, hours are hidden. Likewise, if minutes are zero, minutes are hidden. The same is true for seconds and for seconds fraction. Since everything is hidden when zero, this explains why a time of 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds 0 seconds fraction is simply spoken by VoiceOver as:
Playhead Position Scrubber Group.
We can see four ourselves that this actually means 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds 0 seconds fraction. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Then interact with the Playhead Position Scrubber Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VoiceOver should say:
In Playhead Position scrubber group 4 items 0 hour slider.
Use the VO+Arrow keys to explore the four slider controls. They are:
0 hour slider
0 minute slider
0 second slider
0 seconds fraction slider
It is by interacting with these sliders and adjusting their values that we are able to manually position the playhead to a specific time.

23. Stop interacting with the Playhead Position Scrubber Group by pressing VO+Shift+Up Arrow. Let's put a hot spot on the Playhead Position Scrubber Group by pressing VO+Shift+9. In future, if we want to manually change the position of the playhead, we can press VO+9. This will jump the VoiceOver cursor from virtually anywhere in GarageBand to the Playhead Position Scrubber Group. However, if we only want to know the playhead position but we don't want the VoiceOver cursor to jump away from its current location, we can press VO+Command+9.
24. Stop interacting with the Control Bar Group by pressing VO+Shift+Up Arrow. Stop interacting with the Control Bar Toolbar. VO+Right Arrow to the Tracks Group. Interact with the Tracks Group by pressing VO+Shift+Down Arrow. VO+Arrow down to the Tracks Header Group and interact with it.

Note: In the interest of readability, for the rest of this article, I will only tell you to interact or stop interacting. You should know that you press VO+Shift+Down Arrow to interact and VO+Shift+Up Arrow to stop interacting.

We are now ready to record our audio track. If you are unsure about your microphone setup, or if you need help troubleshooting, refer to the following help document:

GarageBand for Mac: Connect a microphone
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH24929?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

1. We should be in the Tracks Header Group. Let's do a quick test recording. Press the Enter key to make sure that the playhead is at the beginning of the project.
2. Press the letter R to begin recording. The click track will start. Start speaking after the fourth click. the click track will continue during recording. Record a phrase such as"Testing one, two, three". Then press the Spacebar to stop recording. When recording stops, VoiceOver will speak the playhead position. For example:
2 seconds 288 seconds fraction.
Pressing VO+Command+9 now, VoiceOver should speak the same playhead position as it did when recording stopped:
2 seconds 288 seconds fraction Playhead Position Scrubber Group.
Notice that this time the label "Playhead Position Scrubber Group" was included in the message. Recall that VO+Command+9 reads the playhead position without moving the VoiceOver cursor away from its current location.
3. Press the Enter key to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the beginning of the project.Pressing VO+Command+9, VoiceOver should say: Playhead Position scrubber group. Again, you will get used to the fact that this is how VoiceOver speaks the playhead position when the playhead is at the zero time position at the beginning of the project. Press the Spacebar to begin playback. If you did not hear your test recording, you will need to troubleshoot your setup.
4. Notice that during recording and playback, the click track was heard. The Empty Project template creates a new project with the click track turned on by default. If you find the click track distracting, you can turn it off by pressing the letter K to toggle the click track on/off. For this exercise, let's turn the click track off. The default time signature is 4/4 so we heard a four beat count-in. Turning off the click track does not turn off the count-in clicks. You can turn off count-in by pressing Shift+K to toggle count-in on/off. However, many people prefer to hear the count-in as a cue to begin speaking. The click track and count-in can also be toggled on/off using checkboxes on the Control Bar Toolbar. For this exercise, leave count-in turned on.
5. Recall that we are still in the Tracks Header Group. Since our project has only one track, it is the track with project focus. This means that we can delete the test recording from within the Tracks Header Group by pressing the Delete key . After pressing the delete key, press the Enter key to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the beginning of the project and press the Spacebar to begin playback. If the recording was successfully deleted, you should only hear silence. You can press the letter K to temporarily turn on the click track so that you can hear that the playhead is actually moving along the now empty track. Press the letter K again to turn off the click track. Press the Spacebar to stop playback.

Note: If we let playback continue long enough (about one minute) the playhead will eventually reach the End Marker and stop. When it stops, VoiceOver will speak the position of the playhead. The default End Marker value is 1 minute 4 seconds. The End Marker value can be adjusted in the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. By the way, the End Marker only affects playback. When recording, the End Marker gets pushed along ahead of the recording playhead and ends up at a new time position just beyond the end of the recording. This keeps the End Marker from interfering with recording.

6. Let's undo the delete of our test recording so that I can show you a couple of things. you could just press Command+Z at this point to undo the delete, but press VO+M instead. This opens the GarageBand menu bar. The menu bar contains items such as File, Edit, Track, Record, etc. Press the letter E to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Arrow down until you hear:
Undo Delete Command Z.
Here, in the Edit dropdown menu, you are usually told what the undo command will do. In this case, it will undo the previous delete. Press Enter to undo the delete.

Note: Of course, pressing Command+Z would have been much faster than navigating to the Edit dropdown menu to perform the undo delete. The disadvantage of Command+Z is that you get no feedback as to what will be undone or if it even worked. This can be okay. It is fast if you are on top of it and you know what Command+Z should be undoing. However, the advantage of going to the Edit dropdown menu is that it will usually tell you what will be undone, and, as the edit dropdown menu is closing, VoiceOver will tell you what the next undo will perform. Also, if there is nothing to undo, you can see that the Undo is dimmed. While I mostly use Command+Z, I often find myself using the undo option in the Edit dropdown menu.

7. The VoiceOver cursor should now be back in the Tracks Header Group. Press the Enter key and then the Spacebar. You should hear your test recording again. Press Spacebar to stop playback.
8. Now we want to go to the Tracks Contents Group. We could stop interacting with the Tracks Header Group, VO+Right Arrow to the Tracks Contents Group, and interact with it. However, let's use a different command: VO+J.If we are in the Tracks Header Group when we press VO+J, The VoiceOver cursor will jump inside the Tracks Contents Group and always land on track one, even if there are multiple tracks. In this case, VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks contents group 1 item Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background.
Notice the words "track background" at the end of the track name. Recall that VoiceOver appends this label to the end of track names in the Tracks Contents Group.
9. Interact with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track 1, “Narration Vocal” Track Background, Narration Vocal#01, Region.
Notice that VoiceOver appended the word "region" to the end of the region name. This tells us that the VoiceOver cursor is on a region. Recall that in GarageBand, recordings are represented by icons called regions. A track can be empty, or it can contain one or more recordings, that is to say, a track can contain one or more regions. For example, if we split our original recording into two smaller pieces, the track would then contain two regions. If we split the original recording into three smaller pieces, our track would then contain three regions, and so on. GarageBand automatically assigned the name "Narration Vocal#01" to our region. As we go along, you will notice that GarageBand automatically changes the numbers at the end of region names to make sure each region has a unique name. This probably has to do with GarageBand's ability to undo multiple steps.
10. We can now delete our test recording from here by pressing the Delete key. If the track ) contained more than one region, the Delete key deletes whichever region the VoiceOver cursor is on. In this case, there was only one region. When that region was deleted, the VoiceOver cursor probably jumped back to Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. Let's interact with it to make sure the region was deleted. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background dimmed hidden.
This message is essentially the same as Content is Empty". You can press Enter and then Spacebar to make sure that the region containing the test recording has been deleted because you will no longer hear it.

Note: Because we only have one track in our project, we can safely record from within the Tracks Contents Group. This is because we can be certain that track one has project focus. When a project has multiple tracks, it is safer to record tracks from within the Tracks Header Group. This is because project focus follows the VoiceOver cursor in the Tracks Header Group. Thus, when we select a track with the VoiceOver cursor in the Tracks Header Group, we can be certain that the track is the one that will be recorded to. Recall that project focus does not follow the VoiceOver cursor in the Tracks Contents Group.

11. Now, let's record "Four score and seven years ago, um, our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".To make this exercise easier to edit later on, record the phrase more slowly than normal. This will leave a bit more silence between each word, thus making the recording easier to edit. So, Press the Enter key to make sure that the playhead is at the beginning of the project. Press the letter R to begin recording. Begin speaking after the four beat count-in. Press the Spacebar when finished speaking.
12. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead cursor to the beginning of the project and press the Spacebar to begin playback. You should hear your recording without the count-in clicks. After listening to your recording, press the Spacebar to stop playback.
13. There should now be a new region in the track's contents area. The VoiceOver cursor probably jumped back to Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background, so interact with it. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background Narration Vocal#02 Region.
Notice that GarageBand gave our new region a different name than before, this time, instead of Narration Vocal #01, it is now Narration Vocal #02. Again, this renaming behavior probably has to do with GarageBand's ability to undo and redo previous steps.
14. Now, here is a very useful keyboard command that is not in the GarageBand Keyboard Shortcuts reference. Press VO+Shift+H. VoiceOver should say something extremely wordy like:
"Region starts at and ends at 9 seconds 308 seconds fraction . Audio region. An editable object representing recorded or imported audio. Drag the middle to move, the lower edges to resize, and the upper-right edge to loop".
VO+Shift+H is the VoiceOver command to read the help tag for the current item. Fortunately, the command speaks the start and end positions of whatever region the VoiceOver cursor is on. And, thankfully, it reads the region start and end positions before all the rest of the help tag verbiage. So, we can stop VoiceOver from speaking the unwanted verbiage by pressing the Control key to stop speech after hearing the region's start and end positions.

Note: Notice how the region start and end positions were spoken by VoiceOver:
Region starts at and ends at 9 seconds 308 seconds fraction.
Notice that no start position was given, only an end position. Recall that earlier in this article we discussed the fact that GarageBand hides playhead positions of zero when the display mode is set to "Time". Therefore, the way to interpret the region's start and end points is:
Region starts at [0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds 0 seconds fraction] and ends at 9 seconds 308 seconds fraction. Over time, you will get used to this.

Now we are going to learn a number of techniques for eliminating the unwanted word "um" from our audio recording. We will perform three different techniques for accomplishing the same task. But first, let's save our project because after trying the first technique, we will want to restore our project back to this state so that we can try the other techniques. So, press Command+S and give your project a meaningful name such as Podcast Editing Exercise.

FIRST TECHNIQUE

In the first technique, we are going to split our original recording between the words "ago" and "um". We will then have two regions. The first region will contain the words "Four score and seven years ago", and the second region will contain the words "um, our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". Then, we will split the second region between the words "um" and "our". Our audio track will then contain three regions. The first region will contain the words "Four score and seven years ago". The second region will contain the word "um". And the third region will contain the words "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". We will then delete the region containing the word "um".

Note: In GarageBand, a sighted user can look at a track's visual waveform graph to see where the valleys are between the peaks of sound. In other words, the peaks on the graph represent words being spoken, and the valleys represent the silences between words. So, looking at the valleys between words, the sighted user can easily see where to split the regions between words. This waveform information is not accessible to VoiceOver. Therefor, the VoiceOver user must do this by ear, by trial and error. Hey, at least it is possible to do it at all. Considering that GarageBand was designed for sighted users, it is actually pretty amazing how much VoiceOver enables the vision-impaired user to accomplish. Also, keep in mind that GarageBand is a free app that does not contain all the bells and whistles of professional apps, such as Apple's Logic Pro X.

