VERY useful guitar tabbing tips

limaj_daas

limaj_daas

Guitar Pro Maniac
Ok this is a lil' thread i made on tips on how to tab stuff... Just a bunch of things that can certainly be helpful.

Well... I dunno where to start off so well, random notes should do it;)

1. When attempting to tab a riff or a lick with vocals on top of it... try this: open the thing in media player. Open up the graphic equalizer, set it to a pre-set called opera. Now go to SRS WOW effects, Turn it on, put it on normal speakers, set the Tru Bass Feature to about 25% and WOW effect to about 75%. Now play the song... THE GUITARS SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN LOUDER. When tabbing a lead, you can try putting the wow effect to 25%.

2. Usually, when something is decently mixed and mastered, it's hard to tab out powerchords and stuff... What to do? Open it in media player with the same settings as earlier. Except in the equalizer, once it's set to Opera, put the 31K,62 and 125 bars ALMOST up to full. Then go to wow effects, use the settings stated above, except set TRU BASS TO 80%. What does all this do? well usually, unless the bassist is billy seehan, bass guitars tend to play the root note of a power chord when power chords are being played by base. Now just tab the root note... and then just add a m5 inteval and an octave to it and there u go. But note that base notes sound one octave lower.'

3. Another way to "cheat" in tabs is to open the song in something similar to Cool Edit/Adobe Audition. If it duzn't open and says summin lik set bitrate, open it somewhere else, i perfer Acoustica Mixcraft, and set it at a flat bitrate rather than a variable. So after u open it, press control+A and then go to TRANSFORM, AMPLITUDE, CHANNEL MIXER and VOCAL REMOVER and apply it. What this does is that it leaves u wid ONLY RHYTHM guitars, no lead and no vocals (sometimes u may be able to hear them but rhythms will still dominate).

4. Put ur tab out nice and clean!!! Then shove it in guitar pro or powertab. Set the timing, tempo, enter notes and then press play. It should sound like whatever it is tht u were tabbing. Btw to do Number 4, this needs a HELL LOTTA PRACTICE. Using guitar pro is a bit easier but u gotta buy it, or u can use trial. Power tab is free... it's just harder.

well i suppose that's enuff for now... if u don't get summin i said or if wanna comment of if u wanna call me an retard... this is the place:) Oh and rep me if u think i deserve em.
 
Ok I'm working on an update to all this and i'll post it in a few days. Look out for it!

Voila, It's done:


Hello again,

Well my last post was done forever ago and I've learnt a ton of stuff about tabbing and well, its definetly time for an update.

1) Know the scale: When you start tabbing, figure out a few notes first. From those notes, play around and see if you can fit a major or minor chord on that. If you have say, the 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th frets on the E-string in the song, you have the following notes: G#, A, B, C#. Try a minor and major of each of those, one of them has definetly got to fit. Once you figure out one of the chords, you'll have a set of 7 notes (or almost seven) notes. These seven note consist of a scale. The song your tabbing is almost entirely going to consist of notes and chords from that scale. So in summation, if you've figured out the scale, you've figured out the song.

2) Know common techniques (chords): A lot of songs that are largely based around chords have certain elements that bind them together. Many times, an artist may be holding say half a chord and then hammer on the rest (imagine Amin being played lik this: x02200 and then u hammer on the 1 on the b-string). A LOT of songs use this, regardless of the genre (i can think of fade to black and save tonight). Another common technique is to have chord alterations. A normal CMaj chord is played lik this x32010. However, an arist wishing to add color may play it like this x32013 or 332010. There are tons of these chords and knowing about them helps in both tabbing and just general compositional improvements.

3) Know common techniques (solos): Solos may sound hard but for the most part, they aren't. They can be figured out in a matter of minutes if you know what to do. First thing, all solos are on top of some sort of chord progression. Figure the progression out BEFORE you go onto the solo because the soloist is usually messing around with the notes of the chord he's playing over. Secondly, know common runs. A run is a set of phrases in a solo repeated in different positions. Here's an example of a linear run (a run that's looks lik a line going down the fretboard):

e -10-8-7--------12-10-8---------14-12-10----------15-14-12----------17-15-14----------
B --------10-8-7---------12-10-8----------13-12-10----------15-13-12----------17-15-13-
G -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That would be an acending (going higher as you play on) linear run in Emin. You get tonnnns of these in solos. Another thing that's common, though more so in metal, is the box run where you have a "box" of a scale that you go up or down in. Here's an example of a box run in Cmaj:

e ------------------------------------------10-12-13-
B ---------------------------------10-12-13----------
G -------------------------9-10-12-------------------
D -----------------9-10-12---------------------------
A ---------8-10-12-----------------------------------
E -8-10-12-------------------------------------------

Then there are solos that are based around pentatonics entirely. These ones are the easiest to tab, and most fun to play too. Pentatonic licks are usually played in boxes such as the following (it's a Emin pentatonic box):

e -------------------------------12-15-
B -------------------------12-15-------
G -------------------12-14-------------
D -------------12-14-------------------
A -------12-14-------------------------
E -12-15-------------------------------

The rest of the licks are variations of that. Most common variations include, but aren't limited to:

e -------------------------------
B -------12h15p12-------12h15p12-
G -14b16----------14b16----------
D -------------------------------
A -------------------------------
E -------------------------------

e ----------12----------------------------
B -------12----15p12----12----------------
G -14b16-------------14----14-12-14p12----
D -------------------------------------14-
A ----------------------------------------
E ----------------------------------------

e -------12-------------12-------
B -15b17----15p12-15b17----15p12-
G -------------------------------
D -------------------------------
A -------------------------------
E -------------------------------

There are tons more but for that, I'd rather you check out Slash or Kirk's solos rather than bug me, haha.

