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    • #18089
      Igglepud
      Participant

      Why don’t tabs, in addition to strings and frets, include notes? Imagine a standard bass tab: four lines, with a number on one of those lines and an EIGHTH NOTE BEHIND IT?

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18090
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      This is why I like the tabs that Doug uses, he has the regular tab with the 6 lines and numbers, but then he also has the time duration markers, even though they’re not notes on a staff. Other instructors include the notes on the staff above the normal tab, I’ll just look at the time duration for the particular not and then look at the tab for what to play. Win win. 🙂

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #18091
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Oh, not to mention, unless the staff is highly detailed like telling you which position to play in, tab can often times be more helpful because it’ll tell you which fret in string to play the particular note on. Unless the staff is highly detailed, it’s sometimes hard to tell where to play the certain notes because on the guitar, you can play the same exact note in 3 or 4 locations.

      Bring hair metal back!

      • #18093
        Igglepud
        Participant

        That’s why I want both. Give me an eighth note on the third string with a five superimposed on top of it.

        MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18095
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Why don’t tabs, in addition to strings and frets, include notes? Imagine a standard bass tab: four lines, with a number on one of those lines and an EIGHTH NOTE BEHIND IT?

      Because the timing information is an approximation, and playing is supposed to be done by feel anyway?

      For pitch information I agree, but adding the staff notation is not great because staff is a poor system in terms of information density. The tab could easily write “C4”, “D3”, “E2”, .. etc below each note for pitch information. I have done that in some of my tabs, like when I am trying to write something.

      Edit. Talking about the poor method of staff for writing pitch, check out “abc notation”, I dug into it a few months ago, it is a very dense and ascii friendly way to write melodies. Ultimately tho, that base-12 notation stuff is probably the best way to go since two digits would represent every pitch exactly, reading the notes “60 65 55 51 70 6Z” might seem strange at first but it’s like anything else, it would become easier with enough use and all octaves would be recognizable etc, but I guess this idea is way way ahead of it’s time.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      • #18100
        Igglepud
        Participant

        “The tab could easily write “C4”, “D3”, “E2”, .. etc below each note for pitch information. ”

        There is no need for pitch information if you press the right fret on the right string. I just want note duration. This would make tabs a lot better.

        MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

      • #18101
        superblonde
        Keymaster

        For bass, pitch to me is kind of curious, because there’s so many ways to play bass lines apparently, open strings or fretted or alternate tuning. Maybe if I were better at bass, these would make more sense. And fingering style which isn’t in the tab, too. I only know enough bass to write simple bass lines to my chords :-/

        Gp6 does note duration in tab already, yes? with proportional spacing too.
        It even does dots.

        tab-dots

        But I guess that is gp6 specific, others dont do that.

        Some ascii tabs put note duration.. above the fret numbers like E for eighth note, Q for quarter note.. not super readable tho because the spacing isnt always proportional or trustworthy. These ascii tabs are more rare because I guess it takes more work to write them.

        Hmm Gp6 does export ascii tabs but I havent tried those before, so I just did and it doesn’t put timing in there like E, Q, etc. It does look proportional tho.. hard to read the proportion.. but it’s there..

        
        -8h-------5----------------- 
        ----------------8h----5----- 
        o--------------------------- 
        o--------------------------- 
        ---------------------------- 
        ---------------------------- 
        

        I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
        And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

        Attachments:
        1. tab-dots.png

    • #18103
      Igglepud
      Participant

      That’s still not the same. I want actual notes with a number on them, not just a stick.

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18104
      Doug Marks
      Keymaster

      Igglepud have you every used our lesson tab?  The information you’re seeking is included with our tab.  There are a half dozen symbols you need to learn but that shouldn’t take more than ten minutes of study.  Guitar Pro users can also display notation along with the tab, notation only, tab only…

      Metal Method Guitar Instructor

    • #18105
      Igglepud
      Participant

      Yes, I use them, but I want them all on the same line.

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18106
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Haha, I think it’d get too convoluted if it were on the same line. I’ll play things in time a lot when doing the lessons, doing something in time if you’ve never done it before, and there’s too much going on in the tab, it’d be hard to read correctly haha. Having the time sticks above is super easy. :p

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #18109
      Igglepud
      Participant

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

      • #18112
        superblonde
        Keymaster

        I think that example is worse than GP6 because the spacing is not proportional (i.e. half note should be more space than quarter note). And where’s the measure line? See, tab is an improvement on staff, it include all info of staff plus fret number, if done correctly (like GP6 does).

