The Steel Guitar Forum

I've received a few enquiries about what software I use to achieve this style of tab:-



The answer is Sibelius, which is not really designed for the purpose, but it can be made to work. It's really a score-writing program but I thought I'd see if I could use it for pedal steel tab before I spent money on something else, not to mention the time spent learning it.

It can also be used to make backing tracks which are just as good as BIAB, although you have compose them note for note - something I'm happy to do.

Any Sibelius users who want more detail, or a template, please ask.

How "smart" is it, Ian? Do you have to separately input both standard notation and tab or can it generate one from the other with some manual assistance on your part? Thanks.

Jeff, it's not smart at all - it just looks nice!

I don't know how smart other programs are, but there are so many ways of playing the same thing on PSG that I imagine a fair amount of manual tweaking would be necessary, whichever way the translation went.

Thanks, Ian. Darn the bad luck.....that's what I thought you were going to say. As you noted, the pedal steel dilemma for transcribers is the number of places on the neck you can play the same notes. It does look nice though

I notice in the last two measures you show the A pedal raising the 6th string and the B pedal raising the 7 string. How does that work?

Erv, it's a mistake pure and simple - the text should be one line higher on strings 5 & 6. Thanks for pointing it out and I shall correct it when I get a chance.

Chance came sooner than I thought - should make sense now...

When I grabbed this example I forgot it was a work in progress, but I have got as far as the end of the intro so here's P.2 if anyone cares to try it.

Notice that the maximum size for uploaded pictures is 800x800. If your tab picture is wider than it is tall, the tab is larger and more readable. That's why 2 staves works better than 3.

Ian,
There's a mistake in the prior three measures also.

By the time I'd transcribed Buddy's intro, I had internalised the whole thing and I've never actually played off the tab! I shall send future efforts to Erv for proof-reading.



Thanks for the tip b0b - I suppose the ideal would be to set my Sibelius page to a square format.

Like this



I shall do everything on square "paper" from now on. It has been suggested that I do a "How To" post for Sibelius users, so I shall fall silent until I have time to compose one.

Thanks for posting this Ian!

I use Sibelius a lot for composing and was just wondering what software is good to use to generate PSG tab. Your results look great.

Now that I think about it, you can create a new instrument in Sibelius with as many strings and with the tuning you wish. I do this for 10 string classical guitar. You can then copy the entire notation line and paste it into the tab line. The results usually need adjustment so that the strings you want to play are noted, though Sibelius does a pretty good job of automatically creating the tablature.

But the concept of pedals is missing in Sibelius unless the harp pedal notation mechanics could somehow be used.

Hi all,
I just read this post and I think I should say something.
TablEdit is a software that is fully compatible with PSG, both on musical Standard Notation and Tablature.
The people who use it best, to my knowledge, are Doug Beaumier and Alex Cattaneo. Actually the developers of TablEdit customized the software capability based on Doug's request, that I know of.
I used it personally for some tabs and the results are great.
You can define the number of strings and your specific copedent.
If you want, you can write both standard notation and tablature, at a time (i.e.: as you once enter the numbers on strings, frets, and letters on pedals, knee levers (with the proper timing) it will be automatically convert the tab inputs into the musical standard notation.
Then you can print it as you like (i.e.: only tab on PDF, only notation or both)
If you search on this forum, you will see good files from Alex and Doug.
Hope this is useful
Regards
Daniel

I just caught up with these last two posts. Firstly I would say to Steve that the only reason I use Sibelius is because I'm familiar with it and I can make it jump through the hoops needed to create something that looks good. But it's laborious. The lines in the tab chart are actually single-line percussion staves stripped of their clefs and crowded together, and the fret numbers are entered as technique text into a matrix of hidden rests. Then the other five-line staves (backing instruments not shown in the above examples) have to be manually uncrowded. I don't mind but it's not ideal.

So Daniel, yes TablEdit is what I would recommend even though I've never used it! The advantage of Sibelius however is that it can also generate a good-quality backing track, so instead of buying and learning both TablEdit and BIAB, I stick with what I have as I don't generate a vast amount of tab anyway, not like the guys you mention.

Thanks for your interest.