Mythical tab software?

[CoolerKing]

Any tab software out there that uses an actual guitar as input? How much easier would it be just to play the song and have it be tabbed out in real time?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by matthewpartrick

Any tab software out there that uses an actual guitar as input? How much easier would it be just to play the song and have it be tabbed out in real time?

There are various programs that claim to do this to some extent. The major notation programs, Finale and Siblieus take midi input, so you could use a midi guitar. You have to play *very* cleanly. There are others that try to analyze the audio. For single lines, some may work - there are even some iPhone apps that you can just whistle a melody into and it tries to write it out. None that I have tried work well enough to be worth the effort. All require so much work to clean up that you may as well enter it the old fashioned way with mouse and keyboard (or a midi keyboard).

If you think about it, it's pretty daunting task, especially timing. We write music differently that we play it. Written music is an instruction sheet - a recipe, with lots of hints, "ritard", "freely", "accelerando", etc. How would a computer deduce that from a performance? An obvious example is swing eights, where most music would just say "swing" and then write the notes as straight eights. But there are many more subtle examples. Maybe someday we'll get there, and I'd love to know of one that works, but I haven't seen one.

[CoolerKing]

I figured it would be a tough thing to program and would likely require Midi. Thanks again.