B.2. File Menu

These commands are pretty standard. You see them in word processors, painting programsand music programs.

B.2.1. New

Creates a new, untitled GarageBand project file. (GarageBand first asks you to save your changes to the outgoing song, if necessary.) Keyboard shortcut : -N.

B.2.2. Open

Presents the Open dialog box, so that you can open an existing GarageBand project file on your hard drive. Once again, you'll be asked whether you want to save the changes to the open file. Keyboard shortcut : -O.

B.2.3. Close

Closes the project file you have open, after first inviting you to save any unsaved changes. At that point, you're technically still in GarageBand, which you can see from the menu bar, but whatever programs were "behind" GarageBand are now shining through the empty space where the window was. Don't be confused .

B.2.4. Save

This command preserves any changes you've made to your project, exactly as in a word processor or any other program. Keyboard shortcut : -S.

B.2.5. Save As

Use this command when you want to create a copy of the current GarageBand project, saved into a different folder location or with a different name . Keyboard shortcut : Shift- -S.

B.2.6. Save as Archive

Ordinarily, a GarageBand project file includes only references to whatever loops you've used in the piece. It doesn't include the actual audio or MIDI data, which would make your file very large. (They can be several megabytes each.)

The trouble is, you may create a GarageBand piece using loops that you've downloaded from the Internet, or installed as part of a GarageBand Jam Packloops that other people don't have. This command creates a special version of the GarageBand file that includes all of the loops you used. Even though the resulting file takes up a lot of disk space, at least you know that it'll play back properly on anybody else's Mac.

B.2.7. Revert to Saved

GarageBand offers 30 levels of Undo, which lets you retrace your steps if you feel that your creative process has gone off track. But if you've really made a mess of things, you can use this command, which takes the file all the way back to the way it was the last time you used the Save command.

If the Revert to Original command is dimmed out, it's probably because you've just recently saved the documentor have never saved it.

B.2.8. Export to iTunes

As described at length in Chapter 8, this command is the shining portal that awaits at the end of almost every GarageBand workflow process. This is the command that unleashes your song, getting it out of a format that very few people have (GarageBand) and into iTunes, where you can convert it into a format that millions of people have (an MP3 file, a CD, and so on).