Guitar tab organizer

[Jack-Otter]

Hey everybody! I'm a regular lurker here and have been impressed by the depth and breadth of posters' knowledge. So here's my question... I have about 250 songs in tab format saved on my computer and am wondering if there is a good tab organizer that people use where I can store my files/tabs and also manage them to print and make a personalized song book.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

[KMHaynes]

I have about that many tabs stored and printed. My "system" isn't sophisticated or complicated: I have printed many of them and stapled multi-page tabs together, 3-hole punched them and put them into a couple of different 3 ring binders from Ofc. Max.

I have some organized by CD (I have several CDs with tabs of almost every song on the CD: Michael Hedges Oracle, Sarah McLauchlin Countdown to Ecstasy, various Dave Matthews, etc). Then, I have some single songs stored alphabetically by artist. Then for other tabs, I have some organized alphabetically by style: fingerpicking and strumming. Things get moved around some, but for the most part, I can pretty quickly find a song that I'm looking for.

[cat322]

I don't save them to the HD but I do print them and put them in alphabetical order in a collapsible(sp?) accordian file with buit in elastic band. I can fit several hundred on paper in it and carry it anywhere with no risk of them falling out. Cost about $2. As far as for the HD I would create a new folder in the my documents area called tabs and put them by artist.

[jhm-614]

I'm using the "print the tab" method, but I put the pages into plastic slip sheets and then into a 3 ring binder. It's a little more sturdy just 3 hole punching the tabs.

[Gilliangirl]

I'm using the "print the tab" method, but I put the pages into plastic slip sheets and then into a 3 ring binder. It's a little more sturdy just 3 hole punching the tabs.

That's what I do, too, and I also have A-Z dividers in the binder and file them under the song name. I also have special binders of just my favourite artists, eg., Gillian Welch

[ParleyDee]

Sounds to me like you're looking for a tab equivalent of what ABCWin is for ABC notation. If so, I'm guessing one of the tab editing programmes might let you set up songbooks (I'm not experienced with them at all) but then I suppose you'd need the tab to be in the right format rather than just word processor files.

[Steve-R]

This is pretty similar to things already noted here, but I save them in Word, under My Documents, then print them out, 3-hole punch them, and put them in a binder. The binder has dividers/tabs A-Z, but it's going to have to get split into A-M and N-Z pretty soon.

One other thing I do besides saving the tablature in Word is to add each song to an Access database of my songs. That way I can print out reports (one line for each song) by artist, or song, and I also type in notes on each song that print on my reports (i.e., the key it's in, chords used, capo position, ranking in my playlist, etc). I keep them in my songbook for reference.

If it sounds pretty involved, it's not really. A little time spent setting it up saves a whole lot of time later when performing or practicing.

Just my thoughts, but it works for a simple guy like me.

Steve-R
Lots o' stuff but it's no big deal

[woodenkings]

i also do what everyone is doing but i also go to putting tab and instructional information on to 3 and a half inch floppy disc's. i organize them according to genre and subject matter.

i use 7 and 13 subject plastic collapsible folders for my guitar magazines. the 7 subject folder i place my certain magazines that come with a CD and my 13 subject i use for my other magazines except for my vintage guitar mag. which is the largest-they stack pretty good :) .

[ferric84]

hate to bring up an old (real old) topic but it's relevant.. http://www.tabbasket.com is a good resource for organizing tabs. beats my old system of random text files everywhere

[underfoot]

to the OP

rename them so they are all consistant with

Band Name - Song Name

all in the same format

then you can sort alphabetically or create folders for genres or artists or types of music.

lots of ways.

I personally don't keep any since they are all instantly accessible online.

[imwjl]

Two steps I've taken come to mind.

One is I have a Guitar Pro lic.. It imports and exports common file formats and has nice tools for learning and play along. Keep in mind that Guitar Pro has very generous licensing where the individual can have Mac and Win versions and more than one of their personal computers.

Two is I name them so an alpha sort of a directory displays artist, song or subject, and so same name is conducive to the plain text searches in my operating systems (Vista, Mac).

[HD18JBGuy]

I am with the above. I print and put them in a three ring binder. Organized alphabetically by artist.

On a similar note, I have an incredibly awesome Dave Matthews Band guitar tab book with 143 DMB songs. Each is tabbed out for the guitar with lyrics and an expanation for each song, all one page per song. It is one of the better pieces of work I have ever seen. A friendly fellow put it together and distributed it to a few people.

PM with an email address if you would like a copy. It is in PDF format.