How do I speed up a region in garageband that I've selected?

You can use the Tempo Track. In the Tempo Track you change the tempo for individual measures.

Command-click into the Tempo Track to create control points where you want to change the tempo, then drag the tempo curve up and down.

How do I speed up this region so I can loop it and it will sync up with the meter of the song?

It will depend on your version of GarageBand. Are you using GarageBand 10 or an earlier version?

In GarageBand 10:

If you recorded the region directly into GarageBand, and it is showing as a blue region, set the tempo of your song back to the tempo you used, when you recorded the region, and then select the track, open the Track Editor, and enable "Follow Tempo and Pitch" for this region. When you now change the tempo of your song, the region will change the tempo with the song.

• Is that region an audio file? Then it will not follow Tempo and Pitch in GarageBand 10. set the tempo of your song back to the tempo you used, when you recorded the region. Then trim the region to an exact number of measures, and add it to the Loop Browser.
  File > Add Region to Loop Library.
  In the panel that pops up, select the type "Loop", not "One Shot". Name your new loop, and press "Create".
• Now you can add it back to your song from the loop browser as a regular loop.

In GarageBand '11 or earlier you can make an audio file loop (orange) turn into a purple loop, that conforms to the song tempo by pressing the key combination control, option and G.

I took a song from an MP3 (or something like that) file and dragged it into GB, did my editing to isolate a small sample. When I do File > Add Region, I cannot select "Loop", it's greyed out. One Shot seems to be the only way to store the loop in the Loop Library. So, I'm still stuck.

Then you probably made the loop too short. The region needs to be an exact number of measures, otherwise you can only use "One Shot", and that will not conform to tempo changes.

Make the cut-out sample longer again by dragging the right border, until it is exactly one measure. You can shorten it again, when you add it back from the loop browser.

Π.Σ.Φ. wrote:

I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with GarageBand. It's weird that you can't simply scroll down to see the rest of the options, and it's actually how the editor shows up by default.

The weird thing is, that the Smart Controls pane can be scrolled, to reveal all options, and if you enabled the scrollbars to show always, you will even see a scrollbar. But Apple forgot to add such a scrollbar to the track editor pane:

I have enabled the scroll bars to showalways in the System Preferences > General.

This worked! Thank you so much 🙂 Just one question... does this change the pitch of the track or also the speed? Because when I change it, the pitch changes but the song doesn't get any faster or slower.

Because when I change it, the pitch changes but the song doesn't get any faster or slower.

The song will follow the tempo of the song set in the project settings in the LED display or the local tempo changes in the Tempo track.

When I tried this, nothing except the name of the track showed up in the region....

all it said was reverse playback. 😟

Your track editor pane is too small. Drag the dividing line to the track are upward to enlarge the pane until you are seeing the missing transpose slider.

Great! You're welcome! 🙂

So how do I change the tempo of the song/open the project settings? And is it possible to only change the tempo in one region or does it have to be all of it?

I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with GarageBand. It's weird that you can't simply scroll down to see the rest of the options, and it's actually how the editor shows up by default.