My guitarist has asked me to create some tabs of what I’ve been playing in my original ideas.
Any recommendations on solid and simple programs or apps to create and share tabs with minimal headache? Preferably cheap/free and that allow me to maintain control of what I create.
Not free, but worth every penny/cent/centime: Guitar Pro 8. I’ve been using GP for a long time. v8 is excellent. The ability to add an audio file that syncs to the notation/tab is an awesomely useful feature. 69,95 €. So, probably $69.95. There’s a free trial version available.
And posted one hour ago, here’s a sneak peak of Guitar Pro 9!
You might consider Power Tab Editor, if you really want a free editor. It is completely free open source editor. I used it to start but moved onto Guitar Pro which is definitely better. However Power Tab is completely free if that’s what you’re after. There are quite a few Power Tab tabs out there on Ultimate Guitar etc. and if you later go to something like Guitar Pro the files (.ptb) can be loaded into Guitar Pro.
Guitar Pro would be my recommendation, but if you want free there’s Tux Guitar
MuseScore is free and pretty full featured.
Yeah it’s probably the user friendliest one and it’s buy once model.
Tux Guitar seems to be where we’ve landed for now. The least obnoxious of the free options I’ve found.
Guitarist and I are mostly just using it to share rough ideas on songs, rather than do full arrangements.
I’m curious. Does Guitar Pro have the ability to tab a bassline that I play into it?
I’ve started using MuseScore for a few weeks, and once you get the hang of it, it is really easy. I usually use a linked score with tab, so I get standard notation on the bass clef and tabs.
I do the same.
if you want something that doesn’t require installing anything, I built a free browser-based bass tab tool that does note-by-note tab entry with an animated fretboard and audio playback synced to the tab, similar to what people mentioned liking about Guitar Pro. It also exports to WAV/MIDI/video if you want to share a rough idea like the OP was asking about. Not as full-featured as Guitar Pro for full arrangements, but for quick tab ideas with no install it might be worth a look.
Also works for guitar:
