Proposed Feature: Import and Export Guitar Tabs as ASCII Text
Hi,
I am considering a few different projects to potentially pursue as part of Google Summer of Code. I would love your feedback and suggestions regarding these proposed features!
Most guitar and bass sheet music available online is distributed in tablature format using a simple, text-based notation. As far as I know, MuseScore does not currently have any facility for working with tabs contained in plain .txt files. I am interested in adding functionality that would allow MuseScore to download tabs from popular tab websites such as ultimate-guitar.com or import tabs saved in .txt files. The imported or downloaded text would then be parsed and converted into MuseScore's native notational format to be displayed in MuseScore's standard staff and tab notation. The program would also generate guitar chord diagrams from the imported tab.
Please let me know your thoughts!
Thanks,
Daniel
Comments
I'd love to see this. I've been searching for an elegant software solution to convert guitar tabs into piano sheet music.
In reply to I'd love to see this. I've by RobFog
To be clear, you can already do this in MuseScore; you just have to enter the tab manually or import it via GuitarPro (or maybe MusicXML, not sure if that works). The proposal here was just to have a new way of entering tab, using a text file, but MuseScore already supports tab and can convert to standard notation.
In reply to To be clear, you can already by Marc Sabatella
Right, the conversion itself isn't where I'm stuck but getting a tab from a tab website like ultimate-guitar.com into MuseScore.
In reply to Right, the conversion itself by RobFog
If the tab is in Guitar Pro format on ultimate-guitar.com, it's easy enough to download it (at the bottom of the page) and open it in MuseScore. Of course, if the tab is in ASCII, that won't work.
Anyone know a *free and open source* tool that can import ASCII and export GP or MusicXML? (TuxGuitar can't apparently)
In reply to If the tab is in Guitar Pro by [DELETED] 5
I found another request similar to this one: https://musescore.org/en/node/79391
It mentions Tabazar , a free but not open source software which supports ASCII import. It appears to be Windows-only.
I found TablEdit which is cross-platform but neither free nor open source.
According to Wikipedia's Comparison of scorewriters there is another software which supports ASCII import (apart from Guitar Pro): MusiCAD . Again, it is advertised as "not fit for Apple of Linux computers without major tweaking".