4) Know common strumming patterns: Ok, last but not least, know common strumming patterns. This is pretty much self explanatory. I'm sure most of you have played songs where you strum. The way those songs are strummed, is not entirely different from the way most songs are strummed. It's the same thing just different variations. A common theme that runs thru them is an accentuated (emphpasized) downward strum on every beat.

Ok that is all for now. I'm too bored to add more and probably will take too long. And plus, I wanna add to this again so i'll do that later. Anyways, if you have any questions, just post 'em and I'll try to get back.

Thanks for viewing :).

 
Thnx, dat ws rly helpful....
I've got sum query abt tabbing solos...
Wt i do is i try to tab sum part of it, den using the notes i find a certain scale... I dont usually name the scale (i've not learnt the theory well), just pik out the seven notes n find where are the intervals used, den applying it on the whole fretboard i find out the notes dat i can exclude, den go on tabbing it out... Works out most of the times when the solo isnt too fast... Wt shud i do to improve? shud i get a strong hold of theory rather den just using my ears?
 
debslab said:
Thanx a lot, thats a hell of info
Click to expand...

No prob

sam#3 said:
Thnx, dat ws rly helpful....
I've got sum query abt tabbing solos...
Wt i do is i try to tab sum part of it, den using the notes i find a certain scale... I dont usually name the scale (i've not learnt the theory well), just pik out the seven notes n find where are the intervals used, den applying it on the whole fretboard i find out the notes dat i can exclude, den go on tabbing it out... Works out most of the times when the solo isnt too fast... Wt shud i do to improve? shud i get a strong hold of theory rather den just using my ears?
Click to expand...

Oh, well learn some typical runs from solos out there cuz there are only so many things ppl do on guitar. As for theory, well an easy way is this software Guitar Pro. You just punch in the notes and it gets the scale for you, very handy tool. That's how I learned it. Good luck!
 
Thnx btother... I've been using guitar pro fr a while, but mostly fr getting the tabs fr various songs... can u give some tips on hw to create gp tabs fr the songs i've tabbed myself... I saw a guitar pro tab done by u fr 'wajood', dat ws a grt job... M luking fwd to learn frm u...
 
Hey, sorry for the insanely late reply. Was busy for a while. Well I'd love to help out with one or two things in guitar pro but the thing is, guitar pro would need a huge explanation for some major problems. Like a tutorial filled with tabs, midis and jpgs. Easily half a day's continuous work. Unless a lot of people want that, I'm not wasting my time writing it.

However, if you need anything in particular, don't be hesitant to ask, I'll be more than happy to help.
 
what should i start with?

hi...
i can play a bit of guitar...but all i'v been playing till now is what my guitar teacher taught me or from the tabs on the net... i read the theory on the thread, but still the picture ain really clear... tried a few songs n things have been really confusing...
can somebody tell me how should i start with tabbing if i'm doing it the first time... mayb a few songs that i can start with....
thank you...
 
Hello guys.....soon i'm gonna put some guitar pro tabs of hindi or other Indian songs cuz' i havnt seen any gp tabs of Indian songs.....It'll be better if there is a separate section for guitar pro files....so moderators please look out this matter...heres d sample of gp tab....the song is Kuch Is Tarah by Atif......i'll post d whole song if i see good responses....

https://rapidshare.com/files/241245013/Kuch_Is_Tarah.gp5
 
Damn ok, I had no idea people still might look my stuff up so im sorry again for the late reply. Hmm ok let me see bout this:

seventhstring said:
hi...
i can play a bit of guitar...but all i'v been playing till now is what my guitar teacher taught me or from the tabs on the net... i read the theory on the thread, but still the picture ain really clear... tried a few songs n things have been really confusing...
can somebody tell me how should i start with tabbing if i'm doing it the first time... mayb a few songs that i can start with....
thank you...
Click to expand...

Start with a simple song, preferably no chords, with a simple riff or melody, it can be on any instrument, just not too fast or complex, nice simple. And not the whole song, you know, just bits and pieces. eventually you'll get better and better. You'll make mistakes but you're bound to do things right too. Its the way things are. The good thing is, you can always try and then use the net to double check if you're right (but be careful, they're probably a bunch of really bad tabs on the net too so make sure you're double checking with a right one). Anyways, PM me next time, it gets to me faster since it gives my email a msg too.

alexis_alicia said:
Hello guys.....soon i'm gonna put some guitar pro tabs of hindi or other Indian songs cuz' i havnt seen any gp tabs of Indian songs.....It'll be better if there is a separate section for guitar pro files....so moderators please look out this matter...heres d sample of gp tab....the song is Kuch Is Tarah by Atif......i'll post d whole song if i see good responses....
https://rapidshare.com/files/241245013/Kuch_Is_Tarah.gp5
Click to expand...

Wow i bumped into the same gp of urs twice in the same minute so i'll just check it out neways. It's a nice start actually. Insanely better than mine. Use the let ring feature on acoustic guitars, it makes it sound way better and smoother (shortcut would be select the notes, and then the "i" key on the keyboard). The bass is down nicely as well as the flute. the drums got shaky at times but were right most of the times so no biggie. It's good dude! Keep making them. I mean i've never heard the original but hell, the guitar pro sounded really beautiful.
 
Wonderful to see the enthu here to learn more. Here's some news to use. Check this
intensive performance workshop for: Guitarists, bass players and drummers
Faculty: Prasanna & David Gilmore (Wane Shorter, Joss Stone) for guitar, Mike Pope (Chick Corea, Al Di Meola) for bass and Rodney Holmes (Santana, Wayne Shorter) for drums
From: Aug 17-22 at Marg Tapovan near Chennai
Register at: https://www.sam. org.in/workshop_ registration. html

Regards,
Shiv
 
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