GarageBand is a fully equipped music creation studio with a complete Sound Library that includes instruments, presets for guitar and voice, and an incredible selection of session drummers and percussionists. You can play, record and share your music, no matter where you are. When it comes to sharing your music, you have to consider the audio format issues since GarageBand has its own saved formats, such as M4A, AIFF and WAV, some of which are not compatible to other devices or music APPs. That means the composition you created in GarageBand is not accessible to your friends or other people.
We can export an iOS GB project as a “.band” file to anywhere. Google Drive, whatever, using the standard iOS Share feature from within GB. We can change the file extension to from “.band” to “.zip”, and extract the file and folders with a tool like 7-zip, simple one scale project looks like this: Interesting. IOS GarageBand: Exporting Multitrack Files & Converting MIDI to Audio. February 1, 2021. Click image to play video. My previous blog post from 2018 outlines the method I've used to export individual multitrack files from iOS GarageBand. I've recently updated that post (along with its downloadable PDF) for iOS 14. Step 2: Click Add Files to import a GarageBand file to the program. Step 3: Click Profile column and Choose Audio MP3 as the export music format. Then click Save to column to select the output folder where the converted GarageBand files will be saved. Import/Export MIDI? Yes and no In short: import MIDI yes, export MIDI no. Importing Midi is done simply by dragging a Midi file to the main window, where it will be converted to (green) software track data. But exporting GarageBand's Midi data is not possible at this stage. You can only convert the Midi tracks to audio, or export to iTunes.
To avoid such problems, the best way is to convert your GarageBand song to MP3 which is the most popular and compatible audio format. Certainly, you will save a lot of trouble. Whether you create music on iOS devices or on Mac, you will find solutions to convert GarageBand to MP3 in this article.
Part 1: How to Convert GarageBand Files as MP3 for iPhone or iPad
When you use GarageBand to create composition on iOS devices, you can share your music with the format of M4A, AIFF or WAV. But these formats sometimes can't be played on some music applications or other devices. And there is no way to save GarageBand files as MP3 on your iPhone or iPad. The only way is to use a converter tool to convert GarageBand to MP3. Before converting, you need to transfer your music files to the computer. Then convert your GarageBand files with a converter tool. You can follow the steps listed below:
Transfer GarageBand files to your computer
The first procedure to convert your GarageBand files to MP3 is to transfer your files to the computer. For iOS data transfer, AnyMP4 iPhone Transfer Pro allows you to easily and quickly transfer and manage data on your iPhone, iPad or iPod without iTunes. If you are about to transfer photos, videos, contacts and so on, you can use iPhone Transfer Pro to transfer your GarageBand files and other files.
Step 1: Free download iPhone Transfer Pro, and install it on your computer. Launch the program and connect it to your iPhone or iPad.
Step 2: Click the file type of Music, then select the GarageBand you want to transfer. In the end, click Export to PC.
You just wait for a while, then you will find the GarageBand file on your PC. Next convert your GarageBand files to MP3.
Note:
This powerful iPhone Transfer Pro can automatically convert video and music into a compatible format for your iPhone/iPad/iPod as you transfer some videos and music from your computer to iOS devices. So you don't have to worry about that your iOS devices can't play them.
Turn GarageBand files into MP3
The following discussion will focus on how to convert GarageBand files to MP3. When it comes to convert a format to a format, a practical converter is quite essential. So in this part, you can use a converter to convert a GarageBand file to MP3.
Step 1: Free download AnyMP4 Video Converter Ultimate and install it on your computer, then launch it.
Step 2: Click Add Files to import a GarageBand file to the program.
Step 3: Click Profile column and Choose Audio >MP3 as the export music format. Then click Save to column to select the output folder where the converted GarageBand files will be saved.
Step 4: Click Convert All to start converting GarageBand to MP3. Wait for a while, and you will get your music with MP3 format.
By means of Video Converter Ultimate, we finish converting a GarageBand file to MP3. Then you can share your music work in MP3 format with your friends or upload it to other platforms. In addition to convert a GarageBand file to MP3, Video Converter Ultimate can also help you:
- • Convert almost all audios in various formats including but not limited to MP3.
- • Convert 4K/1080p HD video to more than 200 formats.
- • Rip DVD to video like MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, FLV and more.
- • Convert audio /video in high quality and fast speed.
Part 2: How to Export GarageBand Files to MP3 on Mac
After creating your music on your Mac, remember click File and click Save. This step only saves your project file. Then you can export a project file to the MP3 file. The exported MP3 files can be played on other music applications and devices, posted on the Internet, or burned to CD. Follow the steps below, and you will export GarageBand files to MP3 on Mac.
Step 1: Open your GarageBand on Mac, then choose Share >Export Song to Disk.
Step 2: To rename the exported file, select the name in the Save As field, and enter a new name. Choose a location to save the exported file from the Where pop-up menu.
Step 3: Select the MP3 format. Then choose the quality setting for the exported file from the Quality pop-up menu.
Step 4: Click Export.
