Writing power tabs

› Forums › Guitars, Gear, Software & Education › Writing power tabs

  • Post
    • January 18, 2010 at 8:43 am
    evolving_skill_
    Member

    hi, I am new here. Been playing electric guitar for about 14 years , then got dissatisfied with it for various reasons and switched to keyboards and piano for another 7 years, although I never wanted to abandon guitar completely. Now I want to keep up with all the latest guitar techniques, although I will continue on keys and piano as well

    Anyways, I need to learn how to write guitar tabs with a software. I can read music rather well so that’s not the problem, but can you recommend some (maybe free ? ) software to write tabs with, and possibly some easy tutorials, video or text ?

    thanks and rock on 🙂

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Replies
    • January 18, 2010 at 2:56 pm
    BenJS1000
    Member

    Hi dude, welcome to IG!
    You mentioned power tabs so I presume you already have the Powertab software installed?
    If not, Powertab is free software, and once installed it is pretty simple to use… in short, you just type in the notes in tab format, i.e. fret numbers. Once you’ve done that it’s just a case of selecting the necessary rhythm, time signature and what not. Good luck dude

    • January 18, 2010 at 3:17 pm
    Mandz
    Member

    I think is better than PowerTAB as it is compatible with GuitarPro as well: http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/

    • January 18, 2010 at 4:26 pm
    billmeedog
    Member

    @Mandz 10148 wrote:

    I think is better than PowerTAB as it is compatible with GuitarPro as well: http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/

    Hey Mandz, 🙂

    Thanks for the link! I just downloaded TuxGuitar, so I’ll let you know how I like it once I get a chance to mess around with it (probably NOT today because I have to go shovel snow – Arrrggghh!!! – LOL!) 😉

    ~Bill Meehan~ 😀

    • January 18, 2010 at 5:05 pm
    Mandz
    Member

    maybe I’m just a grump but snow leaves me cold (pun intended). I don’t envy you having to spend time shoveling the stuff. Just realise also that I somehow forgot to type “TUXGuitar” in my post and just posted the link. well I’m glad that hasn’t put everybody off it.

    • January 19, 2010 at 9:32 am
    evolving_skill_
    Member

    thanks guys, I’ll check it all out.

    • January 19, 2010 at 10:08 am
    evolving_skill_
    Member

    tuxguitar looks better but doesn’t have a quick way to indicate downstrokes or upstrokes, which for me defeats the purpose as I want to tab out legato passages.

    I am trying out powertab but when click on the staff, nothing happens. The ‘quick start’ bit on the manual just says ‘last step: start tabbing out the song’.
    But it does not tell how to do it. Am I missing something? :confused:
    thanks guys for the help

    • January 19, 2010 at 11:00 am
    arc_of_descent
    Member

    Hey Guys,

    I’ve been using Tuxguitar for many years now. It’s pretty good, and more importantly it’s in active development and runs on Linux too (I don’t use Windows) :p. It can read and play both PowerTab and GuitarPro files.

    Creating TABS as always is a bit painful, but once you learn the interface it gets easier going forward.

    Cheers!

    • January 19, 2010 at 3:47 pm
    scottiescott
    Member

    Just downloaded it myself ,Looks good and since i use a Mac its great because Powertab doesn’t work on Mac’s.:p

    • January 20, 2010 at 5:22 pm
    billmeedog
    Member

    @evolving_skill_ 10171 wrote:

    tuxguitar looks better but doesn’t have a quick way to indicate downstrokes or upstrokes, which for me defeats the purpose as I want to tab out legato passages.

    I am trying out powertab but when click on the staff, nothing happens. The ‘quick start’ bit on the manual just says ‘last step: start tabbing out the song’.
    But it does not tell how to do it. Am I missing something? :confused:
    thanks guys for the help

    Hi evolving_skill,

    Are you sure about the lack of downstroke and upstroke symbols/indicators? I saw “downstroke” and “upstroke” commands in the list of options (12th and 13th commands/items down in the list) shown in the Beat pulldown/sub-menu (7th pulldown menu from the left) at the top?!? Check it out!

    ~Bill Meehan~

    • January 20, 2010 at 10:14 pm
    evolving_skill_
    Member

    @billmeedog 10188 wrote:

    Hi evolving_skill,

    Are you sure about the lack of downstroke and upstroke symbols/indicators? I saw “downstroke” and “upstroke” commands in the list of options (12th and 13th commands/items down in the list) shown in the Beat pulldown/sub-menu (7th pulldown menu from the left) at the top?!? Check it out!

    ~Bill Meehan~

    Hi Bill

    yes, I did notice the sub-menu that you mention. But what if you have to notate many pick-strokes quickly? There is no keyboard shortcut to notate them quickly , and I don’t see them in the main toolbar either, the only way I could notate them, was to repeatedly reach for that buried sub-menu in the option list and click on it, a very tedious exercise that made me gave it up

    it seems really strange that the pick-strokes aren’t on the main toolbar and there’s no option to include them either

    cheers
    Salvo

    • January 21, 2010 at 9:23 am
    arc_of_descent
    Member

    @evolving_skill_ 10190 wrote:

    But what if you have to notate many pick-strokes quickly? There is no keyboard shortcut to notate them quickly

    Go to Tools => Shortcuts, and you can define a keybinding for downstroke/upstroke in there.

    • January 21, 2010 at 8:09 pm
    evolving_skill_
    Member

    FANTASTIC , now I am really cooking. Thank you Rohan :p

    cheers
    Salvo

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.