1. The VoiceOver cursor should be on Narration Vocal#02 Region. Press the Enter key to make sure that the playhead is at the beginning of the project. Press the Spacebar to begin playback of your recording. Be ready to press the Spacebar again after you hear the word "ago" but before you hear the word "um". When you press the Spacebar to stop playback, VoiceOver will speak the position where the playhead stopped. For example, VoiceOver may say something like:
3 seconds 196 seconds fraction.
You may have stopped a little too soon, or a little too late. You may want to try this a couple of times to get a feel for the timing. This is just an exercise so don't worry about perfection. The main thing is to understand the overall technique.
2. Once you think that you have stopped the playhead in a good spot between the two words, press Command+T to split the region at that spot. VoiceOver should say:
Split Regions/Events at Playhead Position.
There should now be two regions. As we saw before, GarageBand automatically gives regions unique names. The original region might have been automatically renamed to something like Narration Vocal#02.1 and the second region might have been named something like Narration Vocal#02.2.
3. Press VO+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the first region on the track. Then press VO+Shift+H to read the start and end positions of the region. Next, press VO+Right Arrow one time to move the VoiceOver cursor to the second region. Press VO+Shift+H again to hear the start and end positions of the second region. As an example, the first region might be:
Region starts at and ends at 3 seconds 196 seconds fraction .
And the second region might be:
Region starts at 3 seconds 196 seconds fraction and ends at 9 seconds 308 seconds fraction .
Notice that 3 seconds 196 seconds fraction is the end of the first region and the beginning of the second region. This is the position of the split point.
4. Now we will split the second region after the word "um". Press VO+End to select the second region. press the Comma key one time to move the playhead backward on the time line two seconds. Then press Spacebar to begin playback. Be ready to press Spacebar to stop playback between the words "um" and "our". As before, you may want to do this a couple of times to get a feel for the timing. When you have stopped playback at a point that sounds good to you, press Command+T to split the second region after the word "um".
5. There should now be three regions. Press VO+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the first region. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal #02.1 Region.
VO+Right Arrow to the second region. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal #02.3 Region.
Recall that earlier, the second region was named Narration Vocal #02.2. But after splitting the second region, GarageBand gave the resulting two regions new names, something like:
Narration Vocal #02.3 and Narration Vocal #02.4.
6. Now we will delete the region containing the word "um". Press VO+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the first region. Then press VO+Right Arrow one time to select the second region. Then press VO+Shift+H to hear the start and end positions of the selected region. Does the region start where you expect ed? In the example we have been following in this exercise, it should start at 3 seconds 196 seconds fraction. Your start position will probably be slightly different. The point is to verify that the VoiceOver cursor is on the correct region.
7. When you are sure that you have selected the second region, press VO+M to open the GarageBand Menu. Press the letter E to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow until you locate the following two items:
Delete
Delete and Move

Note: The Delete option will delete the region and leave a gap of silence between adjacent regions. For example, if the deleted region was ten seconds long, a ten second gap of silence would remain. Using the delete key on the keyboard does the same thing as this delete option.
The Delete and Move option deletes the region but leaves no gap of silence.

8. Select the Delete and Move option and press Enter. The region containing the word "um" should have been deleted, and the region containing the words "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation", should have been slid to the left, leaving no gap where the deleted region formerly was. In other words, the region that was slid left should now have the same start position as had the deleted region.
9. Let's hear the results. Press the Enter key and then press Spacebar to begin playback. The word "um" should be gone. But wait! Perhaps you don't like the length of silence that still remains between the words "ago" and "our". The resulting gap may be too long or it may be too short. Either way, it may not sound natural. The size of the gap is the result of the split point choices we made. Don't worry about it right now. We were not trying for precision, we were just demonstrating a basic technique for eliminating a section of unwanted speech.

SECOND TECHNIQUE

In the second technique, we will only split our original recording once, this time between the word "um" and the word "our".

1. First, we want to restore the project to the state it was in earlier where we had just one region containing the entire original phrase. So, press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu. Press the letter F to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the File dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Open Recent submenu". Press VO+Right Arrow to open the submenu. The first item in the submenu should be Podcast Editing Exercise.band. Press the Enter key to select it. The Save menu should open. Select the "Don't Save" option. Once the Podcast Editing Exercise opens, we will be ready to try out the second technique.
2. Let's navigate back to the region containing our original recording. press VO+J until VoiceOver says:
In Tracks contents group 2 items Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background.
Interact with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background Narration Vocal#02 Region
3. Press Enter to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Press Spacebar to begin playback. Be ready to press Spacebar to stop the playhead between the word "um" and the word "our". When satisfied that the playhead is in a good position, press Command+T to split the region at that point. The first region should now contain the words "Four score and seven years ago, um" and the second region should contain the words "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation.
4. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOVer cursor to the second region. This selects the second region. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.6 Region.

Note: Don' worry about what names GarageBand assigns to your regions because it has a mind of its own, so to speak. The important thing is that you split the original region into two regions, and that the second region is now selected.

5. Press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu bar. Press the letter E to open the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Cut" and press Enter. Or, you could just press Command+X.
6. Press Enter to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Press Spacebar to begin playback. Be ready to press Spacebar to stop the playhead between the words "ago" and "um". Write down the playhead position that VoiceOver spoke when playback stopped. In my case, VoiceOver said:
3 seconds 975 seconds fraction.
We are not going to split the region at this point. Instead, we are going to paste the region that we just cut to this playhead position.
7. Press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu bar. Press the letter E to open the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Paste" and press Enter. Or, you can just press Command+V.
8. The paste command should have overlaid the last part of the first region containing the word "um", thus eliminating it. Press Enter and then Spacebar to hear the results.
Suppose that the word "um" was eliminated but the gap of silence is a little too long or short. We can undo the paste, manually move the playhead to a different position, and re-paste the second region.
9. Press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu bar. Press the letter E to open the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Undo" and press Enter.
10. Press VO+9 to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Playhead Position Scrubber Group and interact with it. Remember the playhead position we wrote down a few steps ago. I wrote down: 3 seconds 975 seconds fraction. Perhaps a playhead position about 200 seconds fraction less would sound better. Interact with the Playhead Position Scrubber Group. in my case, I will adjust the seconds fraction slider so that I end up with a playhead position of 0 hours 0 minutes 3 seconds 775 seconds fraction. Now, when I re-paste the second region, the gap of silence should be 200 seconds fraction less.
11. Press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu bar. Press the letter E to open the Edit dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Paste". But wait a moment! Look more closely at the Paste option. Notice that it is dimmed, as are other commands such as Cut, Copy, and Delete. But, notice that a different option "Paste Replace" is not dimmed. Let's give it a try. Viola! Our second region, which has been sitting in the clipboard since we cut it earlier, has been pasted to the new playhead position. To summarize, we can undo the paste, readjust the playhead position using the Playhead Position Scrubber Group, and re-paste using Paste Replace, as many times as necessary until we get the gap between words to where it sounds natural.

Note: You will have noticed that I have been using the Edit dropdown menu rather than Command+X, Command+V, etc. Not only does VoiceOver often fail to tell you when one of these commands have been pressed, occasionally these commands, for whatever reason, fail to work. When using the commands from the Edit dropdown menu, they should always work unless they are dimmed. Feel free to use either method, or a combination of both, as I do.

THIRD TECHNIQUE

Okay, let's try out the third technique for eliminating the word "um". It is going to begin just like the second technique, but instead of using Cut and Paste to move the second region, we are going to use VoiceOver's Move Item function.

1. First, we want to restore the project to the state it was in earlier where we had just one region containing the entire original phrase. So, press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu. Press the letter F to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the File dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Open Recent submenu". Press VO+Right Arrow to open the submenu. The first item in the submenu should be Podcast Editing Exercise.band. Press the Enter key to select it. The Save menu should open. Select the "Don't Save" option. Once the Podcast Editing Exercise opens, we will be ready to try out the third technique.
2. Let's navigate back to the region containing our original recording. press VO+J until VoiceOver says:
In Tracks contents group 2 items Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background.
Interact with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track 1 “Narration Vocal” Track Background Narration Vocal#02 Region
3. Press Enter to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Press Spacebar to begin playback. Be ready to press Spacebar to stop the playhead between the word "um" and the word "our". When satisfied that the playhead is in a good position, press Command+T to split the region at that point. The first region should now contain the words "Four score and seven years ago, um" and the second region should contain the words "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation.
4. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOVer cursor to the second region. This selects the second region. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.10 Region.
Don't worry if your region has a different number in its name. The important thing is that you now have two regions and that VoiceOver is on the second region.
5. press the letter C to turn on Cycle Mode. Press Spacebar to start playback of the cycle region. After listening, press Spacebar to stop playback. In my case, I hear the incomplete phrase "Four score and seven years ago, um, our mothers brought forth upon" continuously repeated. The rest of the phrase "this continent a new nation" is cut off because the default cycle region length is too short to encompass the entire phrase. For what we are going to do, increasing the length of the cycle region isn't necessary but let's see how to do it anyway.
6. Stop interacting with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. Stop interacting with the Tracks Contents Group. VO+Left Arrow to Tracks Time Ruler Time Line and interact with it. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks time ruler time line 4 items on cycle region layout item.
The four items and their current values are:
on cycle region layout item (cycle mode is on because we earlier pressed the letter C to turn it on)
5 seconds 927 seconds fraction Playhead thumb value indicator (this is another place where we can check/change playhead position)
0.5% zoom slider (we are going to discuss this shortly)
1 minute 4 seconds End Marker value indicator (here is where we can change the value of the End Marker)
7. Press VO+Home to ensure that the VoiceOver cursor is on the cycle region layout item and interact with it. VoiceOver should say:
In on cycle region layout item 2 items Left Locator handle.
The two items are the Left Locator Handle and the Right Locator Handle. They are the left and right edges of the cycle region. By default, the cycle region is eight seconds long. Let's lengthen it by interacting with the Right Locator Handle. We can listen to our changes as we make them by pressing Spacebar to begin cycle region playback. Each press of VO+Right Arrow should lengthen the cycle region by two seconds. So, press VO+Right Arrow one time, lengthening the cycle region to ten seconds. Listen to how much of the phrase is now heard. In my case, the very last word "nation" is partly cutoff. So, I press VO+Right Arrow one more time, lengthening the cycle region to twelve seconds. This time I hear the entire phrase plus a lot of silence before the cycle region starts over. If I really wanted to, I could press VO+Shift+Left Arrow to shorten the cycle region by 500 seconds fraction. In my case, I can press VO+Shift+Left Arrow three times. This makes my cycle region ten and a half seconds long. At this length, the entire phrase is heard but now not much silence is heard before the cycle region starts over. This level of fine tuning isn't necessary. I am just showing you options for adjusting the length of the cycle region. Press Spacebar to stop cycle playback. Stop interacting with the Right Locator Handle. Stop interacting with the cycle region layout item.
8. VO+Down Arrow to the zoom slider and interact with it. This is called Horizontal Zoom. its current value is 0.5% . VO+Left And VO+Right Arrows increment in units of five percent, while VO+Shift+Left and VO+Shift+Right Arrows increment in units of one percent. What if I wanted the value to be exactly fifty percent? If we press VO+left Arrow, enough times, we will get to zero percent. This resets the value to zero, eliminating the 0.5 percent. Now, when we use the VO or VO+Shift arrows, we increment in whole numbers. So, set the zoom value to fifty percent. Stop interacting with the zoom slider. The reason for adjusting the zoom slider will be made clear shortly.
9. We want to go back to the Tracks Contents Group. Check this out. Press VO+J one time. The VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Header Group. Press VO+J a second time and the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group and lands on Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background.

Note: Too bad VO+J only moves the VoiceOver cursor in one direction. Nonetheless, it can be a great time saver. It is hard to explain just how VO+J works. It partly has to do with which windows are open. VO+J will jump the VoiceOver cursor into some windows but not others. You just need to play with it to learn how it behaves.

10. Interact with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOVer cursor to the second region which contains the words "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". Press Spacebar to begin playback of the cycle region.
11. With the cursor on the second region, press VO+Command+Accent to turn on VoiceOver's Move Item function. FYI, the accent key is just below the Escape key. The item to be moved is the second region. Because cycle mode is on, we will be able to hear our changes as we make them. Recall that we changed the zoom slider to fifty percent. The horizontal zoom value affects how much the region will be moved with each key press. At fifty percent, VO+Left Arrow will move the region to the left about forty-five seconds fraction. And VO+Shift+Left Arrow will move the region to the left by about three seconds fraction. These are tiny increments. However, you need to understand that as the second region is moved left, it will increasingly encroach into the first region. As it encroaches, it permanently erases that portion of the first region. In fact, if we moved the second region to the left far enough, we would completely erase the first region. of course, we don't want to do that. We only want to move the second region to the left just enough to erase the word "um". You also need to be aware of the fact that this process cannot be undone. Therefore, in ordinary practice, we would want to save our project before attempting this undoable edit in case we make a mistake and need to start over. Press Command+Shift+S to do a Save As. Name this version of the project something like Podcast Editing Exercise Move Item Function.
12. So, with cycle mode on, press VO+Left Arrow and listen to the results. The increments are small enough that you probably won't hear much effect until after you have pressed VO+Left Arrow quite a few times. Keep pressing VO+Left Arrow until the word "um" is completely erased.Once the word "um" is erased, you can use the VO+Left and VO+Right arrows, or the VO+Shift+Left and VO+Shift+Right arrows to adjust the position of the second region until the gap of silence between the words "ago" and "our" sounds natural to you. When done editing, press the Escape key to terminate the Move Item function.

Note: The smaller the horizontal zoom value, the larger the increments in the Move Item function. And the larger the horizontal zoom value the smaller the increments. Because of the destructive nature of this process, it is prudent to be conservative and move in smaller increments until you get more familiar with the Move Item function.

