TMO Quick Tip - GarageBand: Export Songs to Disk

by , 7:30 AM EST, December 12th, 2007

Getting songs out of GarageBand and into iTunes has always been easy, but if you wanted your audio masterpieces in MP3 format instead of AAC, you had to convert your songs after they were exported. With GarageBand '08, however, you can bypass iTunes and save AAC or MP3 versions of your songs straight to your hard drive.

Here's how:

• After you finish creating your song in GarageBand, choose Share > Export Song to Disk.
• Choose AAC or MP3 from the Compress Using pop-up menu.

GarageBand '08 can skip iTunes when sharing songs.

• Select the audio quality you want for your song from the Audio Settings pop-up menu. You can choose from Good, High, and Higher Quality.
• Click the Export button.

Export your song in AAC or MP3 format.

GarageBand will encode and save your song to your hard drive without requiring you to use iTunes anywhere in the process.

I use this feature whenever I need to make a voice recording to send off to someone else, like for a podcast. I can make my recording and save a couple of steps when exporting because I don't have to go to iTunes to find my file and then convert it to MP3 before sending it off.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

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