Page 1 of 2
Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:10 pm
by VirtualMark
I'm not going to lie, i know next to nothing about guitars. I'm trying to work out how to read the guitar tabs so i can program it in midi on a piano roll. Are there any good guides you can recommend? Or maybe help me out and explain the basic differences between guitar stuff and keyboard stuff. The only music i've studied is for piano/keyboard, so if you know a basic guide then that'd be helpful.
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:10 pm
by FeedTheFaithless
http://guitar.about.com/od/tabchordslyr ... ar_tab.htm
If you need something explained, I play guitar...
Greets,
FTF
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:18 pm
by Today
yup
'73 strat
2001 USA tele
P-bass fretless
Carvin 5 string (fretted)
Fender HotRod DeVille 4x10 combo
Acoustic BA200 combo (bass amp)
(edit)
i did not read the thread.. just its title. heheh.. sorry...
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:22 pm
by FeedTheFaithless
Today wrote:'73 strat
Nice!
Any chance of a picture?
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:35 pm
by Theo Void
Ya I've been playing since I was a young cricket.
Right now I'm rockin' a Schecter C1+, a little 15w Vox modeling amp and a Seagull acoustic.
I try to incorporate guitar into my electronic music but as it is now, guitar music and electronic music are two different projects.
Fun times!!!
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:49 pm
by 4rantare
Yupp yup! I've been playing guitar for some years now. :-] it is one of my main interests.
Here are some videos of me playing:
My own song 1 (Live):
http://youtu.be/iT_qNWdm6hw
My own song 2 (Live):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW5e3O11s9w
Canon Rock (Live):
http://youtu.be/KKy2oZdd8ak
And some improvising:
http://youtu.be/0e4pMMjLQbA
You can add me on skype if you want to ask anything. And if you are good at producing I'd love to ask you:D .. trying to learn my way around Cubase, mixing... etc.
Don't have much gear.. only have a Fender that I run through an M-Audio to my computer speakers lol
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:53 pm
by FeedTheFaithless
Guitar show-off time

Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:55 pm
by 4rantare
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:49 am
by D3ATHSTEP
Been playing for around eight years now

. Proud owner of a Jackson SLS-3. Tabs are super easy to understand, if that's what you're asking. I would recommend checking out
www.ultimate-guitar.com. They have a massive tab library.
Basically; guitar tabs will have six lines stacked on top of one another. The bottom line is the string closest to you when you're holding the guitar, and top is the furthest away from you. The letters on the left of said lines are what those strings are tuned to. So, for a standard tuning, both the bottom and top strings would have an "E" in front of them.
Now, the numbers you see to the right are the frets being played. If there is a zero, that means you play the string open. Obviously numbers stacked on top of each other indicate a chord. There are some more "advanced" techniques used when tabbing, such as a tilde(spelling? the Spanish thing) used to represent vibrato(shaking the string), blackslashes for slides, and "x"s to represent muting the string with your palm while playing.
Not sure if that's the information you were looking for, but I hope it helped.
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:06 am
by __________
Been playing since I was 4. Not picked it up for a while but I reckon I've still got the magic
To read guitar tab, just bear in mind the standard tuning of a guitar:
E (highest, thinnest string)
B
G
D
A
E (lowest, thickest string)
When you see a number on a tab, it relates to the fret at which you should play it. Frets go up in semitones, so:
E --------------
B --------------
G --------------
D --------------
A --------------12
E -------1-------
That'd mean play a low F
Then an A
C chord would be:
E -------0
B -------1
G -------0
D -------2
A -------3
E -------
If it doesn't have a number, obviously, don't play (or program the note from) the string
If it's 0, strum it open, like the high E in the C chord
Stairway to Heaven intro, I think (haven't played guitar for a while, or this tune for years) is:
E -----------5---7-------------7----8---------8---2----------
B --------5-------------5--------------5-------------3------
G -----5-------------------5--------------5-------------2---
D --7------------6------------------5-------------4-----------
A ----------------------------------------------------------
E -----------------------------------------------------------
The timing is key. I've only ever learnt tabs from a tune which I couldn't figure out by ear. If you don't know the tune very well it's gonna be a bitch to program.
I bet you any money there's a guitar tab to midi file converter type program out there though, now I think of it.
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:18 am
by forsak3n
Get Guitar Pro. it helped me heaps when i was a beginner. It plays tabs through midi and you can switch to standard notation too. & like someone said above, ultimate-guitar.com has loads of tabs there.
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:55 pm
by Killamike49
£10 Bag wrote:Been playing since I was 4. Not picked it up for a while but I reckon I've still got the magic
To read guitar tab, just bear in mind the standard tuning of a guitar:
E (highest, thinnest string)
B
G
D
A
E (lowest, thickest string)
When you see a number on a tab, it relates to the fret at which you should play it. Frets go up in semitones, so:
E --------------
B --------------
G --------------
D --------------
A --------------12
E -------1-------
That'd mean play a low F
Then an A
C chord would be:
E -------0
B -------1
G -------0
D -------2
A -------3
E -------
If it doesn't have a number, obviously, don't play (or program the note from) the string
If it's 0, strum it open, like the high E in the C chord
Stairway to Heaven intro, I think (haven't played guitar for a while, or this tune for years) is:
E --5--------5---7-------------7----8---------8---2----------
B --------5-------------5--------------5-------------3------
G -----5-------------------5--------------5-------------2---
D --7------------6------------------5-------------4-----------
A ----------------------------------------------------------
E -----------------------------------------------------------
The timing is key. I've only ever learnt tabs from a tune which I couldn't figure out by ear. If you don't know the tune very well it's gonna be a bitch to program.
I bet you any money there's a guitar tab to midi file converter type program out there though, now I think of it.
Hate to be a dick, but fixed.
And to your second point there is, it's a program called tabit!. I posted it on the boards a while ago, but it seemed noone cared.

Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:26 am
by Sonika
Today wrote:
'73 strat
A legit one?
I hate you
@OP - I've been playing for around 5 years now
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:12 pm
by Today
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:27 pm
by 4rantare
Today: beautiful guitar =)
I have a 69' anniversary american Fender (I f*cking love it):

Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:40 pm
by cosmic_surgeon
Just got rid of my Fender Lite Ash Tele - played from 14-21 but lost all interest in it over the last few years.
£10bag's explanation is right, though you should pay attention that the tab's not in any non-standard tuning before translating it into MIDI notation.
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:19 am
by Duffman
forsak3n wrote:Get Guitar Pro. it helped me heaps when i was a beginner. It plays tabs through midi and you can switch to standard notation too. & like someone said above, ultimate-guitar.com has loads of tabs there.
Or Tux Guitar, basically the same but free, good for poor bastards like me
Oh and I'm a Les Paul man myself, got a Gibson lp studio, it's beautiful

Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 1:56 pm
by Augment
Sonika wrote:Today wrote:
'73 strat
A legit one?
I hate you
@OP - I've been playing for around 5 years now
This post is exactly what I was going to type

Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 2:54 pm
by vertex
I picked up an acoustic guitar recently and the whole tabs thing had me confused until now, cheers.
Now I guess the next thing to do is learn a few chords?
Re: Any guitar players on the board?
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 3:05 pm
by Killamike49
vertex wrote:I picked up an acoustic guitar recently and the whole tabs thing had me confused until now, cheers.
Now I guess the next thing to do is learn a few chords?
Sure. Learn some chords, some catchy songs you like. It's all fun from this point.
