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Tab Transcriber Version 1.01 User's Manual (c) 1993 Michel Brazeau Disclaimer Although every effort has been put in Tab Transcriber to ensure its reliability, the author makes no warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to the software, and the accompanying documentation. In no event shall the author by liable for any consequential damages (including damages for loss of business profit, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising from the use of or inability to use this product, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Table of Contents Overview..........................................................2 Features..........................................................2 Tablature used in Tab Transcriber.................................3 Chord Symbols.....................................................4 Operation of Tab Transcriber......................................5 Operation Hints...................................................7 Future Releases ..................................................8 Registration......................................................9 Page 2 Overview Welcome to Tab Transcriber (TT). This software will convert the musical information contained in a standard midi file, to guitar tablature. TT can be used for different purposes. For the apprentice guitarist, it provides a useful tool. A song can be listened to with a sequencer and a midi set-up, at a reduced tempo if desired, and with the guitar transcription it is very easy to follow along in order to learn the song progressively. Another use of TT is to adapt songs for guitar even if they were originally intended for another instrument. It also provides an inexpensive way to acquire a large repertoire of guitar transcription since many midi files are available on computer bulletin boards. Many programs such as sequencers and scoring software will convert musical sequences to traditional musical notation. This is fine for the well trained and disciplined guitarist, put many guitarists have a limited sight reading ability, since sight reading for a guitarist is not an easy task: the same note can sometimes be located at five different positions on the fret board. Tablature is a graphical system of notation which identifies notes to be played by specifying both the string and fret position. It does not present rhythm information, but if the song can be heard (the sequence can be played on a sequencer), if is very easy to "pick up" the rhythm. Features of Tab Transcriber - Pitch bend detection. - Vibrato modulation detection. - Transposition of any track. - Variable bend sensitivity. - Editing features to modify the transcription according to the taste of the player. - Recognition of 27 different types of chords in all keys, to provide for easy guitar arrangements. Page 3 Tablature Explanation Guitar tablature is used often by many guitar publications. It is a fairly standard notation to many guitarists. Tablature will be explained in this section as it applies to TT. ──────────────────────── high E string ──────────────────────── B " ──────────────────────── G " ──────────────────────── D " ──────────────────────── A " ──────────────────────── low E " The horizontal lines represent the guitar strings in the standard tuning. On the strings appear numbers which indicate the fret position where the note has to be played. Following is a small example of a tablature transcription as used by TT. C Em V B½ ├─────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────── ├──────────1──────┼─1──1──0────────────────────────────────── ├───────0─────0───┼─0──0──0────────────────────────────────── ├────2────────────┼─2──2──2──2──2──────────────────────────── ├─3───────────────┼─3──3──2────────────────────────────────── ├─────────────────┼───────0────────────────────────────────── 1 2 The vertical lines indicate a change in measures. The numbers below these lines indicate the bar number. In bar 1, the notes C, E, G, C, G, are played successively. If more than one note is played simultaneously, and the chord name is identified, the chord symbol will appear above the tablature lines. If a chord is played twice, the chord symbol is not repeated (which is the case for the C major chord in bar 2). Following the C major chord is an E minor chord. The V symbol indicates that the note below it has to be modulated with a vibrato. The B symbol is for a pitch bend: the following number is the pitch value. ¼, ½, 1, 1½, indicate values for quarter, half, full, and one and a half note bends, respectively. Page 4 Chord Symbols used by TT The examples are given with the tonic note C. C : C major Cm : C minor C7 : C dominant seventh Cm7 : C minor seventh CM7 : C major seventh Cdim : C diminished C+ : C augmented CM6 : C major sixth Cm6 : C minor sixth C7#5 : C seventh sharpened fifth C7b5 : C seventh flattened fifth C7b9 : C seventh flattened ninth CM7b3 : C major seventh flattened third Cm7b5 : C minor seventh flattened fifth C7sus4 : C seventh suspended forth C9 : C ninth CM9 : C major ninth Cm9 : C minor ninth C9+ : C ninth augmented C9#5 : C ninth sharpened fifth C9b5 : C ninth flattened fifth C11 : C eleventh C11+ : C augmented eleventh C13 : C thirteenth C13b9 : C thirteenth flattened ninth C13b9b5 : C thirteenth flattened ninth flattened fifth C/D : C major