Can anyone suggest a notation tool on the Windows platform that help meet my needs?
I'm taking a break from writing songs and want to focus on improving my bass playing skills and see that studying and learning the material of bands and songs I enjoy is a good and fun way to accomplish this.
At a very minimum I need software that can produce tab (which I'm getting better and better at) underneath sheet music. See screenshot of a song by Ace below. I don't have any interest or skill in writing scores for orchestras and the like; this is about bass guitar and maybe keyboard at some point.
I'm getting tired of copying and pasting bass tabs from UltimateGuitar and want a better approach. I'm hoping there are tools out there that have a large library of quality ready-made bass tab/sheet music for popular songs across rock, folk, R&B etc.
A nice-to-have would be the ability to loop and scroll the tab across the screen as a learning aid. Another nice-to-have is access to the actual music (MP3 or WAV). So far, I have avoided MIDI (too much on my plate right now).
Ease of use is important and compatibility with Studio One a plus. Another plus is the ability to take a song that is 9 pages long (and thus won't fit nicely on my music stand) and to extract the intro, verse, chorus, etc so that it will fit in 2 or 3 pages. And AI-driven is not necessarily important at this time.
Everything else equal, I'd prefer to avoid an expensive subscription service; a popular (large user base) software tool installed on my hardrive is preferred if possible.
Most likely there are other features that would be useful that I'm unaware of at this time and ones I could grow into.
Here are a few possibilities that I've found, but it's quite dizzying for a novice like me to sort thru. GuitarPro AudioScore Ultimate Notion Progression Sibelius Finale MuseScore
Any suggestions from those with this kind of experience would be much appreciated.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Dan’s recommendation makes sense to me. Given the importance of tab for you, it would be good to use a product developed for guitar and bass. I’ve used many of those programs (including being a beta tester with some others not on your list and now as a tester with Notion) but do not work with tab.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
I knew I came to the right place for sound advice. Three guys with plenty street credentials; Dan, Matt and Rick. Thanks guys.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.
Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2025, Cubase 14, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use
Not sure what you mean by "song music window is small". The GUI can be full screen.
Here are three points.
1) Guitar-Pro has been around for decades. Goes back to my early days with BIAB. They have grown and expanded over the years. Which is one reason there is a huge library of song files. And I mean huge! You may have to google "GP songs". In the old days these were all avialable for download. However, times have changed. I don't know how this is being managed today.
2) Currently Version 8 is available. This added Audio tracks for the first time. See attached video which illustrates the "GUI" along with how to operate with the audio track.
3) And in case you think this software is not a fully mature notation tool, this should change you mind
And finally, Yes, that is David who has been my guitar teacher for the past 10 years.
You must be talking about mySongBook, which is something else. Guitar Pro is a music notation/ guitar tab app. You write music in it. You can also find tabs all over the place in Guitar Pro format.
mySongBook is a subscription that gives you access to "official" tabs in Guitar Pro format.
Byron Dickens
BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.
Guitar Pro is simply the best notation software for stringed musical instruments out there. The sheet music is pro quality and ready to be published. It's also pretty intuitive. I've been using it for years.
I know the earlier versions played well with BIAB. I haven't upgraded since ver. 5 but I do plan on getting current at some point.
Thanks a lot Dan and Byron, that has cleared up things for me. Thanks for video links Dan, will have a look at those.
So basically Guitar Pro is a notation programme with an inbuilt option to subscribe to my song book which does cost extra, though many files on internet that can be opened in Guitar Pro.
Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2025, Cubase 14, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use
1) ... there is a huge library of song files. And I mean huge! You may have to google "GP songs". In the old days these were all avialable for download. However, times have changed. I don't know how this is being managed today.
I have Guitar Pro V6 from 2010.
So I downloaded the current V8. Sure enough they give you a peak at their library of songs which you apparenly have to sign-up in order to fully access them. In V8 looks like you only get a taste of the first page of each song. In order to fully play and fully edit you need to signup for MySongBook (Currently $15 for the year). Literally, 1000's of songs with full transcriptions. Back in 2010 this was all free! Or maybe I just thought they were free since you could download from multiple sites. I learned how to play Europa by Santana from this app!
