Monitoring the Processor with the Playhead
Did you know that the playhead changes color to indicate the level of demand on your computer's processor? The playhead turns from white to yellow to orange to red to indicate how processor-intensive the song is. White indicates the lowest processor load; red is the highest.


Now you know how to identify changes in the processor load by the color of the playhead. Remember, the next time your playhead turns red and you overload your processor, you can lighten the processor load by muting tracks, turning off effects, locking tracks, or deleting unnecessary tracks from the Timeline.
Setting GarageBand Preferences to Help Minimize Processor Load
There are several options in GarageBand's preferences that can also help minimize the load on your processor. Let's take a look at some of these options.
Exporting from GarageBand to iTunes and Back
If you are working with a slower computer, you have another option: you can mix down your basic tracks by exporting the song to iTunes, and then bring the mixed file back into GarageBand.In the good ol' days of working with a 4-track recorder, you often needed to mix down your basic tracks to one track in order to add additional tracks to the song. By mixing down your tracks in GarageBand, you are essentially doing the same thing. Your mixed-down region from iTunes will demand a fraction of the processor load required by the original separate tracks.This following exercise assumes that you are building a song with a lot of tracks, and you don't have the CPU to support it. You'll start mixing down the basic tracks (drums, percussion, bass, and rhythm tracks). Then you'll add additional instruments to these mixed-down tracks in the Timeline. Finally, you'll drag the mixed down files from iTunes back to the GarageBand Timeline in order to add more tracks and finish the song.Let's start by setting the export preferences and mixing down the current song.
1. | Choose GarageBand > Preferences to open the General Preferences window if it is not already open. |
2. | Click the Export button to open the Export pane. |
3. | Type Mixdown Tracks in the iTunes Playlist field, and press Return.![]() |
4. | Close the Export Preferences window. |
5. | Create a cycle region from the beginning of the song to the 27th measure.This will allow you to mix the entire song, plus the residual notes that sustain beyond the last region. |
6. | Choose File > Export to iTunes to export the project 9-1 SciFiShow to iTunes.GarageBand exports a mixed-down version of the project and places it in a new playlist in iTunes.Now let's open a new project and add the mixed-down song from iTunes to the project. |
7. | Choose File > New to create a new project.You don't need to save the other version of the song, so click Don't Save to the original version. |
8. | Name the new project SciFiShow 2 and create it in your GarageBand Songs folder.This song uses the default GarageBand settings, so you don't need to change any of the default settings for the new project.The new project opens in GarageBand. |
9. | Press Cmd-K to close the onscreen keyboard, then press Cmd-Delete to delete the Grand Piano track from the new project.Next, you'll need to move the GarageBand window so you can also see the iTunes window at the same time. |
10. | Click-drag the GarageBand window header (top of the window) down to move it to the lower half of your computer screen.You should see the open iTunes window on the Desktop. If you don't see iTunes, click the iTunes icon in your Dock to open iTunes.You'll also need to resize the iTunes window. |
11. | Click-drag the lower-right corner of the iTunes window upward until iTunes is only on the top half of your computer screen.[View full size image]![]() |
12. | Click the Mixdown Tracks playlist in the iTunes Source list.The mixed version of 9-1 SciFiShow appears in the song list.To add the mixed version of the song to GarageBand, all you need to do is click-drag the song from the playlist to the Timeline. |
13. | Click-drag the 9-1 SciFiShow song from iTunes to the top left (1st measure) of the GarageBand Timeline.![]() |
14. | Release the mouse to add the mixed song to the Timeline.[View full size image]![]() |
15. | Close iTunes.You could now add additional regions and tracks to the mixed-down version of the song.The mixed-down version of the song is stored in the iTunes Library. |
16. | Press Cmd-S to save the project. |
There you have it. If you play the mixed-down version of the song, the playhead remains white, indicating that the processor load is minimal.This technique is terrific if you are working with a slower computer or a laptop and you want to build a song that requires a lot of CPU to play in the Timeline.Remember, you can always go back to the original song to make adjustments to the basic tracks if you need to. Then you can mix them down again by exporting to iTunes.
Tips for Mixing Down Tracks to iTunes
- If you have a song with dozens of tracks, you may want to mix down the tracks by instrument types. For example, export all of the percussion and drums tracks together. Then export the rhythm tracks. Finally, export the supporting tracks. Then drag all of the exported files from iTunes into a new project.