GuitarMap - A free computer program for the Stee

Cliff Oliver · Post by **Cliff Oliver** » 10 Dec 2003 6:49 am

I was lurking over on the "dark side" and found this from PSG player Karlis Abolins.
Though mainly for PSG you can dump in your favorite lap steel tunings and navigate any popular "Western" chord or scale.
Here is what Karlis has to say about the program, and excuse me if this is a repeat the original post is over a year old.:
A free computer program to help you figure out your guitar.
I came back to the pedal steel guitar this year. I sold my last steel in the mid 80's. Since coming back I have been wrestling with what I want a steel guitar to be as far as pedals and strings. I found a lot of posts on this forum that have been very helpful but none really answered the questions I had. I decided to analyze the steel guitar in the same way that I have been analyzing business methods since the late 60's. I started laying out strings and scales and rearranging them to make sense out of it. I found that rearranging the strings and pedals on paper to be frustrating. I then tried out a commercial program that is available. It helped some but was not really designed to do what i needed. I then decided to write a program to help me.
I finished the program recently and want to share what I have so far with other steel guitarists. The program displays notes or scale numbers for scales or chords. It does not create tablature. In using the program I have discovered some fundamental things about the layout of the E9th guitar. I have also found it very easy to do what-if kinds of scenarios with new or changed pedals and strings.
I have decided to post the program for a limited time. I want to allow people who are interested to experiment with it but I do not want to get into support issues or have it become generally available on the internet. Please use the program if you wish. I make no claims about its usability. http://home.comcast.net/~k.abolins/guitarmap.html

Karlis Abolins

updated with new location of web page

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 10 Dec 2003 7:17 am

The program is apparently not for Mac users. Photoshop tries to open the .exe file as an image.

Bill Leff · Post by **Bill Leff** » 10 Dec 2003 7:40 am

Here's another one that's easy to use but only works for 6 strings:
http://looknohands.com/chordhouse/guitar/index_rb.html

Terry VunCannon · Post by **Terry VunCannon** » 10 Dec 2003 12:22 pm

Hi Bill...I just checked the "Looknohands.com" site & it is great. Thanks...Terry V.

Rich Young · Post by **Rich Young** » 10 Dec 2003 12:40 pm

With guitar map, you can edit the Default.scl - add, edit scales and chords.
You can also set up any tuning you want up to 14 strings.
Very cool program.[This message was edited by Rich Young on 10 December 2003 at 12:40 PM.]

Jesse Pearson · Post by **Jesse Pearson** » 10 Dec 2003 12:56 pm

Hey Bill, did you check out the Hawaiian scale on that site yet? It's the dorian scale with the minor 7th being replaced with a Major 7th? Does anyone know anything about this scale being used for Hawaiian music?

Edited: The Hawaiian scale this site speaks of is the Melodic minor scale, duh

<<[This message was edited by Jesse Pearson on 12 December 2003 at 01:41 PM.]

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 10 Dec 2003 5:03 pm

I love this site: some glitch keeps it to just 7 strings, but you can extrapolate eay enough: http://www.power-chord.com/gaff/mapper/

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Stop by the Steel Store at: www.markvanallen.com