Okay, up to this point, we have been doing our editing from within the Tracks Contents Group. All of the techniques previously discussed can also be performed from within the audio editor, that is to say, from within the Track Group.

THE AUDIO EDITOR

1. First, we want to restore the project to the state it was in earlier where we had just one region containing the entire original phrase. So, press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu. Press the letter F to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the File dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Open Recent submenu". Press VO+Right Arrow to open the submenu. The first item in the submenu may no longer be Podcast Editing Exercise.band. VO+Down Arrow to it if necessary and press the Enter key to select it. The Save menu should open. Select the "Don't Save" option. Once the Podcast Editing Exercise opens, we will be ready to proceed.
2. Since our project has only one track, that track already has project focus. If we had more than one track, we would navigate to the Tracks Header Group and use the VO+Arrow keys to select the audio track that we want to have project focus. In either case, press the letter E to open the audio track editor. The name VoiceOver gives to the audio track editor is Track Group. Notice that there is a Tracks Group and a Track Group. The Tracks Group is the tracks area in the GarageBand main window, while the Track Group is the audio track editor. The difference in the names is subtle, but you will get used to them.

Note: There are different editors for different track types. Pressing the letter E opens the appropriate editor for the track type that currently has focus. These editors open in a separate window below the tracks area in the GarageBand main window.

3. When the Track Group opens, the VoiceOver cursor should jump to it, and VoiceOver should say:
Track Group, GarageBand has new window.
But, once in a while, the VoiceOver cursor fails to jump even though the editor window has opened. If VoiceOver doesn't announce the Track Group, you can do one of two things:
* Press the letter E again. This will close the Track Group. Press the letter E once more. This will reopen the Track Group. It is my experience that the second time the Track Group opens, the VoiceOver cursor always jumps to it. This behavior may have something to do with screen refresh between GarageBand and VoiceOver. This triple press of the shortcut letter also works for other windows.
* If the VoiceOver cursor didn't jump automatically, press VO+Command+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the top left corner of the screen and then press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the Track Group. Interact with the Track Group. The Track Group contains two items, the Track Toolbar and another item also named Track Group. If the VoiceOver cursor had jumped automatically, it would have landed on this second instance of Track Group. Interact with this Track Group.
4. When we interact with the Track Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Track group 7 items Track legend group.
The seven items and their current values are:
Track legend group
Track time ruler group
Track radio button, 1 of 2
Region selected radio button, 2 of 2
Narration Vocal#02 contents selected edit text (this is the currently selected region)
Reverse Playback unchecked checkbox
Track contents group (Notice that there is also a Contents area in the audio track editor)
5. VO+Arrow to the Track Time Ruler Group and interact with it. It contains the following four items and their current values:
off, cycle region layout item (this means cycle mode is off)
Playhead thumb value indicator (playhead position is zero)
play button (see description below)
1 minute 4 seconds End Marker value indicator (this is the point on the time line where playback stops automatically when the playhead reaches it.)
6. Notice that the Track Time Ruler Group contains a Play button. There is a play button for each region in an audio track. Since our Narration Vocal track currently has only one region, there is only one play button. If there were two regions, there would be two play buttons. If there were three regions, there would be three play buttons. VO+Arrow to the Play button and press VO+Spacebar to begin playback of the region. Notice that the region loops until the Play button is pressed again or the Spacebar is pressed. It is like having a cycle region that is automatically setup for this region.
7.Recall the first technique for eliminating the word "um". Let's see how to perform the same technique in the audio editor. Press Enter to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Press Spacebar to begin playback. Be ready to press Spacebar to stop the playhead between the words "ago" and "um". When the playhead stops, VoiceOver should say something like:
3 seconds 868 seconds fraction.
8. Press Command+T to split the region at the playhead position. Notice that there are now two Play buttons. Try them both out by pressing VO+Spacebar to start/stop playback. One Play button cycles the first region containing the words "Four score and seven years ago". The second Play button cycles the region containing the words "um, our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".
Notice that when the Play button for the second region is pressed,VoiceOver speaks the start position of the region, for example:
3 seconds 868 seconds fraction.
This is the split point. Since the start position of the first region is zero, VoiceOver does not speak the start position.

Note: The point of listening to each region is to determine if the split point between the words is good. For example, if you can hear a little bit of the preceding word or some artifact of sound from the preceding word, then the split point should be moved forward on the time line. Likewise, if you can hear a little bit of the second word or some artifact of sound from the second word, then the split point should be moved backward on the time line.

Caution: When playing continuously cycling regions, it can be difficult to know if a noise is coming from the end of a region or from the beginning of a region. So, if there is a noise at the beginning of a region, changing the split point at the end of the region won't help. The solution in a case like this is to eliminate the noise at the beginning of the loop.

9. If you don't like the split point after the word "ago", you have two options.
* You can undo the split and try splitting at another point using the trial and error method.
* Undo the split point and manually reposition the playhead to a new split point. Let's try this second option.
10. Before undoing the split, we need to know/write down the position of the current split point. The current split point can be determined by pressing the Play button for the second region. For example, VoiceOver might say something like:
3 seconds 868 seconds fraction.
11. Undo the split by pressing Command+Z or by going to the Edit dropdown menu. There should now only be one play button again because there is now only one region.
12. Notice that in addition to the play button, there is also a control named Playhead Thumb Value Indicator. Not only does this control display the current position of the playhead, but it can also be used to reposition the playhead. Interact with the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator. The VO+Left and VO+Right Arrow keys change the playhead position in larger increments while VO+Shift+Left and VO+Shift+Right arrows change in smaller increments. To make the math easy, we could try changing the playhead position by 200 seconds fraction. Adjusting the playhead forward, we could change it from 3 seconds 868 seconds fraction to 4 seconds 68 seconds fraction. Or, adjusting the playhead backwards, we could change it to 3 seconds 668 seconds fraction.

Note: When considering how much to change the playhead position, know that 250 seconds fraction (250 milliseconds) is one fourth of a second. How much is one fourth of a second? Do you remember the technique for counting by seconds: one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, and so on. Notice that there are four syllables in "one one thousand". Therefore, one syllable is approximately one fourth of a second.

13. Once the playhead has been adjusted, press Command+T to split the region into two regions at the new split point.
14. Now that there are two regions again, there will be two play buttons. Use the Play buttons to see if the new split point is any better. Repeat the undo, adjust playhead position, and re-split process as many times as necessary until you are satisfied with the split point. The split point can be adjusted very precisely using the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator, as little as one thousandths of a second.
15. If we want to split the second region after the word "um", we first need to select the second region. This is done in the Track Time Ruler Group by clicking on the second region's Play button. Once you have stopped playback of the second region, position the playhead a few seconds before the point to be split. Press Spacebar to begin playback. Press Spacebar to stop the playhead at the desired point, and then press Command+T to split the second region. For our exercise, we want to split between the words "um" and "our". There will now be three regions and three Play buttons.
16. In this example, we want to Delete and Move the region containing the word "um". In general, to Delete or "Delete and Move" a region, we must first press its play button to select it. Press the Play button or press the Spacebar to stop playback. And then use the desired delete option. The Delete and Move option can only be done in the Edit dropdown menu. We should have two regions again, the first one containing the phrase "Four score and seven years ago" and the second region containing the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".

To summarize, we first learned three editing techniques for eliminating the word "um" from within the Tracks Contents Group. I then told you that all three techniques can also be performed from within the audio track editor, that is to say, from within the Track Group. From within the Track Group, we just performed the first technique, demonstrating how to select regions using their Play buttons. The second technique can be performed in the same way. However, to use the third technique involving the Move Item function, we need to navigate to the audio track's Track Contents Group.

17. Stop interacting with the Track Time Ruler Group. Press VO+End to jump to the Track Contents Group and interact with it. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Track contents group 2 items Narration Vocal#02.1 Region.
The message tells us that there are two regions. Just a few steps ago, we used the Delete and Move command to eliminate the region containing the word "um", leaving us with two regions. The first region contains the phrase "Four score and seven years ago" and the second region contains the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation". I won't go through the steps for using the Move Item function here because it works the same way here in the Track Contents Group as it does in the Tracks Contents Group.

Note: The Track Contents Group has a quirk. When the audio track has only one region, the region does not appear in the Track Contents Group. In other words, the Track Contents Group appears to be empty. However, once the single region has been split, the two regions will appear in the Track Contents Group. I don't know why this is so but just know that the Track Contents Group is only useful when the audio track contains two or more regions.

18. Let's save this project for later use. Press Command+Shift+S to open the "Save As" dialogue. Give this version of the project the name "Podcast Editing Exercise Audio Editor".

THE MULTIPLE ITEM SELECT FUNCTION AND THE JOIN COMMAND

Let's return to the Tracks Group and learn how to undo a split using the Multiple Item Select function and the Join command.

1. First, we want to restore the project to the state it was in earlier where we had just one region containing the entire original phrase. So, press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu. Press the letter F to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the File dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Open Recent submenu". Press VO+Right Arrow to open the submenu. VO+Down Arrow to Podcast Editing Exercise.band. Press the Enter key to select it. If the Save menu opens, Select the "Don't Save" option. Once the Podcast Editing Exercise project opens, we will be ready to proceed.
2. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor lands on Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background and interact with it.
3. By now, you should know how to split the region between the words "ago" and "um". Go ahead and do this on your own.
4. There should now be two regions. The first region should contain the phrase "Four score and seven years ago" and the second region should contain the phrase "um, our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".
5. We know that we can undo the split by pressing Command+Z or by going to the Edit dropdown menu and choosing the Split option. But, let's learn another way to do it.
6. Press VO+Home to make sure that the VoiceOver cursor is on the first region. Press VO+Command+Enter. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.1 Region removed from selection 0 items selected.
Press VO+Command+Enter again. This time VoiceOver should say:
Narration Vocal#02.1 selected Region added to selection 1 item selected.
The first keypress cleared Multiple Item Selection. The second keypress added the first region to Multiple Item Selection. Now, VO+Right Arrow to the second region and press VO+Command+Enter. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.2 selected Region added to selection 2 items selected.
Notice that VoiceOver now says that two items have been selected.
7. We will now join the two selected regions into a single region, thus removing the split. Press Command+J to join the two regions. VoiceOver should say:
Join Regions/Notes.
Track 1 "Narration Vocal #02" track background now contains only one region again.

Let's open the project that we just saved to learn another use for the Multiple Item Select function and the Join command.

1. Press VO+M to open the GarageBand menu. Press the letter F to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the File dropdown menu. VO+Down Arrow to "Open Recent submenu". Press VO+Right Arrow to open the submenu. VO+Down Arrow to Podcast Editing Exercise Audio Editor.band. Press the Enter key to select it. The Save menu should open. Select the "Don't Save" option. Once the Podcast Editing Exercise opens, we will be ready to proceed.
2. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor lands on Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background and interact with it.
3. There should be two regions. The first region should contain the phrase "Four score and seven years ago" and the second region should contain the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".
4. If we had a desire to do so, we could join the two regions into one region. We would end up with one region containing the words "Four score and seven years ago our mothers brought forth upon this continent a new nation".
5. Press VO+Home to make sure that the VoiceOver cursor is on the first region. Press VO+Command+Enter. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.1 Region removed from selection 0 items selected.
Press VO+Command+Enter again. This time VoiceOver should say:
Narration Vocal#02.1 selected Region added to selection 1 item selected.
The first keypress cleared Multiple Item Selection. The second keypress added the first region to Multiple Item Selection. Now, VO+Right Arrow to the second region and press VO+Command+Enter. VoiceOver should say something like:
Narration Vocal#02.4 selected Region added to selection 2 items selected.
Notice that VoiceOver now says that two items have been selected.
6. We will now join the two selected regions into a single region. Press Command+J to join the two regions. VoiceOver should say:
Non-contiguous audio regions require the creation of a new audio file!
VO+Arrow to the Create button and press VO+Spacebar. Or just press Enter because the Create button is the default action. Now, the single region in Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background contains the phrase "Four score and seven years ago our mothers brought fourth upon this continent a new nation".

