TablEdit Users Say:

"Your software "rocks", well maybe "jams" is a more appropriate term for those of us in the bluegrass community. I've only been playing banjo for a couple of years and am self-taught almost exclusively through tabs made with TablEdit. The metronome feature has helped me with rhythm, and it has been extremely helpful to be able to speed up and slow down the tabs as I learn. The ability to mute certain instruments gives me backup when there is no one else to play. Most recently, I've been learning to read music simply by loading up a well known tab and then clicking on the notation option. Writing my own tabs has been as simple as cutting and pasting licks and rolls from favorite songs."
Brad Estes - Indiana, USA

Read more...

Tutorial

Previous  Top  Next
Map
Mac Help


This portion of the manual is designed to walk you through the various stages of tablature creation. We'll start off with the basic steps and then add features as we go along. Although we recommend that you go through the entire tutorial, how much you actually read depends on your own ambitions concerning the writing of tablature. If you're only interested in writing down basic tunes or licks without regard to how they sound when played back in the program, you may only want to read the first few chapters. If, on the other hand, your aim is to provide a highly detailed tablature that not only contains exact fingerings and timings but sounds reasonably like an actual performance (we call these "Performance" or "Note-for-note" tabs) you'll probably want to read through the entire tutorial.  

Shortcuts have been provided in TablEdit for all of the more common functions such as changing note duration (this includes toggling the dotted and triplet functions on and off), the most common effects (slides, pull-offs, hammer-ons, muted notes), changing scale views, Cut and Paste operations, etc. A complete list of the keyboard shortcuts available is found under "Hotkeys". I guarantee you that learning the ones for the functions you use most often will simplify your tablature-writing life enormously.  
 
   First words  
 
Basic setup  
 
The first step in creating a tablature is, of course, setting up the framework, whether this be a tablature grid or a classical stave, into which the notes and effects will entered. There are, however a few other things that should be done right from the start.  
 
Score structure in TablEdit  
 
Note entry and Editing  
 
   Note entry is, of course, the most basic of operations in TablEdit. Notes can be entered in either the tablature grid or in the stave. There are, however, differences in the procedures used and the functions available in each.  
 
Basic Entry  
 
Duration  
 
This explains the importance of correct note duration as concerns both the appearance of your tablature and the sound it produces.  
 
Dynamics  
 
How to use dynamics to produce a more "live performance" sound to your tablatures.  
 
Notation Display  
 
A page of tips about making classical notation come out right.  
 
See also:  
 
Larry Kuhn's Tutorial  
 
Bob Wolford' Tutorial