The Steel Guitar Forum

I've been handcrafting E9 tablature for years now using a page layout program. It's time-consuming and tedious, I need to finally break down and learn a tab writing app to save my sanity.

Is Tab|Edit still the best solution in 2023?

Are there any good pedal steel tab tutorial videos I can learn from?

Barring that, anyone here really good at psg tab in any app, and perhaps willing to give me paid lessons to get me going?

I don't even have a grasp of how the process works. As it is, I come up with a phrase, then hand write on paper what I played; then add rough timing notation, then format that in my QuarkXPress software. Will tab software truly simplify that process?

TIA

QuarkXPress! Wow John, that takes me back!

I’m not an expert at TablEdit but I taught myself the basics and that means you definitely can. Wether it would be quicker than a process you’ve followed for years I don’t know but it’s well set up for PSG.

Have a look at some general starter tutorials on YouTube and then refer to the steel guitar section of the manual starting p 139 https://tabledit.com/download/tabled_e.pdf#page139

This should at least give you an idea if it will meet your needs and be any improvement on your current setup.

One advantage over a page layout program is it won’t let you enter a raise or lower unless you have it set up on that string in your custom copedent. So that may reduce potential for typos. You can also play back your tabs in midi to check timing and pitch although it will sound pretty weird. You can always take your pdf’s from TablEdit into other layout software and add to it if you need to.

Jonathan, thanks for the tips and link, I'll delve into it further. My main use for a tab software is to format my ideas on sketched out on paper. Quark does that beautifully but tediously. I just spent a couple of hours refining my "master" QX tab today, hopefully it will speed things up. Have you used QX? I've been on it since v 1.0, I still use it since I know it well and am efficient with it. And it's generally not as expensive as an Adobe subscription, I'd go that route if they'd sell it separately.

I used Quark for work until some time in the 00’s I think. I always thought the company had gone under because they were slow to keep up with OSX and then Adobe undercut them but I was completely wrong, nice to see they are still going!

It’s worth seeing if TablEdit turns out to have some killer features you can’t do without but my guess is you will be a bit frustrated with the output compared to your own layouts and it won’t even save you that much time.

Jonathan Shacklock wrote:I used Quark for work until some time in the 00’s I think. I always thought the company had gone under because they were slow to keep up with OSX and then Adobe undercut them but I was completely wrong, nice to see they are still going!

It’s worth seeing if TablEdit turns out to have some killer features you can’t do without but my guess is you will be a bit frustrated with the output compared to your own layouts and it won’t even save you that much time.

I suspect you're right, Jonathan. Still, my offer stands to pay anyone who is a pro to just give me a live demo so I understand Tab|Edit's pros and cons.

Guitar Pro would work since you can define instruments by their string count and customize tuning. Then use bends for changes, pre bend, grace notes. It should get you pretty far.

Hi John, I just picked up TablEdit myself and am going through the trials of learning it. Just like all software, it takes a bit of time to figure out the little tricks. TablEdit is very well documented, so I suggest going through the built in help to get around the basics and there are quite a few starter videos on the website.

https://tabledit.com/help/english/arrangeit.shtml

The Pedal Steel feature in TablEdit is well worth the effort comitting to the software. You can even make adjustments to your Copedant! You can add your pedal presses with a click from a menu.

I believe Jan Jonsson uses it for his Lloyd Green Tabs and they look beautiful! I'm only working on transcribing short online lessons that don't come with Tab, so I can commit them to memory. I hope to get up to Jan's standard someday!

I just recently found out about tabedit and went to reading up on it. The way it allows you to set your copedence is very nice feature. I have guitarpro and neck diag2 that I use but I still end up writing my tabs by hand. I don't know how many people here use tabedit or are interested in it but it sure is powerful tool and I would like to learn it and have been playing with the learning part but could use all the help I can get. Lol, at 74 it is kind of slow. I hope someday to go on here and see a dedicated are for it like their is for Band n Box.

There is a quite active Tabledit group here: tabledit@groups.io and a lot of great tips and interesting questions.
The author Matthieu mltabledit@gmail.com is very responsive.
I've used tabledit fo over 15 years now and it's very exhaustive, I dont think that there is any other app that can do what tabledit does.

Thanks for that info, Edward, I’ll look into that resource!