4. Techniques

Bends

A bend is a curve along the note: how far the string is pushed, in semitones, at each moment while it sounds. Stab plays the curve as written, so a quarter-tone curl, a slow full bend or a bend and release each sound as drawn. The curve’s points sit at fractions of the note, so they follow it when you make the note longer or shorter.

Bends and the bend editor

Available on every platform.

Bend a note

• Select the notes, or put the caret on one, and type Bend (B): each gets a full bend (a whole tone). Typed again on notes that all bend, it takes the bends off.
• For another shape, right-click a note and open Bend: ¼ (Curl), ½, Full, 1½, Bend and Release, Pre-bend (already bent when picked) and Pre-bend and Release. No Bend takes it off. The note’s current shape is ticked.

Each is one undo step, on every selected note at once. Drum tracks have no bends.

In the tab

A bent note carries a small badge over it, ↗ and how far it goes, to the nearest quarter of a tone: ↗¼, ↗½, ↗¾, ↗full, ↗1¼, ↗1½, ↗1¾, ↗2. The selected note shows its whole curve above it instead. Show Bends (⌥⌘B)Show Bends (Ctrl+Alt+B)Show Bends (Ctrl+Alt+B (⌥⌘B on a Mac)), in the View menu or the pane’s ⚙ menu, hides the bends in that pane; a bent note then keeps a small dot on its corner, and still plays its bend.

The bend editor

Select a single bent note and the bend editor opens over the pane’s lower right corner. Its title says the bend’s size, “Bend · full”. The graph runs along the note from left to right, and up from the fretted pitch to two whole tones, with lines every quarter-tone, labelled ½, full, 1½ and 2.

• Move a point: drag it. It stays between its neighbours and snaps to a fortieth of the note and to a quarter of a semitone (25 cents). Hold ⌃Ctrl while dragging to place it freely.
• Add a point: double-click an empty place in the graph. A bend holds up to eight points.
• Remove a point: double-click it. Removing the last one removes the bend.
• Start again from a preset: the buttons along the bottom, ¼, ½, Full, 1½, B+R, Pre and Pre+R, replace the curve. Remove takes the bend off, and the editor closes with it. In the tools tray the presets are tiles, four to a row, that draw their curve and say their name in full (Bend & Release, Pre-bend, Pre & Release), with Remove last, in red.

Before its first point and after its last, the curve stays flat. Each change is one undo step, a whole drag included. The × in the corner puts the editor away until you select another note.

The bend editor doesn’t open in the Arranger.

In the Inspector

While an Inspector pane is open on the song, the bend editor doesn’t float over the lanes: select one fretted note and the Inspector’s Bend section shows it. With no bend yet, its Add row offers ¼, ½, Full, 1½, B+R, Pre and Pre+R; once the note bends, the editor itself is drawn into the section and works as above.

In the Score

A Score pane writes a bend as an arrow: on the TAB staff when the part shows one, else beside the note.

A whammy bar dive is not a bend: it’s a modifier, with its own presets and editor. Both play together on the same note.