When the process is finished, the exported MP3 file will be saved on the location you specified. If you want to transfer the music to your iPhone for better sharing, you can also choose iPhone Transfer Pro. It will help you manage and transfer iPhone files conveniently.
Part 3: FAQs of Saving GarageBand Files to MP3
Are GarageBand files MP3?
GarageBand supports the following audio files for uploading: AIFF, CAF, WAV, AAC, MP3 and Apple Lossless. While exporting files from GarageBand, it supports AAC, MP3, or AIFF. Therefore, MP3 is not the only format supported by GarageBand.
How do I send a GarageBand file to someone?
To send a GarageBand files to someone, you can export the music firstly and then send the files to a Mac, SoundCloud, iPad, email, or share it to nearby devices using AirDrop.
Can I export a WAV file from GarageBand?
The official way to export songs from GarageBand does not allow you to export a WAV format but AAC, MP3, or AIFF. But you can use the GarageBand converter in this post to convert them into WAV. Learn here to convert AIFF to WAV.
Conclusion
With GarageBand, your creativity gets improved and you will feel endless pleasure in the process of creating music. Especially when you create good music, you want to let more people to listen to it. At that time, a well-supported and ubiquitous MP3 format couldn't be better. For Mac users, you just convert it on GarageBand program; for iPhone or iPad users, you can use Video Converter Ultimate to convert the GarageBand to MP3. If you have other needs of converting audios, videos or ripping DVDs, Video Converter Ultimate also helps you to deal with issues efficiently and professionally.
Why no T-Bone?
Exporting midi from GB on iOS is something heard of lots of people wanting to do, including myself. So I ask, why should it be difficult? Why isn’t a feature?
But since it’s not a feature, why can’t we just reach in and take it for ourselves by force if we must?
I’ve searched the net, maybe I’ve missing it, but I have found any technique yet so let’s take a look at what’s known:
1. We can export an iOS GB project as a “.band” file to anywhere. Google Drive, whatever, using the standard iOS Share feature from within GB.
2. We can change the file extension to from “.band” to “.zip”, and extract the file and folders with a tool like 7-zip, simple one scale project looks like this:
Interesting. Seems to almost make a little sense. So now what? It’s may be a bit wasteful for a project playing a single piano scale to be 1.2MB, but our notes have to be in there somewhere, right?!
A lot of the files are empty placeholders or unhelpful. However, notice there is a file called projectData.
If we open this file it looks like the file below. Getting a bit more interesting now. This looks like a plain ol’ xml file. Moreover it looks to have binary data directly included inside the file, see the <data> tag.
This image is clipped, the data section goes on a long way and probably accounts for a fair chunk of the 1.2MB size of the project.
Too bad that data section doesn’t have text like “You just used a Grand Piano to play the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B”.
It’s in some kind of binary format Apple has chosen. We have to find a way to make sense of it. It could be fully encrypted, become impractical to see into, and game over folks.
XML Data
However…encrypted files don’t usually look like that. The way encryption works usually requires it be very random looking.
Noticed all the repeated characters? Maybe we’re not dead yet. It’s common for people to put binary data in XML by wrapping the binary data, say an image, in a standard textual encoding format. So we can at least take a shot. Let’s try base64. That gives us a file that look like
Looks like we’re still alive! You don’t have to be a developer to guess when you can see “Instrument Names”, we’re not dealing with some some kind of NSA super encryption.
With that layer of the onion peeled back, we still don’t know what it means, and I hate to break the bad news, but I’m new here and know nothing about the midi format details (I plan to look at examples or read the spec when I get a minute). But I’m already pretty sure that ain’t just midi because there’s all sorts of apple specific terms in it.
Can You Export Midi Files From Garageband
We can make some observations already. First, see all those scary looking black characters? Don’t be scared of those, that’s the easy part. They’re just control codes when you want to use a character that can’t be seen, but means something like, carriage return or whatever.
Export Midi File Garageband Ipad 2
Where are we now?
We started playing a single scale in GB iOS 12 latest versions of everything as of today
Then wondered why the heck is there no midi export button?
Now we’ve peeled back several layers of a real project, are able to look around inside of it. It doesn’t appear to be encrypted at all and we’re seeing exactly the kind of stuff in the data we’d hope to see.
We can find music related words including “piano” used a bunch of times within this file and data nearby them in sub-sections that could have my scale notes buried in there somewhere.
I wish a had a few minutes to dig further right now but at the moment, I still haven’t hit any wall or seen any reason it shouldn’t be possible to with a little more poking around to get this done.
Interested in any feedback you have:
- Do you agree it might be handy sometimes to have a .band to midi converter? I use other DAWs, some things I just prefer to do in GB iOS.
- Is there already prior art on this effort for iOS, not desktop GB, or a free super utility I’ve missed?
- If you look at the project data, maybe it’s obvious right away to where is is or how they’re storing it. I just ran out of time for but wouldn’t be surprised if others already know more.
Here’s a link to the decode project text file if anyone wants to take a look: