I link to a Patreon in my videos that lets you pay a membership to download the full tabs in PDFs.
Here I was thinking AI might soon replace my painstakingly slow tab transcription efforts altogether. But I never thought about someone just ripping it from the video...
Let me know if it works ;-)
Kudos from one of the Soundslice guys — we've been making web-based tab and sheet music stuff since 2012. :)
That said, it's the fastest way to get a track into some player, define loop points easily, and then write down what I need to along with the player. I can jot down chords, lyrics, tabs of riffs, etc. I've tried tons of solutions over the years like sooperlooper, ableton live, reaper, winamp, youtube. this is by far the easiest, with just the right set of tools. It also doesn't do any of it automatically, so there's not even a temptation to skip practicing my ear.
So as you play the audio (with slowdown, looping, etc.), you can immediately write down what you figured out, and that written notation stays synced with the original recording. This workflow for transcription is fantastic, because otherwise you're juggling multiple apps (audio playback/slowdown, plus notation software).
Since you asked about MuseScore: MuseScore is purely scoring software, without the ability to sync with real audio. You can also use Soundslice as a pure sheet music editor; the main difference is it's web-based as opposed to being a desktop app like MuseScore. Soundslice also has the philosophy that the music might always be displayed on different devices, so it's engraved on the fly depending on your screen dimensions. (MuseScore sort of assumes the end result will be a fixed-dimension such as paper.)
Heck I'm going to say it: tabs actually aren't the medium you want anyway. After getting up and running on guitar, players know what all the chords look like so only need the names with perhaps the fret position as a guide to the voicing.
That sounds like it can get quite costly. Probably there are ways to do it without AI, I would rather manually annotate the tab area with a visual editor.
Disclaimer: my daily workflows include millions of Claude and Gemini tokens spent on dev and video vision intelligence.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=07N4VVSmYLU&list=RD07N4VVSmYLU...
…exactly the way you described. Pause, screenshot, adjust color/contrast, assemble in a pdf. Super annoying.
Why the heck did this largely go away?
Your's looks nicer :-)
Here's the output of mine for a C chord.
C: C E G
<3>|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-----|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|
|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-----|
<5>|-----|-----|-----|-----|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|
|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-----|-<1>-|-----|-----|
|-----|-----|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|
<3>|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-----|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|
C: C E G
3 |---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|
|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|-1-|---|---|
5 |---|---|---|---|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|
|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|
|---|---|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|-1-|
3 |---|---|-5-|---|---|---|---|-1-|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|-5-|
I was pretty shaky on chord theory back then so not sure I'd trust it for fancy chords. I have no idea why the heck I made the D tuning flag tune both the 1st and 6th strings down to D. I'm 100% certain every piece of sheet music I had that called for for D tuning only wanted the 6th string tuned down.
This is interesting and all but seems to use computer vision rather than audio processing?
> the existing tab from the page would be more efficient and precise
But what about songs that aren't made into a YT video?
You need to both work out the chords and also decide on fingerings a human could perform. Seems possible, but more then just audio processing
It has happened quite a few times where I compare tabs in youtube videos with printed scores, and the youtube version turned out to be unique arrangements. It's the same with PDFs on certain sites, especially those that accept user contributed content.
I would rather pay money to get printed scores than to find out later that I have been practicing the wrong thing.
ai can't shred
ai will never get chicks
i will use YouTube Guitar Tab Parser to shred and get chicks
I don't think your software is (or should be) illegal. But it's a form of theft, and incredibly unethical. These people worked very hard on these tabs and don't make much money. You (and kiaansaraiya and neogenix) should be ashamed of yourselves. You don't deserve your guitar if you steal tabs from working musicians.
In some cases, the composer makes the video, and is sharing their own work.
In other cases, the transcribed part is not a composed part, and the composer who is listed (Lennon/McCartney) did not write or perform it (e.g. Ringo's drums).
In yet other cases, the composer was long dead before the recording was made, and the melody being transcribed is meaningfully different than the one they composed. Common in jazz.
"Composer" is a 19th century idea, enshrined in copyright law in the 1920's in order to protect the people who made sheet music for piano players to play in their parlor. Musical expression deserves attribution and protection, but let's not pretend the name on the liner notes is a Beethoven with a long quill creating a work of genius out of their solo effort.
https://www.thatgreatcomposer.com/blog/is-it-legal-to-transc...
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/96352/dual-question-...
https://www.drumforum.org/threads/what-is-the-legal-basis-fo...
Inevitably the transcriber makes decisions in how to deviate from the reference recording, be it omission of instruments, microchanges in tempo and pitch or articulation. In theory a good transcription is an exact graphical representation of the abstract sonic intent of the artist.
Of course, if you are combining voices, changing chords, it approaches an arrangement which is a more creative endeavor.
Not under US Copyright Law, it isn’t. Transcribing is derivative, not transformative.
BTW, if it was transformative, it’d be fair use and legal, and you’d be contradicting yourself.
the same "working" musicians who didn't write the music they're making tabs for, didn't get any permission from the original artists, and in many cases aren't actually playing/tabbing the parts as originally written.
A "working" musician is someone who doesn't monetize someone else's work, regardless of how super hard it must be to write a PDF.
I'd say someone should take your guitar away but I'd bet money you're not doing anything groundbreaking with it anyway.
But if you do find that they made something valuable that you can’t find elsewhere, then you should compensate them for that. Because yes, it is a lot of work.
But I know, its easier to just pull up a tab.
Here is what I was cribbing from with my own version. Seems they updated it since.
Here's a working version: https://freetar.sievers.dev
I only need the clean tab and transposing would be nice.
TerminalTabs anyone?
I don't like having to switch to desktop mode to transpose though. They want you to get the app to do it on mobile which is enough of a reason to make a special program to do exactly what I want.
Also, scraping chord charts is in a different catagory from tabs. I can't even actually read tabs but with a chord chart you can get close enough to noodle around and emulate. Good enough for my needs.
I think in most cases it is the effort that is the gate. Ex. you can DDOS most public facing services simply by spamming AI.
I can't imagine getting started with any instrument as an adult. Actually, I'm trying to improve my piano playing right now and it's nearly impossible.
If I had spent my first year learning the instrument properly, I wouldn't have wasted the next decade after that fumbling around so much.