3. Writing tab

The Editor

The Editor is where you write tab. It reads like a DAW’s piano roll whose rows are strings: time runs left to right, each track has a lane with a row per string, and each note shows its fret where it starts and a bar as long as it lasts. Keys and drum tracks get lanes of their own kind in the same pane.

The Editor pane

Available on every platform.

What’s in the pane

• The ruler runs along the top, with bar numbers and the song’s markers. The song rows under it can show the signature, key, chords, lyrics, rhythm and tempo.
• A lane per track. A guitar’s lane has a row per string, the highest string at the top, as in printed tab. A narrow rail at the left keeps what each row needs: the track’s colour as a bar down its edge, then the strings’ letters, a kit’s piece codes or a keyboard.
• The track’s tag sits over the start of its lane and stays there as the song scrolls: the colour’s dot, the track’s whole name, and M and S to mute it and solo it (⌥-clickAlt-click either to solo this track alone). With recording on, the dot that arms the track sits after the name. A track with several voices shows them as a segment after the tag, and frets out of the instrument’s reach as a pill that selects them.
• The track’s card. Click the name for the track’s volume and pan (a drag is one undo step; double-click a slider to put it back to 100 or the centre), its sound (which opens it in a Sound pane), Rename…, Preset… (saves it as a track preset) and More…, the track’s whole menu. The Mixer has every track’s volume and pan side by side. Right-click the tag or the rail for the track’s menu (its sound, tuning, voices, and adding tracks).
• Clips. Notes live in clips, shown as a strip along the top of each lane. See Clips.
• The caret, a small mark on one string at one moment, is where typing writes. See Lanes and the caret.

Keys lanes have a row per pitch instead of a string, and drum lanes a row per piece of the kit.

Add a track

Adding a track

Available on every platform.

Right-click a track’s tag or the rail, or the empty part of the pane below the last track, then choose:

• Add Track and an instrument: a guitar or a bass in any of its tunings, the 12-String Guitar, Drums, Percussion, Keys, Audio, or the song’s Chords track (offered while the song has none). Your own track presets follow by name, and Track Presets… finds any of them, the built-in ones too.
• Add Smart Track, then Drums, Bass, Guitar or Keys and a style: a track that plays from the song’s chords. See Smart Tracks.

The new track goes after the last one, with the caret on it, in one step that Undo (⌘Z)Undo (Ctrl+Z)Undo (Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on a Mac)) takes back.

How a note looks

• The head is a rounded label centred on the moment the note starts, with its fret in it, so it sits on its beat like a digit in printed tab.
• The bar behind it runs from the start to the end of the note. Its right edge is a handle: drag it to change the note’s length.
• While the song plays, each note lights up as it sounds.
• A red fret is out of the track’s playable range, below 0 or past its last fret. This happens when you drag a note to a string that can’t play its pitch; a pill after the track’s tag counts them, and selects them when you click it. See Re-fret.

Techniques in the lanes

Articulations are drawn on and around the notes: PM and LR above the head, h and p between hammered or pulled notes, / and \ for slides, a wave for vibrato. A bend shows as a small badge, and the selected note shows its whole curve. See Articulations and Bends.

To keep the tab plain while you write, turn off Show Articulations (⌥⌘A)Show Articulations (Ctrl+Alt+A)Show Articulations (Ctrl+Alt+A (⌥⌘A on a Mac)) or Show Bends (⌥⌘B)Show Bends (Ctrl+Alt+B)Show Bends (Ctrl+Alt+B (⌥⌘B on a Mac)). A note with a hidden effect keeps a small dot on its head, so nothing is lost from view. Both settings belong to the pane, so another Editor pane can show them while this one doesn’t.

Moving around

Scroll to move through the song and zoom to see more or less of it; see Panes. A click on the ruler moves the caret to that moment, and dragging along the ruler sets the loop.