Guitar tablature writing software

[Martie]

Please pardon my ignorance, but is there a software program available that you can play into it and it converts what you've played into tab. I'll be so pleased if there is (but knowing me it's probably been around about twenty years!). Thanks in advance.

[Tenzin]

https://musescore.org/en Has a midi input...I'm not sure what else is out there.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Martie

Please pardon my ignorance, but is there a software program available that you can play into it and it converts what you've played into tab. I'll be so pleased if there is (but knowing me it's probably been around about twenty years!). Thanks in advance.

MIDI has certainly been around for at least that long! But with guitar you need a midi interface.

To translate audio signals (from mic or line in) to digital information that software can translate to notation is a lot harder. It can be done with melody - single notes one at a time - but to get timing right the software needs to be set up to know what to expect, and would give you a metronome click to follow. Even then, the notation needs a hell of a lot of editing to make it readable. (If you know notation already, it's always much quicker to just input it all by hand.)

This is still not tab, of course. Even software that can produce sensible staff notation from audio input (which is rare or expensive enough), can't produce playable tab - except in the simplest form. I use Sibelius, which allows copying and pasting between notation and tab staves. What happens is it tabs every note in the lowest possible fret position - because it can't understand what human hands can and can't do. I.e., it knows which string and fret each note is on, but it can't adjust according to playability. It's like someone who can't play guitar (eg a pianist) writing a piece for guitar; they might know not to go too high or too low, but are otherwise unaware of the technical problems caused by only having six strings tuned in a particular way.

The best software currently out there for converting audio input into digital information (allowing, in principle, notation to be produce) is Melodyne. It can understand chords too, not just melody.
https://www.celemony.com/en/start
Will it produce tab? No. Will it even produce usable staff notation? Possibly, if you use it in tandem with a MIDI sequencing program. But expect to spend a lot of time editing the result, never mind all the program operations (on both pieces of software) up to that point.

Here's a thread on the potential (or not) for converting piano music to notation (similar issues apply to guitar:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/musi...ano-music.html

For guitar, this is also worth a read (it's a few years old, but - despite Melodyne - I doubt the software issues have been resolved, or we'd all be hearing about it...):
http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/help...pid=3&&guest=1

IOW, the task is certainly possible. The question is, it worth all the hassle (never mind the expense)? It reminds me of an old joke about someone who invented a machine that could do the work of two people; but it need three people to operate it.... This is a similar thing, but much worse. A task that might take one person with pencil and paper half an hour would take the same person (even a trained person) with the requisite software several hours.

Having said all that, musescore is certainly a great piece of software - and free! - so it would certainly be worth playing around with its midi function - assuming you have a device (or additional software) to convert your guitar output to midi.

[stanron]

There is one other point to add to JonPR's list. Getting a piece of software to recognise the tuning of the guitar, if that information is not available, might be impossible. And there is loads of stuff out there in altered tunings.

I used to use Sibelius and now use Musescore. I managed the switch over without too much difficulty and am quite happy with it. Considering that even the budget versions of Sibelius are pricey and Musescore is free, recommending Musescore is easy.

However, I also find it easier to input notation first and then convert that to tab. In order to do that you have to know notation and also be able to convert what you hear into notes by name. And of course if you could do that you wouldn't need software to do it for you.

Both listening skills and notation skills are worth acquiring and the sooner you start, the sooner you start to get somewhere. I think it's worth the effort.

[JonPR]

stanron highlights that there are two issues here:

1. Translating a piece you are playing on guitar yourself (an original or someone else's) into tab.
2. Translating an audio recording (a piece you don't yet know how to play) into tab.

(1) - which I thought the question was about - is obviously just about saving you some handwriting, perhaps hoping to speed up the process, and probably a desire to make it look neat.
Musescore and similar programs certainly look neater than handwriting - unless you are a skilled calligrapher maybe! Once you're used to using them, they're not a lot slower than handwriting, and are certainly easier and quicker to correct than handwriting - much less messy.
Of course, that assumes you are entering the notes yourself, using a keyboard or mouse. To enter direct from your instrument, you need a midi converter to change the audio signal into digital information.
But this seems to me an unnecessarily technological solution - especially as the information created via midi then needs lots of editing to make it as legible as something you could have quickly typed in by hand in the first place.