REPLACING A PHRASE

7. You now know how to perform a split on either side of an unwanted word or phrase, and how to remove it from the audio track. Now, let's cut out the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent" and replace it with "our fathers brought forth upon this continent". You know how to make the splits on either side of the phrase so go ahead and do them on your own. When finished, there should be three regions. The first region should contain the phrase "Four score and seven years ago". The second region should contain the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent". And the third region should contain the phrase "a new nation".
8. Interact with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. Press VO+Home to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the first region. Then press VO+Right Arrow one time to select the second/middle region containing the phrase "our mothers brought forth upon this continent". We want to delete this region but this time we want to leave the gap of silence between the first and third regions so that we have room to record the new phrase. To do this, we can use the Delete key on our keyboard or choose Delete from the Edit dropdown menu. When the middle region has been deleted, press Spacebar to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press Spacebar to begin playback. We should hear "Four score and seven years ago", then several seconds of silence, then "a new nation".
9. Stop interacting with Track 1 "Narration Vocal" track background. Stop interacting with the Tracks Contents Group. VO+Left Arrow to the Tracks Header Group and interact with it. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “Narration Vocal” group.
10. We want to duplicate the Narration Vocal track. Duplicating a track only copies settings. Regions are not duplicated. Press Command+D to duplicate the Narration Vocal track. VoiceOver should say:
New Track with Duplicate Settings.
Press VO+Down Arrow to select the new track, Track 2 "Narration Vocal" Group.
11. We will record the new phrase onto the second audio track. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project. Press the letter R to begin recording, You will hear the audio from track one, "Four score and seven years ago". Be ready to start speaking "our fathers brought forth upon this continent". You will then hear the audio from track one, "a new nation". You may need to press Command+Z to undo the recording because you may have spoken too quickly, or you may have spoken too slowly. You may have spoken louder than on the audio on track one, or you may have spoken too quietly. Record and undo as many times as needed until you are satisfied with your recording of the new phrase.

Note: Here is the next thing to consider. Do you want to leave your new phrase as a separate track, or do you want to paste the new phrase into the gap on the original track (track one). The advantage of leaving it as a separate track is that you can adjust the volume up or down at any time without affecting the original track (track one).And, you can more easily adjust the phrase a little to the left or right to make the word flow sound more natural. The disadvantage is that, multiple tracks may make the project feel cluttered. Personally, I would keep the second track because it gives you more editing options in the long run. The best way to manage multiple tracks is to give them meaningful names so that you know exactly what the are without having to guess. For example, you could name the second track "our fathers brought forth", or even include the full phrase in the track name. We tend to know what tracks are at the time we are working on them. But, when we open the project a week or month later, we will be glad that we took the time to give our tracks meaningful names. Also, multiple tracks are not a problem when exporting your project to an MP3 or other file format.

Let's suppose that your recording of the phrase, "our fathers brought forth upon this continent", sounds really good and you would like to keep it, but the only problem is that the gap of silence before the next phrase, "a new nation", sounds unnatural because it is too long or too short. No problem, you have learned a number of techniques that can be used to fix the problem.

ADDING A PHRASE TO THE END OF THE PROJECT

We used a duplicated track to record a phrase in the middle of our speech. We can use this same method to add speech to the end of the project as well. For example, we could record the phrase "Abraham Lincoln, from the Gettysburg Address" onto a new track. We would then end up with:

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation. Abraham Lincoln, from the Gettysburg Address."

All rights reserved, including copyright.

Thanks for that detailed and comprehensive explanation of audio editing. You've given me new hope that I can use GarageBand for podcasting.

Making the Arrangement Track Accessible with OS Mouse Keys
Written by Jeffrey R. Griffith, 2021, All rights reserved.

What is the Arrangement Track?

Suppose that you have a project with the following simple song structure:

Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Outro

Now suppose that you would like to change the song structure by repeating the first verse and repeating the last chorus. The song structure would then look like:

Intro Verse Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

Still later, you might like to hear how your song sounds with a bridge section inserted after the first chorus as follows:

Intro Verse Verse Chorus Bridge Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

If you have ever made such changes to one of your songs, you know how tedious and time-consuming it can be. If your song has twenty tracks, for example, you must go into each track and manually shift regions around. What if, when you inserted a bridge section, all the regions in all twenty tracks shifted over automatically to make room for it. This is what the Arrangement track can do.

According to Apple Support, "You can add arrangement markers to a project to create different sections, such as an intro, verse, and chorus, and then move the sections in the Tracks area to quickly rearrange the project. Arrangement markers can be particularly useful when you add material (recordings, loops, or media files) to the project and want to try out different arrangements."

In this article I will teach you how to use the Arrangement track. The Arrangement track is not accessible using VoiceOver alone. You must also use a separate MacOs accessibility feature called Mouse Keys. Mouse Keys allows for alternate methods of performing mouse functions. According to Apple support: "When you turn on Mouse Keys on your Mac, you can move the mouse pointer and press the mouse button using the keyboard or a numeric keypad."

Control the pointer using Mouse Keys on Mac - Apple Support
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-the-pointer-using-mouse-keys-mh27469/mac

I highly recommend using an extended keyboard with a dedicated numeric keypad, even if you use a laptop. Since an extended keyboard has command, option, and control keys on both sides of the spacebar, VoiceOver commands can be formed with either hand. And while Mouse Keys can be used on a laptop keyboard, when Mouse Keys is enabled, most of the keys on the right half of the laptop keyboard are remapped to mimic a numpad. This means that Mouse Keys must be turned off every time you want the right side of the laptop keyboard to resume normal functioning. Turning Mouse Keys on and off can get tedious. However, when using an extended keyboard with a dedicated numpad, Mouse Keys can be left on all the time. By the way, to use Mouse Keys on an extended keyboard, the VoiceOver NumPad Commander must be off. This is because NumPad Commander remaps the numpad keys to alternate functions that will interfere with the Mouse Keys numpad functions. NumPad Commander can be toggled on or off with Control+Option+Clear. The Clear key is immediately above the number seven key on the numpad.

In this article, my instructions are for extended keyboards. If you plan to use a laptop keyboard, you can use the above URL to learn how the righthand side of a laptop keyboard is remapped by Mouse Keys. In fact, I encourage everyone to read the support page because it describes a few Mouse Key commands that I do not reference in this article. Also, it is interesting to see the various other ways that the mouse cursor can be controlled.

Note: On a laptop keyboard, the keys used are 7, 8, 9 same as NumPad 7, 8, 9. U, I, O same as NumPad 4, 5, 6. J, K, L same as NumPad 1, 2, 3. M same as NumPad 0. Period same as NumPad Period. So, if I instruct you to press NumPad 5, for example, those using a laptop keyboard will make sure Mouse Keys is enabled and then press the letter I.

This article assumes that you have a working knowledge of VoiceOver and GarageBand. I am still using MacOS Catalina since MacOs Big Sur will not run on my 2012 MacBook Pro. Therefore, I am using GarageBand 10.3.5 because the newest versions of GarageBand require MacOs Big Sur. Thanks to Paul Martz for testing this article on Big Sur and for his excellent proof-reading and suggestions.

Set Mouse Cursor Size and Position to Points
VoiceOver will report the location of the mouse cursor on the screen in inches, millimeters, or points. Points are most precise. As an example, VoiceOver may report your mouse cursor's location as 350 points right, 165 points down from the top left corner of the screen.

1. Press VO+F8 (Control+Option+F8) to open the VoiceOver Utility.
2. Select Verbosity from the Utility Categories table.
3. Verbosity has five tabs. Select the Announcements tab.
4. VO+Right Arrow through the various controls until VoiceOver lands on the Speak size and position pop up button.
5. Press VO+Spacebar to activate the pop up button and choose points from the menu.
6. Press Command+Q to close the VoiceOver Utility.

Turn On Mouse Keys
1. In System Preferences, select Accessibility.
2. In the Accessibility features table, select Pointer Control.
3. In Pointer Control, select the Alternate Control Methods tab.
4. In the Alternate Control Methods tab, check the Enable Mouse Keys checkbox.
5. The next control after the Enable Mouse Keys checkbox is Options… button. Press VO+Spacebar on this button.
6. One of the options is Press the Option key five times to toggle Mouse Keys checkbox. Check this checkbox.
7. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the OK button. Press VO+Spacebar to close the dialogue.
8. Press Command+Q to exit System Preferences.
9. Press VO+F1 to hear VoiceOver describe running applications. In my case, VoiceOver says:
Finder 2 running applications current activity VoiceOver Settings Mouse Keys enabled
Notice that the message indicates that Mouse Keys is enabled. VO+F1 can be used any time to verify that Mouse Keys is enabled. Pressing the Option key five times toggles Mouse Keys on or off. If you restart your computer, you may need to turn Mouse Keys on again.

Setting Up the GarageBand Project
1. Launch GarageBand.
2. Create a new project using the Empty Project template. When the new track dialogue opens, select Audio - Microphone & Line In radio button.
3. After the project opens, press Y to close the Library window and press B to close the Smart Controls window. They will not be needed.
4. Press VO+J several times until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks time ruler time line 4 items off cycle region layout item
The Tracks Time Ruler Time Line contains the following four controls with their default settings:

off cycle region layout item
6.8% zoom slider
32. bars End Marker value indicator
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator

5. Press Command+Shift+A to show the Arrangement track. This adds two buttons to the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line as follows.

off cycle region layout item
6.8% zoom slider
32. bars End Marker value indicator
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator
Button
Arrangement track. Contains arrangement markers, which you can use to quickly reorganize a project. button

I do not know why, but occasionally, the second button is initially unlabeled, so the contents of the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line might look like this:

off cycle region layout item
6.8% zoom slider
32. bars End Marker value indicator
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator
Button
Button

If this happens, try clicking on the second button and the Arrangement track label may appear. Do not worry about it if it does not appear.

A couple of housekeeping chores will prevent some problems later when working with the Arrangement track.
6. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the End Marker value indicator, interact with it, and then press VO+Right Arrow a number of times to set the value to eighty bars. Eighty is somewhat arbitrary. You just want to allow room to expand the length of your project beyond the default of 32 bars.
7. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the zoom slider, interact with it, and then press VO+left Arrow a few times until the value is set to zero.
8. Press Command+S to save your project as Arrangement Track Exercise Setup. Then press Command+Shift+S to save a copy of your project as Arrangement Track Exercise. You may not complete this article in one session so you can save your work-in-progress to Arrangement Track Exercise. Later in this article you will be asked to open Arrangement Track Exercise Setup to start a new exercise.

The Working Environment
You will now explore the working environment within the GarageBand main window. This will provide an opportunity to get familiar with some Mouse Keys commands and some mouse related VoiceOver commands. Once you have issued the Show Arrangement track command, the Arrangement track appears in the GarageBand main window as a control track just under the Time Ruler Time Line. Below the Arrangement track is the first music track. The playhead is a long, thin vertical line that crosses over all three tracks. It moves over these tracks to indicate current position in the song. You will move the mouse cursor around on the screen to explore the playhead, Time Ruler Time Line, Arrangement track, and first music track.

1. You should still be in the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line, so move the VoiceOver cursor to the Playhead thumb value indicator. VoiceOver should say something like:
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator
The Playhead Thumb Value Indicator is the upper part of the playhead. It is the part that crosses over the Time Ruler Time Line.
2. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor. This VoiceOver command causes the mouse cursor to jump to wherever the VoiceOver cursor is located on the screen. In this case, they are now both on the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator.
3. Press VO+F5 to have VoiceOver describe the item under the mouse cursor. VoiceOver should say:
1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick Playhead thumb value indicator is under the mouse
4. Press VO+F5 a second time. VoiceOver should say something like:
351 points right, 136 points down from top left corner of screen.
See note below.
5. Press VO+F5 a third time. VoiceOver should say something like:
351 points right, 113 points down from top left corner of window.
VO+F5 will describe the location of the mouse cursor from the top left corner of the screen or from the top left corner of the current window. I prefer using the screen coordinates.

Note: VO+F5is supposed to be a three state toggle as described above. However, in my experience, it often acts like a four state toggle, repeating the first state twice before speaking the screen and window coordinates. Just keep pressing VO+F5 and it will eventually cycle between all three states.

6. Press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor to the right ten points.
7. Press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Tracks time ruler time line is under the mouse
The message indicates that you have moved the mouse cursor off of the playhead and over to the right on the Tracks time ruler time line
8. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down ten points. then press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Arrangement track. Contains arrangement markers, which you can use to quickly reorganize a project. button is under the mouse
Recall that the Arrangement track is beneath the Time Ruler Time Line. You have moved the mouse cursor down off of the Time Ruler Time Line and onto the Arrangement track.
9. If you move the mouse cursor back to the left ten points, you should encounter the playhead crossing over the Arrangement track. So press NumPad 4 ten times Then press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Playhead. Indicates the playback position. Move by dragging, clicking the lower part of the ruler, or using the LCD Position displays. button is under the mouse
10. Recall that the first music track is below the Arrangement track. Press NumPad 2 thirty times. This moves the mouse cursor down along the playhead to where it crosses over the music track.
11. Now press NumPad 6 ten times. This moves the mouse cursor off the playhead and over to the right on the music track. Press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Track 1 “Audio 1” Track Background is under the mouse
12. Press NumPad 8 thirty times. This moves the mouse cursor back up to the Arrangement track. Press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Arrangement track. Contains arrangement markers, which you can use to quickly reorganize a project. button is under the mouse
13. Press NumPad 8 ten times. This moves the mouse cursor back up to the Time Ruler Time Line. Press VO+F5. VoiceOver should say:
Tracks time ruler time line is under the mouse

You have moved the mouse cursor up and down between the Time Ruler Time Line, the Arrangement track, and the first music track. You have also seen that the playhead crosses these tracks and that you can move the mouse cursor on and off the playhead and on to any of them.

