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CD ROM Paradise Collection 4
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CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso
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GUITAR.DOC
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1995-03-11
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GUITAR TOOLS
DOCUMENTATION:
Some things you should know about Guitar tools. Make sure that your
mouse driver is installed before you run Guitar tools. Also there are two
.prf files. These files are critical!! Do not delete them!
MOUSE CONTROL:
Use the mouse to select the items in the menus. Just by hitting the left
mouse button once will activate the menu or menu item that the mouse
has selected. You can also select a position on the screen by moving the
mouse to where you want to insert Tab or Staff and then press the left
mouse button. You will be placed in an appropriate spot. To jump up
and down from tab line to tab line, one can also use the mouse.
Selecting the top ====== double lined bar will move you up a line,
until you reach the top line. Selecting the bottom ===== double lined
bar which also has the line number, and chord mode displayed, will
move you down a line until you reach the maximum line number. This
has proved to be a pretty handy feature when one wants to browse
through the tab quickly.
By clicking on the line above or below the tab line, one activates
the7th line or lyric insert modes. 7th line is the line above the staff
where you can place symbols to represent hammer ons, pull offs, chord
names, etc. See the section on preferences for setting the 7th line
symbols. When you have selected one of these two lines, the cursor will
turn yellow and you can enter what ever you want. This
will be saved with the tab information that is inputed. For staff, there is
a lyric line, which is the bottom most line. This works the same way as
the TAB lyric line and when you transform STAFF into TAB the lyrics
are copied over as well.
KEYBOARD CONTROL:
One can also select the menus by using Alt-f, Alt-d, Alt-t, and Alt-p
to access the following menus: file, display, tools, or preferences
respectively. To add a tab number type in the fret position 0-21. If a 1
or 2 is the first number, Guitar Tools will wait to see if the number is a 2
digit number or not. If it is not a 1 or a 2, then depending upon the mode
that you are in, the cursor will move to the next position.
To insert a space anywhere in the Tab or Staff that you have entered,
press the s key. This will insert a space, and move everything forward
one space. To delete any space type delete.
To put a measure bar in the STAFF or TAB type Alt-m. If there are
notes where you want a measure bar, first insert a space and then put a
measure bar there. If you do not insert a space, the measure bar will
write over the notes. Type delete to delete a note. One can also press
backspace, or the space bar to delete a measure bar, a chord, or a space
If at anytime you don't want to go through with the action from one of
the menus that has been selected, hit the Esc key and that will put you
back into the normal display.
MENU FUNCTIONS:
FILE:
All of the menu items under file are pretty self explanatory.
SAVE and LOAD.
You don't have to specify a file extension. Guitar Tools will add the
correct one when you save a file and when you load one.
You can still load .Tab and .Stf files, but they will be converted over
into .Gtr files. If you save a file while in the STAFF display, then when
you load it, it will be loaded as a STAFF file and guitar tools will
come up in the STAFF display. The same holds true for saving a TAB
file. So make sure you are aware of where you are at when you save
files.
You can also load in an ASCII file that has some sort of tab in it.
First make sure that the tab has no binary characters in it. If it does,
Guitar Tools will freeze up. If it is a text file then it won't have any
binary characters in it. Save the file as an .asc file. So if you have the
file guns.tab, from the DOS prompt or WINDOWS file manger change
the file name and save it as guns.asc. Then run guitar tools load the
file. One note. The file has to be in the same directory from which
Guitar Tools is running. After loading the file, the TAB will now be in
the editing buffer. You can then add lyrics, 7th line information,
measures, spaces, or what ever you want. If the file is extremely long,
you might have to break it up into pieces. Guitar tools will fill up all of
the memory it can. Once it is filled up it will give you an error message
that it has reached it's limit. This won't crash the program, it is just to let
you know that it did not have room to bring the entire file into memory.
It will bring in about 15 lines of tab. So if your file exceeds this limit
break it up into two files or more if necessary.
PRINT: The print option allows you to create an ASCII file of the
current song in the TAB buffer. These are nice looking files that can be
sent to a friend, the net, or printed out. No more of those ugly dashed
lines that drive me crazy! When the print command is initiated, a
window will open up. You will have your choice of specifying the title,
author, who tabbed the song, the option of including 7th line information
and also the option of including a key to the symbols you are using for
the 7th line. If you do not want a title, leave it blank. If you do not want
to specify who tabbed it, leave it blank, and that will not be added to the
file. If you do not want to include the 7th line, then replace the yes,
which by default will be present, with a no. Same with the 7th line key,
just replace the yes with a no. The current filename will be the default
file name. This will not overwrite the .Gtr file that you might have
already saved. The print command will create a .Pnt file. Still from
this menu you have the option of changing this name. The file that is
created can be printed out. To print it out one can just send it to the
printer with DOS print filename.pnt or from windows, or What I do is
load it into Word Perfect and select the double column option. This puts
a lot more tab on one page and it makes it look nice. If you have access
to Word Perfect you should try this and see how nice it looks. One has
to reduce the font size just a little bit and then they will fit perfectly
in two columns.
DISPLAY:
You can change back and forth between displaying Tab
or Staff by selecting Tab or Staff in the window that will pop up when
you select Display. This will not transform Staff into Tab, for that
option see Tools.
TOOLS:
Under tools we find staff-->Tab. This option will change the
imputed Staff into Tab by selecting it. One must be in the Staff display
and have notes entered for this to work. There are also the options of
Chord or Solo. This is how you can control the way the cursor behaves
when entering in TAB. If it is in the Solo mode the cursor moves from
left to right. If it is in the Chord mode, then it move from top to bottom.
The current mode is displayed close to the bottom on the ==== barred
line.
One other tool is the transpose tool. This is intiated from the TAB
display. It changes the TAB back into STAFF notes, and then
re-transforms them into TAB using the new preferences which have been
set.
PREFERENCES:
Under preferences we find two options. The first is transpose. These
are the options that control how the staff is transformed to TAB. You
will have to play around with these and get them to your own liking.
Some songs may do better with the preferences set different. For
example if you are getting two many open chords and they are becoming
cumbersome to play, raise the open Chord preference up a bit to limit the
number of them, or put it up to 5 to make it so that no open chords are
used unless absolutely necessary. The best way to see what these do is
to experiment with them.
The other set up preferences are the 7th line. Here you can define
what you want your symbols to be for Hammer ons, Pull offs, etc. These
you have the option of printing out when you select print. Both
preference types are saved after you change them. Every time you load
up Guitar Tools they will be the same until you change them again.
STAFF EDITING:
When the current display is the STAFF display. You will see the
treble cleft. Here you can enter in notes. Many may wonder where the Bass
cleft is at, but I played arround with a ton of songs, and the guitar's range is
in the treble cleft. If you want to play something that is played in the Bass
cleft range, then transpose it up into the treble cleft range and type it in.
To input a note, hit the space bar. If the cursor is at the positon where a A
should be, then a A will be inserted on the screen. To delete a note, just move
the cursor on the note you want deleted and press del.
To insert a sharp note, move the cursor to the positioin of the note and press the #
button. You do not need to hold the shift down, press the 3 and it will insert a
sharp for you. To keep things a bit simpler, there are not flats, but one can
change a flat into a sharp with no problem. A C-sharp is the same as a D-flat, A
A- sharp is the same thing as a B-flat, etc. The sharp notes will be red on the screen.
One can then transform this music into TAB!
This about sums it up. If you have any questions or comments fill free
to contact me:
Troy Johnson
100N 680W #21
Smithfield UT. 84335
801-563-4035
troyj@chaos.idec.sdl.usu.edu
Thank You!