Current pricing for mySongBook is 5€/20€/30€ for one month/six months/one year as a subscription, giving you access to all scores available. No automatic renewal. Also, no printing. I prefer to use their Credits system. One score costs one credit, which gives me forever access to that score, and the ability to print it. Credit pricing is 2€/8€/20€ for 1/5/20 scores. I buy 20 credits at a time. When I find a score I like in the mySongBook window, double-clicking on it gives me the option to "buy" it with 1 credit.
Through the fog of many years, I think it was v2 of Guitar Pro that I started with. The current version, v8, is flat out awesome. You used to have to buy the high-quality playback instruments separate from the Guitar Pro license, but they're included now.
I suspect the $ prices are the same as € prices. Someone please correct me if that is incorrect. Merci d'avance.
Last edited by TheMaartian; 08/08/2302:54 AM.
ThinkPad i9 32GB RAM 7TB SSD; Win11 Pro; RME Fireface UCX II; BiaB 2026 Ultra Bitwig Studio 6; Studio One Pro 7; Melodyne Studio 5; Acoustica Premium 7 Gig Performer 5; NI S61 MK3; Focal Shape 65; Beyerdynamic DT 880 & 770
I bit the bullet and bought this and was first overwhelmed by the size of this program. But Dan helped orient me and I learned something crucial that the tutorial videos would probably never go into.
There is a whole eco-system of Guitar Pro musicians that produce notated music that is GP compatible, much of which is free. One site is gtptabs.com
This program aligns very nicely with my workflow and learning goals and is not too dissimilar to my only other data point in this realm, which is the UltimateGuitar website.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Beware of tabs you find on the Internet. They range in quality from dead-on note-for-note accurate to pretty close to "what the hell was this guy even listening to when he transcribed this."
Of course, the same thing goes for the books too.
Byron Dickens
BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.
Question about the paid printing. Do they allow you to download the score? If so, can’t you download it as a PDF?
I'm only a day old with this software but what I've seen so far is that these Guitar Pro compatible files are not in native PDF format. They are in a format that allows the GP program itself to fully understand them with all manner of richness such as traditional musical symbols, not just tab. The program can also do other things beyond allowing you to edit it such as displaying which instrument you want displayed in the notation. I see already that I'll be growing into this program for years to come.
Once the file is in GP you can then export it in GPX, GP5, MIDI, ASCII, MusicXML, PDF, SVG, PNG and Audio formats.
Here is one of many songs I plan to learn that I downloaded (free) from gtptabs.com and then exported in PDF. I have full edit control within GP of this score. Of course, I can't vouch for the quality of the transcription yet, but this I do know. I could never transcribe this myself.
If you compare this to the image in my original post you see that this is exactly what I was looking/hoping for.
Now at the risk of "asking for the moon", what I think their next step should be is to allow you to drag an audio file into the program, perhaps include the chord progression for it, press a button and bam! A quality score is produced in sheet and/or tab format
Last edited by Bass Thumper; 08/08/2308:11 AM.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Now at the risk of "asking for the moon", what I think their next step should be is to allow you to drag an audio file into the program, perhaps include the chord progression for it, press a button and bam! A quality score is produced in sheet and/or tab format
Several programs are closing in on this but none that I know of are there yet. Melodyne and Transcribe have some needed elements, as does the Chord AI app.
——-
If Guitar Pro can read the format of those songs and then export them as PDF, why would anyone pay to print a file from the Internet? I must be missing something.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
If Guitar Pro can read the format of those songs and then export them as PDF, why would anyone pay to print a file from the Internet? I must be missing something.
I think one reason is that native GP files can contain audio that is synced to the score. But from what I've seen so far, this audio is not high quality (in some cases think $99 Casio keyboard) and may not contain vocals. In the past and moving to the future I use a high quality audio track either from the artists album or a YouTube cover of the song I like. And I believe these "3rd party" audio files can also be synced with the score. [A great example of a cover I like better than the original is Sail On Sailor by the Beach Boys but covered by Foxes and Fossils.]
Another reason may be the quality of the "GP sanctioned scores" could be higher quality than what you can get for free.
A 3rd reason may be that a free version of the score you realy want is simply not available but a non-free score is.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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I learned how to play Europa by Santana from this app!
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