Creating Arrangement Markers
1. Stop interacting with the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line, navigate to the Tracks Legend Group, and interact with it. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks legend group 7 items New Tracks… ⌥⌘N button
When you earlier pressed Command+Shift+A to Show the Arrangement track, two buttons were added to the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. A few items were also added to the Tracks Legend Group, including the Create Arrangement Marker button.
2. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the Create Arrangement Marker button.
3. Press VO+Spacebar six times.

Note: The Create Arrangement Marker button is one way to add arrangement markers to the Arrangement track. You can think of arrangement markers as something like regions on a music track. The first time you pressed VO+Spacebar on the Create Arrangement Marker button, an eight bar arrangement marker named Intro was added to the beginning of the Arrangement track. Pressing the button a second time added an eight bar arrangement marker named Verse at the end of the Intro marker. Pressing the button a third time, an eight bar marker named Chorus was added at the end of the Verse marker. Pressing the button a fourth time added an eight bar marker named Bridge at the end of the Chorus marker. Pressing the button a fifth time added an eight bar marker named Outro at the end of the Bridge marker. Pressing the button a sixth time added an eight bar marker named Outro at the end of the first Outro marker. Continuing to press the button would continue to add additional markers named Outro to the Arrangement track.

Since you pressed the Create Arrangement Marker button six times, the Arrangement track should now contain six eight bar arrangement markers as follows:

Intro Verse Chorus Bridge Outro Outro

Renaming Arrangement Markers
You will now rename some of the markers so that your six markers are named as follows:

Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Outro

1. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
2. The first eight bar Intro marker starts at bar one so its midpoint will be at bar five. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Then press the Period key to move the playhead to the right until VoiceOver says:
5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
3. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor. Now, the VoiceOver cursor, and the mouse cursor are both on the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator.
4. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the arrangement marker's name field.
5. Perform a left mouse click by pressing NumPad 5. This selects the marker.
6. Press Command+NumPad 5. VoiceOver should say:
Menu
You should be able to down arrow through the shortcut menu options. If down arrow does not work, try VO+Down Arrow. Notice in the list of menu options that Intro is checked.

✓ Intro
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Outro
Rename...

7. The checkmark indicates that the name of the Arrangement marker is Intro. For this exercise, you do not need to change the name of this first marker so press the Escape key to close the shortcut menu.
8. The midpoint of the second eight bar arrangement marker is bar thirteen. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
9. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
10. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the second arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Verse should be checked. You do not need to change the name of this second marker so press the Escape key to close the menu.
11. The midpoint of the third eight bar arrangement marker is bar 21. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 21 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
12. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
13. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the third arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Chorus should be checked. You do not need to change the name of this third marker so press the Escape key to close the menu.
14. The midpoint of the fourth eight bar arrangement marker is bar 29. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 29 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
15. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
16. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the fourth arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Bridge should be checked. You want to change this fourth marker's name to Verse. Select Verse from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Verse.
17. The midpoint of the fifth eight bar arrangement marker is bar 37. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 37 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
18. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
19. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the fifth arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Outro should be checked. You want to change this fifth marker's name to Chorus. Select Chorus from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Chorus.
20. The midpoint of the sixth eight bar arrangement marker is bar 45. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
21. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
22. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the sixth arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. Once again Outro should be checked. This time, choose Rename from the menu and then press Enter to close it. VoiceOver should say:
Outro contents selected edit text
Notice that selecting Rename caused an edit box to open. For this exercise, you do not need to change the name of this marker. However, suppose you wanted to name a section of your project Instrumental. To do this, you would choose Rename from the shortcut menu, type Instrumental into the edit box, and then press Enter to close the menu. For now, the edit box should still contain the word Outro so press Enter to close it.
If all went well, you should have six eight bar arrangement markers on your Arrangement track named as follows:

Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Outro

Note: The menu only opens if you click on an Arrangement marker's name field. If you click elsewhere on the marker, an edit box will open containing the name of the arrangement marker. This is the same edit box that opens when you select Rename from the menu. You can change the name of the arrangement marker by typing a new name into the edit box and pressing the Enter key to close it. It is possible for the name in the edit box and the item checked in the menu to disagree. For example, if you rename a marker to Instrumental, the shortcut menu does not contain that option. If this occurs, it is the name in the edit box that should be correct.

Resizing an Arrangement Marker
The Create Arrangement Marker button creates eight bar markers. But, what if you want a four bar Intro or a four bar Outro? One way to resize an arrangement marker is to place the mouse cursor on the lower right corner of the marker and drag it to the right to lengthen it or drag it to the left to shorten it. Using Mouse Keys, the VoiceOver user can resize a marker this way. However, if you only want to shorten an arrangement marker, it is easier to split the marker and delete the unwanted portion. Both techniques will be discussed in this article.

Add arrangement markers in GarageBand on Mac - Apple Support
https://support.apple.com/guide/garageband/add-arrangement-markers-gbnd8431c634/mac

The GarageBand Drummer and the Arrangement Track
The GarageBand Drummer has a special relationship with the Arrangement track. If you create a Drummer track after you have created an Arrangement track, The Drummer track will automatically contain the same number of Drummer regions as there are arrangement markers. Each Drummer region will have the same name and the same length as its corresponding arrangement marker.

1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Header Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “Audio 1” group Tracks header group
2. Press Command+Backspace to Delete Track 1 “Audio 1”. The Backspace key is above the backslash key.

Note: VoiceOver keyboard help identifies this key as Delete, but the printing on keyboards, labels this key as Backspace.

3. Since every project must have a minimum of one track, deleting the audio track should cause the New Track dialogue to open automatically. Select the Drummer radio button, then press the Enter key.
4. A Drummer track should have been added to the project. The Library and Auto-Play Drummer windows should have opened automatically. Press Y to close the Library window and press E to close the Auto-Play Drummer window.
5. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps back into the Tracks Header Group. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “SoCal” group Tracks header group

Note: The last time I created a Drummer track, it was in the Rock category, the drummer was Kyle, and the drum kit was SoCal. So this is the Drummer track that GarageBand created for me this time. The Drummer track that GarageBand creates for you may be different. There is no need to change your Drummer track to SoCal. Whatever Drummer track GarageBand creates for you is fine.

6. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Tracks contents group 3 items Track 1 “SoCal” Track Background
7. Interact with your drummer track Background. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Track 1 “SoCal” Track Background 7 items Intro Region
Explore each region by selecting it and then pressing Shift+VO+H to hear its help tag. The help tag info contains the regions starting and ending points. For example, the help tag info for the Intro region should be as follows:
Region starts at 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 9 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
you should find that there is an eight bar drummer region named Intro, an eight bar drummer region named Verse, an eight bar drummer region named Chorus, another eight bar drummer region named Verse, another eight bar drummer region named Chorus, and an eight bar drummer region named Outro.
8. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press the Spacebar to begin playback. Notice that the Intro drummer pattern is different than the Verse pattern, the Verse pattern is different than the Chorus pattern, and the Outro pattern is different than the Chorus pattern. These patterns are automatically generated by GarageBand and the are just suggestions. You will undoubtedly want to tweak these patterns to suit your own needs. As you go along in this article, it should become clear that the special relationship between the Drummer and the Arrangement track is very helpful to VoiceOver users.

Add a Loop to the Project
To make this exercise more interesting, add a loop to the project. By adding another track, you will be able to see how changes to the Arrangement track not only affect the Drummer track but also how they affect other tracks.

1. Press Command+Option+N to open the New Tracks dialogue.
2. Press VO+Spacebar on the Audio - Microphone & Line In radio button, then press the Enter key.
3. An audio track should have been added to the project. The Library and Smart Controls windows should have opened automatically. Press Y to close the Library window and press B to close the Smart Controls window.
4. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Header Group. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Tracks header group 2 items Track 1 “SoCal” group Tracks header group
5. Press VO+Down Arrow to select Track 2 "Audio 1" group.
6. Press VO+Comma to prepare the audio track to have a loop dropped on it. VoiceOver should say:
Track 2 “Audio 1” marked for drag and drop
7. Press O to open the loops browser.
8. Press VO+J four or five times until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the loops table. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Loops table Row 1 of 16445, etc., etc.
9. Stop interacting with the loops table.
10. VO+Left Arrow one time to the Search edit box and type the word Brooklyn.
11. Interact with the loops table again. The first loop should be:
Brooklyn Nights Bass
12. Make sure that the VoiceOver cursor is on the name field and then press VO+Comma. VoiceOver should say:
Brooklyn Nights Bass marked for drag and drop
13. Press VO+J a couple of times to jump the VoiceOver cursor back into the Tracks Header Group.
14. With the VoiceOver cursor on Track 2 "Audio 1" group, press VO+Period to drop the loop onto track two. VoiceOver should say:
Dragging Brooklyn Nights Bass. Brooklyn Nights Bass dropped on Track 2 “Audio 1”.
15. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group.
16. Press VO+J one more time to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Brooklyn Nights Bass track background. VoiceOver should say:
In Track 2 “Brooklyn Nights Bass” Track Background 1 item Brooklyn Nights Bass Region
17. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
18. Perform a right mouse click by pressing Control+NumPad 5 to open the region's shortcut menu. Select Copy from the menu.
19. The loop is two bars long. Paste it to bar 3, bar 5, bar 7, etc. until you have 48 bars of Brooklyn Nights Bass.
20. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the song. Press Spacebar to hear both tracks. Both tracks should stop playing when the playhead reaches bar 49.
21. Press O to close the Loops browser.

Resizing Arrangement Markers
Suppose that you only want a four bar Intro and a four bar Outro. In this exercise you will resize the arrangement markers by splitting them and deleting the unwanted portion.

Resize the Intro Marker
1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
2. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator.
3. The existing Intro marker is eight bars long. You can cut it to any length depending on where you split the marker. To make the Intro marker four bars long, adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track. Recall that pressing NumPad 2 ten times took the mouse cursor down to the level of the name field. Pressing NumPad seven times keeps the mouse cursor just above the level of the name field. You do this because you do not want the name menu popping up when you are trying to do something else.
6. Press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor off the playhead and over to the right on the Intro arrangement marker. Then press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
7. After selecting the marker, press NumPad 4 ten times to return the mouse cursor to the playhead. The mouse cursor should be back at its starting place at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Press Command+T to split the marker at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. VoiceOver should say:
Split Regions/Events at Playhead Position
8. Press NumPad 6 ten times. Then press NumPad 5 to select the right half of the Intro marker (bars 5 through 8).
9. Press Command+Option+Backspace to cut the Selected Arrangement Marker.
10. If all went well, the Intro marker should now be four bars long and the rest of the markers should have slid over to the left to fill in the gap. Since you already created a Drummer track, the easiest way to check your work is to see what happened to the Drummer track. Press VO+J two times to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group and then interact with your drummer track's track background.
11. With the VoiceOver cursor on the Intro region, press Shift+VO+H to read the region's help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
12. Press VO+Right Arrow to move the VoiceOver cursor to the first Verse region. Press Shift+VO+H to read the region's help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
So far, so good. But did anything change on the bass track? The bass track was 48 bars long, but since you cut four bars from the Intro, the bass track should now be 44bars long.
13. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the bass track background.
14. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the last Brooklyn Nights Bass region.
15. Press Shift+VO+H to read the region's help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 43 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Audio region. An editable object representing recorded or imported audio. Drag the middle to move, the lower edges to resize, and the upper-right edge to loop.
Very good. As you can see, four bars were automatically deleted from the bass track as well as from the Drummer track. They were bars five through eight. If the project had contained additional tracks, bars five through eight would have been automatically deleted from every other track.

