I’m going to start writing some GarageBand related articles, since it’s pretty much my primary music tool these days.
Here’s a quick one to start. I have a longer one about how to run GB in Rosetta to take advantage of PPC AudioUnits on an Intel Mac, but it’ll have to wait…
One annoyance I have with GB is that there’s no clear way I see to create a Software Instrument region other than recording MIDI or Musical Typing. Kinda lame. Maybe I just want to start drawing notes? One thing you can do is create a little one-measure region with a single note in it, and name it “template region”. From there, select “Add to Loop Library” from the Edit menu. Set appropriate settings to it (I used “other instrument”) and save it. Now go to your loop browser, and search for “template”. Your one-note loop should show up (along with Pop Contemplate Drums if you have Jam Pack 2). Click on “Fav” for your loop, and it will show up in the Favorites “Smart loop list” in the loop browser.
You may also want to do something similar for drum parts (such as say, making a loop with just the bass drum doing “the fours”) to speed up composition time on your drum loops.