Notation/Tab Softwares

[Martin Jonas]

I've been using Musescore as well, not so much to deal with ABC or tabs but do prepare arrangements for our weekly mandolin ensemble/practice group. Note input is not particularly intuitive, but as with all such packages it's fairly smooth after an initial learning curve. The main benefit is its active online forum where users post their own scores. Especially for classical pieces, finding .mscz files is much more useful than finding PDFs on IMSLP or free-scores.com or similar sites. Changing a string quartet arrangement to mandolin quartet (GDAE mandola and guitar) is easy with Musescore: just convert alto clef viola parts and bass clef cello parts to octave treble clef. Similarly, changing key to sit better on mandolin, or converting arrangements for transposing wind instruments.

Martin

[mandokismet]

Does anyone know whether Musescore or Tabledit (or others) can input notes on the string rather than number of the fret, ala Wayne Erbsen style?

Example:
https://nativeground.com/wp-content/...nd-to-Ride.png

[tmsweeney]

Plus one on muse score - took a little to get the hang of it, but I use it all the time, even to notate tunes other people have scratched out for me on napkins and what not.

[Doug Brock]

Interesting. I don’t recall seeing this style of notation before.

- - - Updated - - -

Interesting. I don’t recall seeing this style of notation before.

[SF_Green]

If you were happy with Finale Notepad, why don't you just use that. It's still available and still free?

https://www.finalemusic.com/products/notepad/

If you're going to pay $60 you might want to look at GuitarPro. I just imported Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto in C into it and it was easy and worked perfectly and I instantly had a beautiful score with notation and tabs. I also use Dorico but have just started that so I got it in but didn't quite work how I expected at first. I'm going to work on that some more though because the scores and sheet music you can generate with Dorico are beautiful.

[John Flynn]

+1 for TablEdit. I have used it for many years. It handles MIDI and ABC as well as TEF files. It has some quirks, but I pretty much know them all by now. Also, there are so many users on this site that you can always get help here.

[Simon DS]

Does TablEdit export .abc files?
I’m looking for an EXTREMELY simple iOS app that will input midi piano or metronomed slow live mandolin playing and export a simple .abc text file.
That’s it.

[Mike Buesseler]

“ midi piano or metronomed slow live mandolin ” Are two very different animals. I’ll be surprised if you find anything that can handle both.