Resize the Outro Marker
Now delete four bars from the eight bar Outro marker.
1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
2. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator.
3. The existing Outro marker is eight bars long. You can cut it to any length depending on where you split the marker. To make the Outro marker four bars long, adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 41 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. This is the midpoint of the Outro marker.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track. Recall that pressing NumPad 2 ten times took the mouse cursor down to the level of the name field. Pressing NumPad seven times keeps the mouse cursor just above the level of the name field. You do this because you do not want the name field menu popping up when you are trying to do something else.
6. Press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor off the playhead and over to the right on the Outro arrangement marker. Then press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
7. After selecting the marker, press NumPad 4 ten times to return the mouse cursor to the playhead. The mouse cursor should be back at its starting place at 41 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Press Command+T to split the marker at 41 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. VoiceOver should say:
Split Regions/Events at Playhead Position
8. Press NumPad 6 ten times. Then press NumPad 5 to select the right half of the Outro marker (bars 41 through 44).
9. Press Command+Option+Backspace to cut the Selected Arrangement Marker.
10. If all went well, the Outro marker should now be four bars long. Check your work by pressing VO+J two times to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group and then interact with your drummer track's track background.
11. With the VoiceOver cursor on the Outro region, press Shift+VO+H to read the region's help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 37 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 41 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
Good. Now check to see if anything changed on the bass track. The bass track was 44 bars long, but since you cut four bars from the Outro, the bass track should now be forty bars long.
12. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Brooklyn Nights Bass track background.
13. Press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the last Brooklyn Nights Bass region.
14. Press Shift+VO+H to read the region's help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 39 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 41 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Audio region. An editable object representing recorded or imported audio. Drag the middle to move, the lower edges to resize, and the upper-right edge to loop.
Excellent. As you can see, four bars were automatically deleted from the bass track. They were bars 41 through 44. If the project had contained additional tracks, bars 41 through 44 would have been automatically deleted from every other track.

To summarize, you now have a four bar Intro, an eight bar Verse, an eight bar Chorus, another eight bar Verse, another eight bar Chorus, and a four bar Outro.

Copying Arrangement Markers
Now suppose that you would like to add another verse after the first verse and another Chorus after the last Chorus. The song structure would then be:

Intro Verse Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

Copy the First Verse Region
1. Interact with your drummer track's track background.
2. With the VoiceOver cursor on the first Verse region, press Shift+VO+H to hear its help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
Notice that the first Verse region ends at the beginning of bar thirteen.
3. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
4. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
5. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
6. Press NumPad 2 seven times and then NumPad 4 ten times. This positions the mouse cursor onto the right end of the Verse arrangement marker in preparation for dragging a copy of it to the right.
7. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
8. To copy a marker, the Option key must be held down while the marker is dragged. Hold down the left Option key with your left hand and hold down NumPad 5 with the index finger of your right hand. With Option and NumPad 5 held down, use the middle finger of your right hand to press NumPad 6 ten times. Then release all keys.

You started out with the mouse cursor on 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. You then moved the mouse cursor down seven points and left ten points. You then dragged a copy of the Verse marker to the right ten points back to 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick where you dropped it. If all went well, you should now have an eight bar Verse marker starting at bar five and a second eight bar Verse marker starting at bar thirteen.
9. To check your work, press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group. Interact with your drummer track background and confirm that you now have two Verse regions.

Copy the Last Chorus Region
1. Interact with your drummer track's track background.
2. With the VoiceOver cursor on the last Chorus region, press Shift+VO+H to hear its help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 37 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
Notice that the last Chorus region ends at the beginning of bar 45.
3. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
4. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
5. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
6. Press NumPad 2 seven times and then NumPad 4 ten times. This positions the mouse cursor onto the right end of the Chorus arrangement marker in preparation for dragging a copy of it to the right.
7. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
8. To copy a marker, the Option key must be held down while the marker is dragged. Hold down the left Option key with your left hand and hold down NumPad 5 with the index finger of your right hand. With Option and NumPad 5 held down, use the middle finger of your right hand to press NumPad 6 ten times. Then release all keys.

You started out with the mouse cursor on 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. You then moved the mouse cursor down seven points and left ten points. You then dragged a copy of the Chorus marker to the right ten points back to 45 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick where you dropped it. If all went well, you should now have an eight bar Chorus marker starting at bar 37 and a second eight bar Chorus marker starting at bar 45.

9. To check your work, press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group. Interact with your drummer track background and confirm that you now have two Chorus regions. After copying the Verse and Chorus regions, your project should now be 56 bars long.
10. Interact with the Brooklyn Nights Bass track background and press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the last Brooklyn Nights Bass region.
11. Press Shift+VO+H to read the help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 55 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 57 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Audio region. An editable object representing recorded or imported audio. Drag the middle to move, the lower edges to resize, and the upper-right edge to loop.
Perfect!
12. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press the Spacebar to begin playback. Both the drummer track and the bass track should play all the way through and end at the beginning of bar 57.

Inserting a Marker
After listening to your song, you decide that it could use an eight bar Bridge after the first Chorus. You will create a new arrangement marker, rename it Bridge, and insert it after the first chorus. The song structure should then look like:

Intro Verse Verse Chorus Bridge Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

Create and Rename the Arrangement Marker
1. Navigate to the Tracks Legend Group and press VO+Spacebar on the Create Arrangement Marker button.
2. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
3. The current project is 56 bars long, so the eight bar arrangement marker you just created should start at 57 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. The new marker's midpoint is bar 61. Press Option+Enter to jump the playhead to the end of the last region at bar 57 and then press the Period key until VoiceOver says 61 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the menu. Outro should be checked. You want to change the marker's name to Bridge. Select Bridge from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Bridge.

Insert an Arrangement Marker
1. The first Chorus ends at the beginning of bar 29. Press the Comma key until VoiceOver says: 29 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
2. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
3. Press VO+F5 several times until VoiceOver speaks the coordinates of the mouse cursor from the top left corner of the screen. In my case, VoiceOver says:
663 points right, 136 points down from top left corner of screen.
Remember the number 663. Your number may be different. Write it down if necessary.
4. The Bridge marker currently begins at bar 57 so press the Period key until VoiceOver says 57 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
5. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
6. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track then press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor off of the playhead and over to the right on the left end of the arrangement marker.
7. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
8. Press NumPad 0 to simulate holding down the left mouse button in preparation for a drag and drop. NumPad 0 does not need to be held down.
9. Press NumPad 4 a number of times to start dragging the Bridge marker to the left towards the new location. Holding NumPad 4 down speeds up the movement of the mouse cursor. If you go too far, press NumPad 6 to go back in the opposite direction.
10. Check your progress by pressing VO+F5. In my case, I want to get the mouse cursor to 663 points from the left edge of the screen. This is the insertion point at the end of the first Chorus.
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until you get the mouse cursor to the number you wrote down.
12. When you have dragged the mouse cursor to your insertion point, in my case it is 663 points from the left edge of the screen, press NumPad Period to drop the Bridge marker.
13. If all went well, the Bridge marker should have been inserted after the first Chorus marker. The rest of the arrangement markers should have automatically shifted to the right to make room for the new marker.
14. To check your work, press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group and interact with your drummer track's track background. This is what you should see:

Intro region Verse region Verse region Chorus region Add Drummer Region button
Verse region Chorus region Chorus region Outro region Add Drummer Region button

15. Move the VoiceOver cursor to the first instance of the Add Drummer Region button. It should be after the first Chorus. Press VO+Spacebar. VoiceOver should say:
Bridge Region

Note: GarageBand consults the Arrangement track and determines that the section of the Drummer track occupied by the Add Drummer Region button should be converted into the Bridge region.

16. Press Shift+VO+H to read the help tag for the Bridge region. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 29 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 37 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
17. Prior to inserting the eight bar Bridge marker, the project was 56 bars long. Now it should be 64 bars long. VO+Right Arrow to the Outro region and press Shift+VO+H to read the help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 61 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 65 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
Perfect. Now check the bass region.
18. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Brooklyn Nights Bass track background and press VO+End to jump the VoiceOver cursor to the last Brooklyn Nights Bass region.
19. Press Shift+VO+H to read the help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 63 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 65 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Audio region. An editable object representing recorded or imported audio. Drag the middle to move, the lower edges to resize, and the upper-right edge to loop.
Again, this is perfect. Both tracks are 64 bars long.
20. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press Spacebar to begin playback. You should notice that both the drums and the bass are heard until the playhead reaches the Bridge section at bar 29. For the next eight bars, the drums continue to be heard but not the bass. Then when the playhead reaches the end of the Bridge section at bar 37, both the drums and bass are heard again until playback stops at bar 65. Because the drummer track has a special relationship with the Arrangement track, a suggested eight bar Bridge region was added to the drummer track. Regarding the eight bar gap in other tracks, it is up to you to decide how to fill them.

Moving Arrangement Markers
You just saw that to insert the Bridge marker, you move it from the end of the Arrangement track to a new location on the Arrangement track. If you drop an arrangement marker in between two other arrangement markers, it will be inserted at the new location and all the markers to the right will move over to make room for it. However, be aware that if you drop an arrangement marker somewhere in the middle of another marker, the marker will be split by the dropped marker. For example, the first Chorus marker is eight bars long. If you inadvertently drop the Bridge marker somewhere on the Chorus marker instead of at the end of it, maybe six bars of the Chorus marker will be on the left of the inserted Bridge marker and the remaining two bars of the Chorus marker will be on the right of the Bridge marker. If you then check your work, you might wonder why your Drummer track looks like this:

Intro Verse Verse Chorus(6 bars) Bridge Chorus(2 bars) Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

The Move function is powerful. It will literally insert an arrangement marker wherever you drop it on the Arrangement track. You can also use the Move function to cause two adjacent markers to switch places. To demonstrate, switch the Intro marker with the first Verse marker.

1. In your Drummer track background, move the VoiceOver cursor to the Intro region and press Shift+VO+H to read its help tag. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
Notice that the Intro region ends at the beginning of 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
2. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line. Then adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
3. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
4. Press NumPad 2 seven times then press NumPad 4 ten times. This moves the mouse cursor onto the right end of the Intro marker.
5. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
6. Hold down NumPad 5 with your index finger. With NumPad 5 held down, press and hold NumPad 6 with your middle finger for about three seconds. Then release both keys.
7. If the arrangement marker name edit box opens, just press Enter to close it.
8. Check your work by pressing VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group. Interacting with your Drummer track background, it should look like this:

Verse Intro Verse Chorus Bridge Verse Chorus Chorus Outro

9. To move the Intro marker back to the beginning, press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
10. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 9 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. This is the start of the Intro marker.
11. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
12. Press NumPad 2 seven times then press NumPad 6 ten times. This moves the mouse cursor onto the left end of the Intro marker.
13. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
14. Hold down NumPad 5 with your middle finger. With NumPad 5 held down, press and hold NumPad 4 with your index finger for about three seconds. Then release both keys.
15. If the arrangement marker name edit box opens, just press Enter to close it.

Note: If you do not hold down the direction key long enough, the switch will not take place. If you hold down the direction key too long, the switch will not take place because you will have moved the arrangement marker too far along the Arrangement track. Where the arrangement marker then gets inserted depends on how long you hold down the direction key. Holding down the direction key for about three seconds works for my mouse settings. You may need to experiment to see what duration works for your mouse settings.

Deleting an Arrangement Marker
Suppose that you decide that two choruses and an Outro at the end of the song are a bit much so you want to delete the Outro. There are two deletion methods. Recall that the four bar Outro extends from bar 63 through bar 66.

Method One
1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
2. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 61 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
3. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
4. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track then press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor off the playhead and over to the right on the arrangement marker.
5. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker.
6. Press Command+Option+Backspace to cut the Selected Arrangement Marker.
7. If all went well, the Outro marker was deleted, the Outro region in the drummer track was deleted, and bars 61 through 64 were deleted from the Brooklyn Nights Bass track. To check your work, press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group.
8. Interact with your drummer track background and verify the the Outro region was deleted.
9. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Brooklyn Nights Bass track background and verify that the last region now stops at 61 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.

Method Two
1. If you followed the steps above and Deleted the Outro, press Command+Z to undo the previous delete operation.
2. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
3. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 61 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track then press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor off the playhead and over to the right on the arrangement marker.
6. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker.
7. Press the Delete key located above the arrow keys. Then press the Delete key a second time.
8. If all went well, the Outro marker was deleted, the Outro region in the drummer track was deleted, and bars 61 through 64 were deleted from the Brooklyn Nights Bass track.

Note: The first press of the Delete key deletes bars 61 through 64 from all music tracks but it does not delete the arrangement marker. The second press of the Delete key deletes the arrangement marker and causes arrangement markers to the right to shift over to fill in the gap.

