Which guitar tabs

[MontyW]

Hi,

I need your help.... I have recently bought Guitar Pro 5 so that I can down load guitar tabs - learn some new licks the trouble is, must tabs I down load aren't that accurate.

Can any of you guys recommend a web site to down load accurate tabs?

Monty

[Fogboundturtle]

ultimate-guitar seems to be the biggest tabs repository. Like most tabs done by amateurs, they are all off in some way. If you use tabs more like guideline of what you should be playing, then they are ok.

[jazzbender]

Fogbound is right about the inaccuracies. Have you thought about getting slow down software and writing your own tabs? You'll probably learn them faster by figuring them out yourself.

[MontyW]

Originally Posted by jazzbender

Have you thought about getting slow down software and writing your own tabs? You'll probably learn them faster by figuring them out yourself.

Any suggestions for suitable software for a Mac? I like the idea of writing my own tabs!

[jazzbender]

A lot of people use a combination of programs, one to slow down the recording and another to write it out. I use Transcribe! to slow the music down and Sibelius G7 to write the notation and/or TAB. It think Sibelius discontinued G7, but there must be an equivalent program available. Once you start transcribing you'll never look back.

[MontyW]

Thanks for the reply jazzbender - I'll look into transcribe.

[warmingtone]

I don't have a Mac, but recording programs like Audacity also allow the slowing down of parts...perhaps garageband which comes free with the Mac has this function. Dedicated programs like Transcribe have EQing and other functions that help isolate parts you are concentrating on...however most recording programs have similar functions hidden in there that can aid in that.

GuitarPro itself is useful to learn about transcribing, it utilizes the guitar neck and writes in both standard notation and TAB while allowing you to listen to the results to check against the original transcription.

...

Even really bad transcriptions may outline at least the basic form from which you can edit and correct, but the standard of transcriptions is often pretty poor.

One thing that you can do with a program like GP is to upload MIDI files. It can be worth playing with this capacity.

For instance, if I like a piano part say, I might seek out a MIDI file that sounds reasonable (there are a lot of bad MIDI's of course) and mute or delete all the other parts and have a look at the voicings and such and adjust the way GP has tried to transcribe it onto the fretboard till I get something that gets the idea and is playable on the guitar. You might even find some guitar parts in MIDI files have been decently done, or the bass and percussion parts are not too bad to work with for your own transcribing.

The other thing that can be useful with a program like GP is that it allows you to transcribe (or indeed compose) and see the results in TAB and in standard notation (which reflects more of the actual sound over how to play it) and listen to it to see if you are close.

Transcriptions are intrinsically a representation, they are never quite "right"...guitar is particularly tricky really... the original is always the benchmark and if it allows you to replicate it, it serves it's purpose.

Transcribing yourself or even correcting bad transcriptions will develop a lot of skills that a bunch of TAB's tends not to. Having to actually work things out will even more put you into the "mind" of the player than just reading it...through that process you often discover "why" they were thinking that way and this tends to be absorbed into your own playing, not just the notes that they played on a particular track.

[jazzbender]

Originally Posted by warmingtone

I
Transcribing yourself or even correcting bad transcriptions will develop a lot of skills that a bunch of TAB's tends not to. Having to actually work things out will even more put you into the "mind" of the player than just reading it...through that process you often discover "why" they were thinking that way and this tends to be absorbed into your own playing, not just the notes that they played on a particular track.

Very well said. Transcribing one Charlie Parker solo will be more enlightening than reading the entire Omni Book.

[zimbo]

The tabs are 99 cents and they're the same tabs from the songbooks. Pretty good deal.

[MontyW]

I've been playing with Transcribe for a few days now and its amazing.... but its not that easy to 'transcribe'.... I need to get used to the software. But thanks for the recommendation.

[Ormond]

With a Mac, I use QuickTime Pro to slow audio, and video down to half speed yet it does not drop an octave...very useful.

For more flexiblity I use ProTools 8 with its elastic pitch properties. But that is Pro level...you will need it someday if you want to record on the industry standard.

[MontyW]

Thanks for the tip on using QuickTime Pro to slow audio and video down.

ProTools 8 is in a different league for a guy who just 'hacks' around on his Tele :-) or at least for the moment.

[jazzbender]

Originally Posted by MontyW

I've been playing with Transcribe for a few days now and its amazing.... but its not that easy to 'transcribe'.... I need to get used to the software. But thanks for the recommendation.

You're welcome. If you haven't found this feature yet, it's very useful. You can tap out the beats using the "b" key, then go back and drag your mouse across the section. When you play back it will loop across that section so you can play along with a line over and over until you get it.

[jefrs]

Yes, downloaded tabs are rarely accurate, fortunately GP5 can translate Powertabs and TEF too, and edit them. This has a huge archive leading to other places http://www.911tabs.com/ but beware of the odd popupses.

Are there no programs that will allow you to 'scrub' the notes in am audio recording whilst trying and writing the note to a midi file, which can then be imported to a tab generator like GP5 ?

I've tried using other audio-to-midi converters, all fairly dire (even when only trying to make a click track), how well does Transcribe fare ?

[jazzbender]

Originally Posted by jefrs

I've tried using other audio-to-midi converters, all fairly dire (even when only trying to make a click track), how well does Transcribe fare ?

Transcribe isn't really a converter. It simply copies audio and video files and converts them to its own xsc extension. Then the file are then ready for manipulation of speed, EQ, pitch and a number of other very useful functions.

[polishcomedy]

There are a lot of amazing guitar pro files out there, just gotta keep looking. Yeah, some are horrible. As a drummer I find most of the drum parts in guitar pro are pretty bad, but at least something is written into the time frame, so I go in and fix all the errors by ear. I could do it from scratch, but it would take longer. www.countrytabs.com has a lot of tabs that aren't found on ultimate-guitar.