Play your guitar and generate tab — click Start, record, click Stop, edit, and click Done to see tab (see Usage). Have fun!
Use fret range: min = , max = . Key: Time:
Enter your setting above (frets, tabbing options), and click 'Start', and start playing ... slowly-ish, a single note at a time.
Usage
- Get your guitar, tune up, and get within earshot of your mic.
- (Optional) Enter the fret range -- this reduces the possible number of fretting options that the tabber will find.
- You can specify key and time signatures using the dropdowns. Note Tabbyhack doesn't add barlines (that's really complicated!)
- Click Start, and let this site access your mic.
- Play one note at a time, slowly (about 1 note per 1/2 second). You can change the mic sensitivity using the slider -- don't make it too sensitive, or it may tab things like crazy!
- Tab candidate notes will appear onscreen as they're recognized. For chords, play the strings one at a time, and don't overlap the notes. You'll also see all possible frettings for each note on the fretboard.
- Click Stop when you're done.
- Edit the notes using the keyboard (see "Editing").
- When you're done editing, click "Done". The Vextab and Ascii tablature will be generated. Copy and paste those wherever you want.
Editing
When you've recorded all your notes, you'll see an underline under the first note ... that's a cursor indicating the note you're editing. As you edit, the progress bar under the tab will indicate your ... progress.
The current note and fret is shown as a red dot. If there are alternate frettings for the current note, they're shown as white dots. The prior note is shown as a faded green dot.
- left/right arrow: move to previous/next note
- up/down arrow: move the note to a different string, if that same note can be fretted on the new string. For example, if you specify a fret range of 1 to 5, you can't play a "C" on the top E sting.
- c: toggle note to be a chord, or chord back to its notes.
- +, - : speed up or slow down the current note.
- . : toggle the dot for the current note
- <DEL>: delete the current note
A quick demo ... (WAY out of date!)
This demo was recorded for version 0.0.0.0.1 of this software ... the same concepts apply, for the most part! See Editing for other editing options.
FAQs and NAQs (Never Asked Questions).
"Who is this for?"
A: Teachers, people who want to get quick tabs, whoever finds it useful, really.
"Why is this so primitive?"
A: There are existing fully-featured tab things out there, but I wanted something that I could "dictate to" with my guitar, and that would let me quickly make ascii tabs.
"Why can't I play chords?"
A: I haven't looked into this much, but the library that this uses only distinguishes individual tones. It's possible to extract multiple frequencies from a single chord, but that's beyond the scope of this little project.
"Can you make this software do x, y, z, [feature request here]?"
A: I welcome code contributions to the GitHub repo! (see "About" in the menu) Unfortunately I'm dealing with a medical issue that makes extensive coding tough, so I doubt I'll be investing serious time into this project, unless there is a real need. I don't know how many people will use it, though!
"I love it! Where can I donate a pile of money to?"
A: This is a small project, done for fun and as a small contribution to any guitarists who find it interesting. But if you really want to give me money, please donate that same sum to your nearest women's health org, animal shelter, or any worthy cause. Or call that friend you've been meaning to and say hi. Or surprise a stranger with a free coffee. Then send me a virtual high-five, and we'll call it even. Cheers!
About
Tabbyhack is for hacking tab. :-P
Version: 0.0.0.0.1
GitHub repo: tabbyhack - code contributions are very welcome!
Issues and complaints: please use GitHub issues.
For rendering the tab and notation, this uses Vextab. For the fretboard, this uses moonwave99/fretboard.js. These are great libraries!
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