        Technically speaking those stems are upside-down, at least for bass voice (not sure about bass instruments but I guess it would be similar). The standard for bass voice is to have the stems going down, not up. On this topic, GP6 has a button for this, “invert stems”, to fix it’s automatic stem choices in the staff, so, if Gp6 picks incorrectly, then gotta go thru the staff notes and flip the stems so they point down, for the bass voices. For the normal or tenor voice the stems go up. Seems trivial but makes it much easier to read multi-instrument notation and visually separate the high instruments from the low instruments, based on stem direction. Of course in GP6 tab itself, GP6 always makes the tab stems go down.

        Did you know GP6 can change a lot of appearance in tab? Not like what you want but you might get close. For example it has this option to circle half notes and whole notes in tab, like this- whole note-

        tab-circle-whole-note

        You can also change the fonts used in the tab, so, I was able to get the number to disappear.. which is the opposite of what you want but maybe you could play around and get it to use black background and white font for the tab numbering.

        Personally I’m able to read the tab stems for timing pretty well, like if I see one of Doug’s licks, I can play it by sight (slowly but correct rhythm) without listening to it or animating it first, and mostly I get the feel to be pretty close to the audio recording. I think this really only took about 1-2 months to develop because I think it happened when I was doing Stage 3.

        I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
        And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

        Attachments:
        1. tab-circle-whole-note.png

    • #18111
      pipelineaudio
      Participant
    • #18117
      Igglepud
      Participant

      I made this in 5 minutes at work on a chromebook. My point is: you can put everything on one friggin line and it’s easier to read. There is no reason to have two.

      MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18118
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I think we agree, which is why I almost always turn off staff notation in GP6. I look at only the tab. The only thing missing is the vertical nature of the pitch scale (but you said you didnt care about that and just want the note icon). The tab has all the timing info, it has the proper stems, all the fretting info, and also the guitar specific effects – slides, harmonics etc. So, the old staff is redundant. I kind of don’t get your point of why the notes, filled circle with stems, are needed when the tab already has that the tab’s stem. In GP6 you can turn off the vertical lines of the stems if you want, makes tab look a bit less busy, but it will always show the proper tails for the timing info below the fretting.

      I guess, are you talking about tab in general, or GP6 tab? GP6 tab is great and does it right. Most other tab is not very good. ASCII tab is missing a lot. Online tab players like on the guitar web sites, also dont really do it well either. If you write tab by hand, then, add the proper tails, otherwise it’s not proper. Tab isn’t supposed to be just numbers written on horizontal lines. Regardless of what local guitar instructors have written for me, I know it is not correct to write tab that way, especially for students to study. They should write tab like GP6 does, with stems and tails.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #18119
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      The only difference here is, yours has a circle for the note, with white font on top.

      the-impossible-bass-line

      GP6 has just the fret number, then the tail, which is the same tail as the note would be. Even dots, 32nd’s, etc no problem.

      Edit. Comparison if extended stems are turned off.

      the-impossible-bass-line-no-extended-stems

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

      Attachments:
      1. the-impossible-bass-line.png

      2. the-impossible-bass-line-no-extended-stems.png

    • #18127
      Doug Marks
      Keymaster

      Igglepud. that’s not a bad idea.  Until you did the graphic I didn’t quite understand what you were referring to.  I still think that GP is very close to that as Superblonde pointed out.

      Metal Method Guitar Instructor

      • #18128
        Igglepud
        Participant

        It’s the best I’ve seen, but a lot of the files I open don’t look like that. They have the staff on top and the tab on the bottom. I can read the staff, but I don’t see a need for it. It makes sense when I’m playing my sax as each note has a specific button combination associated with that note, but guitar doesn’t work that way.

        MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

    • #18131
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      Click the little button in GP6 to get rid of the staff in the view window, and see only tab. Problem solved 😀 If it’s not in GP6, then put it in GP6, and remainder of problem solved 😀

      Also what is interesting about GP6. Whatever way it looks onscreen, is the way it will export to PDF (or print, or export to graphic image). So it is possible to make a variety of PDF’s with different styles, like, with the staff, or without, or with multiple tracks showing, or only one showing, etc.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

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