Basic setup

TablEdit provides the user with a large number of options for customizing the appearance and functionality of the software. The vast majority of the settings will depend on your personal preferences.

There is, however, one feature which will make your TablEditing life much easier. Frequent references will be made throughout this tutorial to the use of the various palettes provided by TablEdit. These provide you direct access to many of the most commonly used features of the program.

Although it's true that menus and the use of the mouse are much simpler for the beginner, they are also the slowest and most inefficient way of working. The most efficient method is to do as much as possible directly from the keyboard. Granted that menus and dialogs can be opened and navigated from the keyboard, this does, in many cases, waste time. The palettes provide a handy method of implementing the most common of those editing features not available from the keyboard with a minimal use of the mouse.

It's recommended that you place at least the following palettes in the working window:

Some of these may, in fact, seldom actually be used to change settings but will provide you with visual references concerning the current setting or a setting that has previously been applied to an already existing note.

The most common errors in TablEditing are those involving note durations. Some of these are no more than simple entry errors while others are rooted in attempts to notate strictly by ear without an understanding of the structure of music (we'll get to this one a little farther down the page). A small tip here: the dynamics display can be toggled on and off (keyboard shortcut [V] ) during note entry so that these markings don't obscure the true value of dotted notes. TablEdit contains a very efficient function to help you avoid at least some entry errors. The Screen options dialog contains an option labeled "Duration errors". Activating this option (by marking the check box next to it) will cause duration errors along any given string to be displayed in red. If you see a note in red (or whatever other color you choose to assign to the function) you'll automatically know that you've either given the note too long a value or that you've placed the following note incorrectly.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we're going to assume a 6-string guitar in standard tuning. When you first open TablEdit this is the standard configuration for but let's pretend that it's not. Basic setup would then consist of the following steps:

Set the number of strings for your instrument and their tuning. This is done in the Tuning dialog. Set the number of strings in the "Module" tab and the tuning in the "Tuning" tab. While you're in the latter you can also set a capo position if you wish. If you intend to create a multi-instrument tablature you could also create the additional modules necessary at this point. For the moment, though, we're just going to run through a single instrument tablature.

2.	Enter the appropriate information in the Title Information dialog. This should always contain the following:

•	Your name as TablEditor (the program will do this automatically if you're using a registered copy)

It might also be a good idea to provide your e-mail address. That way other users can contact you if they have questions or want to contact you because of shared musical interests.

Information concerning the recording from which a non-original piece was transcribed and the copyright can also be placed here but be a bit careful how much you add. This information will generally be printed out at the top of the first page of your tablature and, if there's too much of it, can extend down over the tablature, itself. You might consider placing such additional information in the Notes section, instead.

If you're going to stick to just a very basic tablature you don't have to worry about the basic setting for dynamics. Your main consideration becomes maximum playback volume. If, on the other hand, you want to be able to vary the volume of the individual notes in order to get a more life-like sound on playback, you should set the basic dynamic level to mf or f to allow maximum range. This is done either in {Notes}{Dynamics...} or, more simply in the Dynamics palette.

There are, of course, a variety of other settings that can be made. Most of these are cosmetic in nature while others have a direct effect on the ease of your work. The most important of the latter is probably the activation of the display of duration errors in the Screen options dialog. This will cause any duration errors you might enter to be displayed in a contrasting color.

When you've done all of the above, it might be a good idea to save your work under an appropriate file name. It might also be a good idea to create a "working" folder on your hard drive so that you can keep your own tablatures "in progress" separate from those that you might obtain from other sources.

Now that your basic tablature grid is set up, it's time to learn the techniques of note entry.