Create a Drummer Track Before an Arrangement Track
Up to this point, you have been working on a project where you first created an Arrangement Track and then you created a Drummer track. Now, you will first create a couple of Drummer regions and then create an Arrangement track. For this exercise, you want to start fresh by opening the project you saved earlier named Arrangement Track Exercise Setup.

1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Header Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “Audio 1” group Tracks header group
2. Press Command+Backspace to Delete Track 1 “Audio 1”.
3. Since every project must have a minimum of one track, the New Track dialogue should open automatically. Select the Drummer radio button, then press the Enter key.
4. A Drummer track should have been added to the project. The Library and Auto-Play Drummer windows should have opened automatically. Press Y to close the Library but leave the Auto-Play Drummer window open.
5. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps back into the Tracks Header Group. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Tracks header group Track 1 “SoCal” group Tracks header group
6. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Contents Group. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Tracks contents group 2 items Track 1 “SoCal” Track Background
7. Interact with your Drummer track. In my case, VoiceOver says:
In Track 1 “SoCal” Track Background 2 items Drummer Region
8. VoiceOver should be on Drummer region so press Shift+N to open the region's name edit box. Rename it to Verse.
9. Following the Verse region is the Add Drummer Region button. Press VO+Spacebar on the button to add a new Drummer region.
10. VoiceOver should be on the new Drummer region so press Shift+N to open the region's name edit box. Rename it Chorus.
11. With the Chorus region selected, press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Auto-Play Drummer Group. VoiceOver should say:
In Parameters scroll area 6 items Play button
12. Press VO+Spacebar on the play button. The Chorus region plays continuously until you stop it. With the Chorus region playing, press VO+J. VoiceOver should say something like:
In Presets table Row 4 of 8 Half-pipe selected
The Presets table contains a variety of drummer patterns. Recall that my drummer is Kyle playing the SoCal drum kit. The default drummer pattern for Kyle is Half-pipe. Therefore, when I created the Verse region and the Chorus region, the drummer pattern named Half-pipe was selected by default for both. To make the Chorus region sound different than the Verse region, I want to select a different drummer pattern from the Presets table. With the Chorus region playing, I arrow up and down through the presets table to audition the various patterns. I select the pattern named Crash the Party. If you have a different drummer, the drummer patterns in your Presets table will be different, including the default pattern. Select a pattern other than your default pattern for your Chorus region.
13. Press Spacebar to stop playback of the Chorus region.
14. Press E to close the Auto-play Drummer window.
15. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press Spacebar to begin playback. In my case, I hear eight bars of the Half-pipe pattern followed by eight bars of the Crash the Party pattern. In other words, I hear the Verse region followed by the Chorus region.

Creating Corresponding Arrangement Markers
Now that you have created a couple of drummer regions, it is time to create corresponding arrangement markers.

1. Navigate to the Tracks Legend Group and move the VoiceOver cursor to the Create Arrangement Marker button. Since you created two Drummer regions, press VO+Spacebar two times to create two arrangement markers. You learned from an earlier exercise that if the Arrangement track is empty, the first marker added will be automatically named Intro and the second marker will be automatically named Verse. Change the names of these two markers to Verse and Chorus.
2. The eight bar Intro marker starts at bar one so its midpoint will be at bar five. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Then press the Period key until VoiceOver says: 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
3. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
4. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the arrangement marker's name field.
5. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
6. Press Command+NumPad 5. VoiceOver should say:
Menu
Intro should be checked. You want to change the name of this first marker to Verse. Select Verse from the shortcut menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Verse.
7. The midpoint of the second eight bar arrangement marker is bar 13. Press the Period key to move the playhead to 13 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
8. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
9. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the second arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Verse should be checked. You want to change this marker's name to Chorus. Select Chorus from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Chorus.
Your project now has an eight bar arrangement marker named Verse, an eight bar arrangement marker named Chorus, an eight bar Drummer region named Verse, and an eight bar Drummer region named Chorus.

Create a Four Bar Intro Marker
1. Navigate to the Tracks Legend Group and press the Create Arrangement Marker button one time.
2. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
3. The midpoint of the new eight bar arrangement marker is bar 21. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 21 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the new arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Bridge should be checked. You want to change this marker's name to Intro. Select Intro from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Intro.

In earlier exercises, you resized an arrangement marker by splitting the marker and deleting the unwanted portion. This time, you will resize the marker by dragging its right edge to the left to shorten its length. In this case, you will drag the right edge of the marker until the marker is only four bars long. Since the Intro marker starts at bar 17, the four bar point is at the start of bar 21. This means that the right edge of the marker will be dragged left to bar 21.

1. To get the mouse cursor coordinates for bar 21, adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 21 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
2. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
3. Press VO+F5 several times until VoiceOver speaks the mouse cursor coordinates from the top left corner of the screen. In my case VoiceOver says:
574 points right, 136 points down from top left corner of screen.
Remember the number 574. Your number may be different. Write it down if necessary.
4. Press the period key until VoiceOver says25 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. This is the right edge of the Intro marker.
5. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
6. Press NumPad 2 thirty times then NumPad 4 two times. This positions the mouse cursor onto the lower right edge of the Intro marker.
7. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
8. Press NumPad 0 to simulate holding down the left mouse button in preparation for a drag and drop. NumPad 0 does not need to be held down.
9. Press NumPad 4 a number of times to start dragging the right edge of the Intro marker to the left towards the new location. Holding NumPad 4 down speeds up the movement of the mouse cursor. If you go too far, press NumPad 6 to go back in the opposite direction.
10. Check your progress by pressing VO+F5. In my case, I want to get the mouse cursor to 574 points from the left edge of the screen. This is the four bar point.
11. Repeat steps nine and ten until you get the mouse cursor to the number you wrote down.
12. When you have dragged the right edge of the marker to your four bar point, press NumPad Period to release it. The Intro marker should now be four bars long.
13. Press the Comma key until VoiceOver says 17 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. This brings the VoiceOver cursor/playhead to the left edge of the Intro marker.
14. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
15. Press NumPad 2 seven times then press NumPad 6 ten times. This positions the mouse cursor onto the left end of the Intro marker in preparation for dragging it to the left.
16. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
17. Press and hold NumPad 5 with your middle finger. With NumPad 5 held down, press and hold NumPad 4 with your index finger. Keep both keys held down for six or seven seconds and then release both keys.

Note: You did not have to worry about the precise coordinates for 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick because when dragging the Intro marker to the left, it will stop moving when it reaches the beginning of the Arrangement track.

18. To check your work, press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group.
19. Interacting with your Drummer track, it should look like this:

Add Drummer Region button Verse region Chorus region Add Drummer Region button

20. Press VO+Spacebar on the first Add Drummer Region button. VoiceOver should say:
Intro region
21. Press Shift+VO+H to hear the help tag for the Intro region. VoiceOver should say:
Region starts at 1 bar 1 beat 1 division 1 tick and ends at 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. Drummer region. A realistic drum performance that you can edit using the Drummer Editor.
22. Perfect. Now, press Command+Z to undo the Insert of the Intro region. I ask you to do this so that I can demonstrate another GarageBand feature later in this exercise. After the Undo command, your Drummer track background should once again look like this:

Add Drummer Region button Verse region Chorus region Add Drummer Region button

Creat a Four Bar Outro Marker
1. Navigate to the Tracks Legend Group and press the Create Arrangement Marker button one time.
2. Press VO+J to jump the VoiceOver cursor into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
3. The midpoint of the new eight bar arrangement marker is bar 25. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 25 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
4. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
5. Press NumPad 2 ten times to move the mouse cursor down onto the new arrangement marker's name field. Press NumPad 5 to select the arrangement marker. Then press Command+NumPad 5 to open the shortcut menu. This time Bridge should be checked. You want to change this marker's name to Outro. Select Outro from the menu and press the Enter key. The menu closes and the marker is renamed Outro.

In earlier exercises, you resized an arrangement marker by splitting the marker and deleting the unwanted portion. This time, you will resize the marker by dragging its right edge to the left to shorten its length. In this case, you will drag the right edge of the marker until the marker is only four bars long. Since the Outro marker starts at bar 21, the four bar point is at the start of bar 25. This means that the right edge of the marker will be dragged left to bar 25.

1. To get the mouse cursor coordinates for bar 25, adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to 25 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
2. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
3. Press VO+F5 several times until VoiceOver speaks the mouse cursor coordinates from the top left corner of the screen. In my case VoiceOver says:
619 points right, 136 points down from top left corner of screen.
Remember the number 619. Your number may be different. Write it down if necessary.
4. Press the period key until VoiceOver says29 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. This is the right edge of the Outro marker.
5. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
6. Press NumPad 2 thirty times then NumPad 4 two times. This positions the mouse cursor onto the lower right edge of the Intro marker.
7. Press NumPad 5 to select the marker.
8. Press NumPad 0 to simulate holding down the left mouse button in preparation for a drag and drop. NumPad 0 does not need to be held down.
9. Press NumPad 4 a number of times to start dragging the right edge of the Intro marker to the left towards the new location. Holding NumPad 4 down speeds up the movement of the mouse cursor. If you go too far, press NumPad 6 to go back in the opposite direction.
10. Check your progress by pressing VO+F5. In my case, I want to get the mouse cursor to 619 points from the left edge of the screen. This is the four bar point.
11. Repeat steps nine and ten until you get the mouse cursor to the number you wrote down.
12. When you have dragged the right edge of the marker to your four bar point, press NumPad Period to release it. The Outro marker should now be four bars long.
13. To check your work, press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group.
14. Interacting with your Drummer track, it should look like this:

Add Drummer Region button Verse region Chorus region Add Drummer Region button

15. Select the first Add Drummer Region button.
16. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
17. Perform a right mouse click by pressing Control+NumPad 5. A shortcut menu should open. Select the second item, Populate with Drummer Regions, and press the Enter key. VoiceOver should say:
Intro region
18. Examine all the other regions. You should find that the Drummer track background now looks like this:

Intro region Verse region Chorus region Outro region Add Drummer Region button

Notice that the Populate with Drummer Regions command not only inserted the Intro region, but it also inserted the Outro region at the same time.

19. Press the Enter key to jump the playhead to the beginning of the project and then press the Spacebar to begin playback. Notice that GarageBand automatically created suggested Drummer patterns for the Intro and Outro regions but the Verse and Chorus regions you created are unchanged.

Edit arrangement markers in GarageBand on Mac - Apple Support
https://support.apple.com/guide/garageband/edit-arrangement-markers-gbnd704aca5e/mac

Congratulations. If you have made it this far, you have learned documented techniques for creating and modifying an Arrangement track. I will cover one more topic in this article. I discovered an undocumented method for creating an Arrangement track that is quicker and easier than the documented method. For this exercise, you want to start fresh by opening the project you saved earlier named Arrangement Track Exercise Setup.

The following method can be used for creating arrangement markers of any length. It is especially useful when creating arrangement markers of irregular length. If you plan your song's structure ahead of time, the process will be quick and easy. Otherwise, the process can be frustrating.

You may be aware that some professionals do not start their projects at bar one. Rather, they may start their Intro at bar nine or some other bar. In this exercise, you will start your Intro at bar nine.

Song Structure Table
Lead in, 8 bars, bars 1 through 8
Intro, 5 bars, bars 9 through 13
Verse, 7 bars, bars 14 through 20
Chorus, 11 bars, bars 21 through 31
Outro, 6 bars, bars 32 through37

Perhaps no one would ever create a song structure like this but it will serve to illustrate the power and ease of creating a custom Arrangement track. Basically, the process involves clicking on the Arrangement track to create a left boundary point, giving the marker a name, and clicking on the right boundary point. The right boundary point of the previous marker becomes the left boundary point of the next marker and so on. So, if you take the time to map out what I call your click points, the process will be very easy.

Note: If you want your project to start playback at bar one, you would click on bar one. But since you want the project to start playback at bar nine, your first click will be at 9 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick. For this exercise, assume that all click points will be at 1 beat 1 division 1 tick so all you need to rite down is the bar number.

Click List
Click at bar 9. Type Intro into the edit box and press Enter. (Intro starts at bar 9)
Click at bar 14. Type Verse into the edit box and press Enter. (Verse starts at bar 14)
Click at bar 21. Type Chorus into the edit box and press Enter. (Chorus starts at bar 21)
Click at bar 32. Type Outro into the edit box and press Enter. (Outro starts at bar 32)
Click at bar 38 to create the ending boundary point for the Outro marker. Ignore the edit box and just press Enter.