with D bass note (can be any combined chord) Page 5 Operation of Tab Transcriber TT is menu driven with drop and drag menus. Click the left mouse button on the menu selected, and then release the button on the desired option. Entering data: click on the left mouse button on the region where the data is to be entered. Enter the data with the keyboard. Click the right mouse button or press Enter to accept the data. Press Esc to ignore the changes. Page Up and Page Down clears the input. For an example, try setting the song title from the print menu. File Operations: New: clears the work space, the current contents in the transcription are lost. Load.mid: Loads a midi file in TT to be transcribed with the transcribe option. Load.gtr: Loads a file which contains a transcription. The .gtr file format is used to save transcriptions. It cannot be played back with a sequencer since it does not contain any midi data. Save.gtr: Saves a transcription in .gtr format to be used later. Shell: Temporarily leaves TT and gives the user access to the operating system prompt. This is used to perform other tasks while within TT. Type 'exit' and press Enter to return to TT. Edit: Pressing the left mouse button on edit puts TT in edit mode if a file has been previously transcribed. Since the same note can be played at different positions on the fret board, TT allows the user to select where the notes are to be played. Editing a note does not change the note itself, but only where it is to be played. TT tries to optimize the position of notes on the fret board, by minimizing the movement of the player's left hand. TT may not always place the notes where the user prefers to perform them. The editing of notes is as follows: left mouse button: moves a note up one string if possible. right mouse button: moves a note down one string if possible. Page 6 F9: moves all the notes on a string up if possible. F10: moves all the notes on a string down if possible. The key Home goes to the first page, End to the last, Page Up to the next, and Page Down to the previous. To return to the menu mode both mouse buttons have to be pressed simultaneously. Print Operations: Print Song: Prints the current transcription according to the options currently selected. Select Pages: Selects the pages to be printed. It is important to remember that two screen pages will fit on one page, and the values are inclusive. Set Title: Sets the title that will appear on the printout. Destination: The transcription can be printed to the printer or to a file. When printing to a file the user specifies a filename. The file printout allows the transcription to be edited further (such as adding lyrics) with a word processor. It can then be printed from a word processor. The output format specifies if regular ASCII characters or extended ASCII characters are used for the printout. Some printers and word processors may not support the extended character set. Page Numbers: Selects if page numbers are appear on the printout or not. Transcribe: Once a midi file is loaded any track contained within the midi file can be transcribed. After the transcribe option has been selected, a track is chosen among the list. The transpose value is the number of semitones that the song will be transposed. The bend sensitivity value is used for pitch bends only. This value is the number of semitones of pitch change per pitch bend range. The value is usually two on most sound sources and synthesizers. To change this value accurately, the user needs to know the bend sensitivity that was used when the original midi file was created. Page 7 Operation Hints Transcribing chords: Some midi sequences have the chords spit on different tracks. So before using TT, these tracks should be combined with a sequencer. Transcribing bass lines: A bass guitar is usually tuned the same as the guitar's lowest four strings but one octave lower. Simply transcribe the bass line with a transpose value of 12, and edit the notes so that they are on the lowest four strings. Type 0 midi files: Type 0 midi files usually have more than one musical part in one track. To avoid this, a sequencer could be used to separate each musical part ( they are usually on different midi channels ) and saved the resulting song as a type 1 midi file. Page 8 Future Releases For future releases, new features are currently examined: 1. Variable Tunings - have the user select the tuning of every string on the guitar 2. Chord Replacement - A chord database will be set up in order to replace any chord, for a different chord shape. This will simplify arranging songs for guitar transcriptions. The chord database could be maintained by the used who he/she could customized the chord dictionary. Please send your suggestions! Page 9 Registration You are given a trial period of 30 days to evaluated this software. After this trial period, if you continue using TT, you must register by contributing 30$ to the author. You will receive a registered version and serial number. For quantities of 10 copies and above the price is 20$ per/copy. Specify the disk format ( 5¼" or 3½" ), and make sure to include your return address, when ordering. Residents outside the U.S. or Canada add 5$ for shipping. Your suggestions are welcomed. Postal Address Michel Brazeau 16 Ste-Madeleine Rigaud, Quebec J0P 1P0 Canada Email: Internet ( until April 1994 ) m_braze@PAVO.Concordia.CA