(2) - which is what stanron was addressing - is where one might well hope that software can come to the rescue! It's where a program like Melodyne can certainly help, which converts audio into digital information. You still have the problem of converting that information from something a computer can read into something a human can read. (Could you read a piece of music from a piano roll?)
The current state of the technology (AFAIK) means two pieces of software are needed: one to help you listen to the audio, to determine the notes either by helping you listen more closely, or by actually identifying notes itself. The second program is the notation program (musescore or similar), in which - again - you enter the notes by hand.
There are several cheap slowdowners available to help you listen. Some are just designed to allow you to play along (at any speed, looping short sections) and match notes by ear; others will attempt to actually name the notes or chords present. But essentially you still use your ear to confirm whatever they tell you.
Once you're confident about what you're hearing, then you notate it (or tab it) in the other program. Or by hand on manuscript, of course, depending on how old school you are!

FWIW, I use Transcribe for listening and working out - https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/screenshots.html - and Sibelius (the cheap-ish version) for notation and tab. I also have musescore, but I find Sibelius easier and more flexible - but mostly only because I'm used to it. Musescore is amazingly good for free software.

[fazool]

Actually you can't get a software to automatically recognize and create tabs.

It can recognize notes from the frequency and create piano music, but pianos only have ONE of each note.

If the interface hears a note, which one of them will it call out on the guitar? There are multiples of each note on a guitar with the exact same frequency.

Tabs "can't" be done automatically.

[Big Band Guitar]

There is no substitute for the hard work that it takes to actually learn to play the guitar. You would be far better off spending the time studying the fretboard and a little theory than looking for the quick fix.

Programs like Finale can create a tab from standard notation but not from audio input.

[Martie]

Thanks for all the brilliant, thoughtful and informative responses. I asked because somebody wanted me to tab something I've written, which I can do, but I'm just very busy at the moment, so was looking for a short-cut. But all points taken on board - and I particularly liked the joke about inventing a machine that does the work of two people, but needs three people to operate it! That said, even though I have an audio interface etc., I'm probably better off spending some time doing it myself. Thanks again...

[Doug Young]

I think this is probably something that will never be possible, (never say never, tho). The problem is that capturing the notes played is not the same as communicating to someone else what they should play. There is some amazing audio-to-note software, like Melodyne, and you could use a MIDI guitar, which can also solve the "what string is being played" problem. But ultimately, capturing the notes is not the hard part of producing tab. I think of an analogy: could you do a chemical analysis of the components in a baked cake? Sure, it can tell you precisely what's in it. What it can't tell you is the step by step process to baking the cake, i.e. "writing out the recipe". Written music is instructions on how to play the piece. It's inherently an abstraction, not the actual music, so it's not actually accurate, it needs to be readable, not an exact rendering of the performance. With guitar music, we usually don't show the exact length of each note, for example, we might show a ringing arpeggio as a series of 1/8 notes, when in fact, each note is much longer. Automated software won't know about repeats, song structure, etc. So I think at best, you'd get a little help at capturing notes (and I know some people do use a MIDI guitar for note input), but with a bit of practice, entering notes can be fast. I'd say I'm faster at just entering notes using a keyboard (especially where I can use repeat keys, cut/paste and so on) than I would be at correctly all the errors in an automatically captured score.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Martie

Thanks for all the brilliant, thoughtful and informative responses. I asked because somebody wanted me to tab something I've written, which I can do, but I'm just very busy at the moment, so was looking for a short-cut.

The quickest (and neatest) way I've found of creating tab - assuming no need for staff notation - is to use a pre-prepared template created in Word, using a proportional font like Courier New: a whole page of tab lines in dashes: ------- . Then to enter numbers, you use Insert for over-typing. It's obviously much easier to edit than handwriting.