Now that you have completed the click list for your song structure, it is time to create the Arrangement track.
1. Press VO+J until the VoiceOVer cursor jumps into the Tracks Time Ruler Time Line.
2. Adjust the Playhead Thumb Value Indicator to the first value on your click list, in this case, 9 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
3. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
4. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track.
5. Press Command+NumPad 5 twice. When the edit box opens, type Intro and press Enter.
6. Consult your click list. The next item is a click at bar 14 so press the Period key until VoiceOver says 14 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
7. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
8. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track.
9. Press Command+NumPad 5 twice. When the edit box opens, type Verse and press Enter.
10. Consult your click list. The next item is a click at bar 21 so press the Period key until VoiceOver says 21 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
11. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
12. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track.
13. Press Command+NumPad 5 twice. When the edit box opens, type Chorus and press Enter.
14. Consult your click list. The next item is a click at bar 32 so press the Period key until VoiceOver says 32 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
15. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
16. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track.
17. Press Command+NumPad 5 twice. When the edit box opens, type Outro and press Enter.
18. Consult your click list. The last item is a click at bar 38 so press the Period key until VoiceOver says 38 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick.
19. Press Command+VO+F5 to jump the mouse cursor to the location of the VoiceOver cursor.
20. Press NumPad 2 seven times to move the mouse cursor down onto the Arrangement track.
21. Press Command+NumPad 5 twice. When the edit box opens, do not type anything. Just press the Enter key to close the edit box.
22. You may not have noticed, but this process created a second Outro marker that is extraneous and needs to be deleted. Press NumPad 6 ten times to move the mouse cursor onto the extraneous marker.
23. Press NumPad 5 to select the extraneous marker.
24. Press Command+Option+Backspace to cut the Selected Arrangement Marker.
25. If all went well, an Arrangement track conforming to your song structure table has been created. To check your work, press Command+Option+N to open the new track dialogue and create a Drummer track.
26. Press VO+J until the VoiceOver cursor jumps into the Tracks Contents Group. Press VO+J one more time to jump the VoiceOver cursor into your drummer track's track background. You should find the following regions:

Add Drummer Region button Intro region Verse region Chorus region Outro region Add Drummer Region button

Notice that the Intro region starts on bar nine. If you check the help tag for each region, you will see that they are all the lengths specified in the song structure table above. As you can see, when you take the time to map out your work by creating a song structure table and a click list, the process of creating an Arrangement track is quick and easy. Since this method seems to be undocumented, who knows how far into the future it will work. But at least it works for now.

Concluding Thoughts
You can create an Arrangement track before you create your music tracks or you can do it afterwards. You have seen how the Arrangement track and the Drummer track work together. This special relationship makes it easy to verify changes to the Arrangement track by checking the results of the Drummer track. Even if you do not plan to use a Drummer track in your project, you may want to use one anyway and just mute it. This way, you can take advantage of the Drummer track as you make changes to the Arrangement track.

Making the Arrangement Track Accessible with OS Mouse Keys
Written by Jeffrey R. Griffith, 2021, All rights reserved.

@Bo Jingles - That is the coolest thing. Thanks for the deep dive and sharing it here.

I hope it's okay to copy and paste this gem from @Bo Jingles, which he sent in a personal email exchange. He has pioneered a lot of ways to make GB accessible using Mouse Keys. From @Bo Jingles:

Another thing to play with is to jump the mouse cursor to the Playhead Thumb value Indicator and then move the mouse cursor any number of points to the right along the time ruler. Click the left mouse button and the playhead will jump to that point on the time ruler. This is what sighted users can do. Also, with the mouse cursor on the time ruler, press NumPad 0 and then start pressing NumPad 6 (or NumPad 4) and VoiceOver should announce when you reach, for example, 5 bars 1 beat 1 division 1 tick, 6 bars, 7 bars, etc. You are actually dragging the playhead along the time ruler.

Hi,

Thank you to everyone for the detailed information on this thread. I've been using Garage Band to create some basic sound for some audio projects of mine. I'm not really a musician by any stretch but more of an experimentation person with some long ago piano lessons so I have a basic understanding of things. Any details on how I can accomplish the following is appreciated.

I've figured out how to drag a loop from the loop library to a track but have some questions after that.

Suppose the loop is four beats long. I've figured out how to extend and adjust the start location but how would I do items like this?

1. Insert periods of silence so the loop plays for four beats, is silent for four beats and then plays again as an example?
2. Adjust some of the properties of a single instance of the beat, such as panning. For example suppose I want to use a four-beat loop where I want the first four beats to be centered, the next four to be more from the left, the next four more from the right, four betas of silence and then have it repeat.

So far I've figured out how to adjust the pan for a track but not anything within the track specifically.

You can copy and paste the block of loop audio. For example, interact with the track, navigate to the four-beat loop that you’ve already got, press Command-C to copy it. Now position the playhead four beats after the end of that loop, and press Command-V to paste. That should give you the original four-beat loop, four beats of silence, and a second instance of the four-beat loop.

To dynamically adjust pan and gain, you need to use a feature called automation. This feature has no accessible interface as far as I know. Visually, the value you’re adjusting (pan, gain, whatever) is displayed as a horizontal line as a function of time. You adjust the value at any point in time by grabbing the line with the mouse and dragging vertically. Unfortunately, the drag points are created on the fly and therefore can’t be accessed by VoiceOver. If you are incredibly patient and willing to experiment, you might get it to work with keyboard mouse controls. But it would all be trial and error. This is something that developers really need to address.

Paul is correct. The only other thing I can think of, unless you get a sighted friend to set up the automation for you, is to put instances of the desired loop on multiple tracks. I should say that the following will not create a very smooth pan effect. So, for example, you could create one track for all the instances of the loop to be at 0 pan. Create another track for loops at the, say, 20% left position, another track for 45% left pan. Another track for 20% right pan. And another track panned to 45%. So you now would have five tracks. Let's call them track 0, track 20L, track 45L, track 20R, and track 45R. You could place an instance of the loop on track 0 starting at bar 1, another instance on track 20L starting at bar 9. Another instance on track 45L starting at bar 17. Place a second instance on track 20L starting at at bar 25. Place a second instance on track 0 starting at bar 33, and so on. Tedious it may be but at least it can be done. Of course, if you want to change the track volume, it would need to be done on all five tracks. Logic Pro would let you group the tracks together sort of like putting them into a folder. Then the volume of all the tracks in the folder can be changed at the same time by changing the volume on the folder/track.

For even finer panning, you can split a four bar loop into four 1 bar segments and do essentially the same procedure as above.

In Logic Pro, all instances can be on a single track because Logic lets you operate on each region/loop separately, setting each regions pan, gain, transposition, mute, loop, etc.

Even though I monitor this GarageBand thread, I actually use Logic.

Hi,
Is it possible to create own tracks only by using the piano roll? I'm watching many sighted producers on YouTube and most of them use the piano roll to set their chords and other notes. Is this usable with VoiceOver?

It is possible to create tracks with the piano roll. Your home row keys, A, S, D,F, etc., trigger white keys. Trigger sharps and flats with the keys above the home row.. Some of them have special functions, like Q for quantize and R for record. Whether or not this is usable is up to you to determine, and I imagine you'll have to play around quite a bit before this becomes a comfortable and productive interface.

You can create software instrument tracks without an external keyboard. One method involves the Piano Roll. Another method involves Musical Typing mode which is not part of the Piano Roll. And a third method involves editing software instrument loops to create new tracks.

Adding Notes to a Software Instrument Track Without an External Keyboard.

There are several ways to add notes to a software instrument track without having to use an external MIDI keyboard.

1. Select an existing software instrument track or create a new one. Press Command+K to open the Musical Typing dialogue. This turns your QWERTY keyboard into a software instrument controller. Explore your QWERTY keyboard to discover which keys play notes on your selected software instrument. The letter “A” plays the tonic note of the project key specified in the Control Bar. If the project key is C Major, the QWERTY letters A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K play the musical notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The letter “R” starts recording and the Spacebar stops recording. Press Command+K to exit the Musical Typing dialogue. It does not matter how accurate your playing is. You can edit your performance using the Piano Roll editor.

2. Add a software instrument loop to a track. You can use the Piano Roll to edit software instrument loops. The notes in a software loop can be copied to another software instrument track that is assigned to a different instrument. These notes are fully editable. In other words, the MIDI notes in a software loop can be used as the basis for creating new software instrument tracks.

3. If you have an empty software instrument track, you can interact with the Piano Roll layout area, jump the mouse cursor to the empty Piano Roll Layout area, and perform a right mouse click. A short menu will open. Choose the Create Note option. A single note will be inserted into the Piano Roll layout area. Edit the note as desired.

Editing Notes in the Piano Roll

The Piano Roll is largely accessible using VoiceOver. You can adjust the pitch, velocity, starting position and duration of notes. Single notes or multiple notes can be copied, pasted, and deleted. For example, a chord can be created by copying three notes to the same starting position and then changing each note's pitch such as to C, E, and G.

When you interact with the Piano Roll Group, you will find the following items:
Piano Roll legend group
Piano Roll time ruler group
Inspector group
Piano Roll keyboard scroll area
Piano Roll layout area

Notes are accessed by interacting with the Piano Roll layout area. Notes are represented in the Piano Roll layout area as follows:

Note at 2 bars 4 beats 3 divisions 1 tick , C1 layout item

In the above example, the pitch of the note is C1. The note’s starting position on the project time line is 2 bars 4 beats 3 divisions 1 tick.

Following are a few basic editing tips.

Adjust a Note’s Pitch

With a note selected in the Piano Roll layout area, pressing Option+Up Arrow or Option+Down Arrow will increase or decrease the pitch up or down in half step increments. Shift+Option+Up Arrow or Shift+Option+Down Arrow increase or decrease the pitch up or down in octave increments

Adjusting a Note’s Velocity

In the Piano Roll layout area, select a note whose velocity you wish to change then stop interacting with the Piano Roll layout area. Navigate to the Inspector Group and interact with it. You will find a radio CONTROL with the Region button selected by default. Select the Note radio button and then interact with the scroll area. Within the scroll area you will find the Velocity slider control. Possible velocity values range from 1 to 127.

Adjusting a Note’s Starting Position

In the Piano Roll layout area, cut the note to be repositioned using Control+X and then stop interacting with the Piano Roll layout area. Navigate to the Piano Roll time ruler group and interact with it. Navigate to the Playhead thumb value indicator and interact with it. Adjust the Playhead thumb value indicator to the desired starting position. Stop interacting with the Playhead thumb value indicator and the Piano Roll time ruler group. Interact with the Piano Roll layout area. Press Command+V to paste the selected note to the new starting position.

Adjusting a Note’s Duration

In the Piano Roll layout area, select the desired note and then interact with it. There are two controls: move left border handle and move right border handle. You can shorten or lengthen a note’s duration by moving either border handle. Be aware that shortening or lengthening a note’s duration using the Move left border handle will change a note’s starting position on the project time line. More typically, you would adjust the Move Right Border Handle to shorten or lengthen a note’s duration without affecting the note’s starting position. Border handles are adjusted by interacting with the desired handle and then pressing VO+Right Arrow or VO+Left Arrow. Shift+VO will adjust in smaller increments. VoiceOver can sometimes fail to speak in complete phrases so you may need to get used to occasional cryptic responses. A project’s horizontal zoom level influences the size of each increment. The default increment values for VO+Left and Right Arrows should be one beat and the default for Shift+VO+Left and Right Arrows should be one division. Decreasing horizontal zoom (Command+Left Arrow) will make increments larger and decreasing horizontal zoom (Command+Right Arrow) will make increments smaller.

Within the Piano Roll layout area, I have found it most accurate to navigate through the notes using VO+Left and Right Arrows rather than VO+Up and Down Arrows.

When there are multiple notes in the Piano Roll, the left and right cursor keys will “play” one note at a time stepping through the notes. If you hear a note that you want to edit, stop interacting with the Piano Roll layout area and then immediately interact with it again. The note you want to edit should now be selected.

The above is just a basic introduction. There are many more commands for Musical Typing mode and there are many more features in the Piano Roll than have been covered here. While sighted users can use the Piano Roll to edit most MIDI events, basically only Note events are editable by VoiceOver users.

Good luck

All rights reserved
Jeffrey R. Griffith

WOW! This helps a lot. You're incredible! Many thanks for this, I'm an absolute beginner with GarageBand and I never figured out how to use this software properly with VoiceOver. Do you have a complete beginner's guide out there?

I particularly need to know if there are any tutorials on using Garageband on the iPhone. I have voice over enabled no doubt, and the interface is very different than if voice over is turned off!