Missing Loops in Garageband

If your new Mac came with Garageband, I bet you're itching to try out some fancy loop mixing and become the next Fat Boy Slim (showing my age). Heads up! You're going to suck. But before you even find out you suck, Garageband will tell you it doesn't have any loops, and that you need to download them with the Software Update app (really the App Store now).

So, the App Store opens up and says: Sorry bro, no updates for you. Why The Face?

This seems to be a long standing bug, but it's easy to circumvent. Open up a terminal and type the following (it'll prompt you for your password):

sudo softwareupdate --list

You should see:

Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2010 Apple

Software Update found the following new or updated software:
   * GBExtraContent-1.0
GarageBand Instruments and Apple Loops (1.0), 1170290K [recommended]

See? They're available really. App Store / Software Update is just being stupid. Now type:

sudo softwareupdate --install GBExtraContent-1.0

And you should see:

Software Update Tool
Copyright 2002-2010 Apple

Downloading GarageBand Instruments and Apple Loops
   990 KB of 1.2 GB
   3.2 MB of 1.2 GB — About 5 minutes
   5.5 MB of 1.2 GB — About 5 minutes
   7.7 MB of 1.2 GB — About 4 minutes
   9.5 MB of 1.2 GB — About 5 minutes...

... and so on. Next time you open Garageband, you should have access to all those fancy new loops (that seem to account for half of all TV and advertising incidental music these days).

But you might need to rebuild your loops index. To do this, open Garageband and go to the loops browser. Then in Finder, select Go To Folder from the Go menu and enter this location:

/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple

In your Finder window, you'll see a folder called "Apple Loops for Garageband". Drag that on to your loops browser in Garageband, and it will reindex all the loops.