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Old 08-07-2020, 11:40 AM   #1
flimdoo
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Default Exporting MIDI from GarageBand on Catalina

I recently struggled to get a MIDI file exported from a GarageBand project and found a solution I thought I'd share here.

Googling around the subject will bring you to a place like this), which describes using a brilliant tool by Lars Kobbe (available on GitHub here). However, the tool doesn't seem to be compatible with Catalina (which requires 64-bit applications).

All is not lost however - if you're happy using the Terminal on your Mac you can use Lars' Perl script directly:

* Download the script from here.
* You can save it wherever you like, but I have put mine in the directory where GarageBand saves its loops (/Users/username/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/User Loops/SingleFiles).
* Export a MIDI track or region as a loop from GarageBand using the instructions on one of the above websites.
* Run the script from your terminal:

Code:
cd ~/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/User Loops/SingleFiles
perl gb2midi.pl my_loop.aif my_loop.mid
Then you can import my_loop.mid into Reaper (or another DAW of course).

Hope that helps someone!
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Old 08-30-2020, 02:39 PM   #2
superblonde.org
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Thats cool. So essentially it is just binary-coded MIDI data inside the garageband file. It is begging for someone to write a plugin then. Or possibly a simple Reaper script?

I tried a MIDI export script on a garageband a long while ago (might have been this same one, not sure) but was not able to make out the drum mapping I got out of garageband, but I'm not good at that yet anyways. Did you have success with drums ? The one simple reason for using garageband is for the drummer.
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Old 08-31-2020, 01:57 AM   #3
flimdoo
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Hi - from what I've read elsewhere, I think you have to convert the drummer track to MIDI before doing this. This video shows you how: https://youtu.be/FSr1Luz3arc
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