Guitar Pro rants and raves
I have Guitar Pro 6. IMHO, the program keeps getting better and the realistic sounds are much better than years ago. I still use the program and am really glad that so many Guitar Pro tabs can be downloaded on the internet. So, I'm a fan of the Guitar Pro software.
Lately, however, I have been trying to learn some new songs and I have found that the Guitar Pro tabs on the internet have really some hack bass lines for the song. Hey, I'm supposed to be the hack bass player! Anyway, more and more, I find that I have to download YouTube videos of bass covers and/or instruction to learn how to play the bass line correctly, and then use Guitar Pro with the bass part completely muted. It still is good to slow down the music for play-alongs, without the bass part, but it's not as useful as I once found it. More and more, I'm finding that I have to take the original track and use my guitar trainer to slow down, loop, etc... the audio file. As a learning tool for bass guitar, I'm not finding many Guitar Pro tabs that I need that are very accurate.
Is it just me? In general, I find it hard to find quality bass tabs, sheet music, etc.... As a guitar player, there were all kinds of resources for learning how to play guitar, but there seems to be far less available when it comes to bass guitar. And as I get better at playing bass, it's getting harder and harder to find good teaching material in terms of tabs, sheet music, instruction.... If not for YouTube, I'd probably be completely lost on some of these songs I'm trying to learn.
Ironically, the better I get at playing bass guitar, the less useful I find Guitar Pro software. I would have thought otherwise. Any comments?
Lately, however, I have been trying to learn some new songs and I have found that the Guitar Pro tabs on the internet have really some hack bass lines for the song. Hey, I'm supposed to be the hack bass player! Anyway, more and more, I find that I have to download YouTube videos of bass covers and/or instruction to learn how to play the bass line correctly, and then use Guitar Pro with the bass part completely muted. It still is good to slow down the music for play-alongs, without the bass part, but it's not as useful as I once found it. More and more, I'm finding that I have to take the original track and use my guitar trainer to slow down, loop, etc... the audio file. As a learning tool for bass guitar, I'm not finding many Guitar Pro tabs that I need that are very accurate.
Is it just me? In general, I find it hard to find quality bass tabs, sheet music, etc.... As a guitar player, there were all kinds of resources for learning how to play guitar, but there seems to be far less available when it comes to bass guitar. And as I get better at playing bass, it's getting harder and harder to find good teaching material in terms of tabs, sheet music, instruction.... If not for YouTube, I'd probably be completely lost on some of these songs I'm trying to learn.
Ironically, the better I get at playing bass guitar, the less useful I find Guitar Pro software. I would have thought otherwise. Any comments?
Comments
I'm heading out of town for about a week on business, and maybe I'll take my laptop with Guitar Pro 6 and some Guitar World mags and see what happens if, when on my downtime, I build a song or two using their tabs. The bass lines in GW should be pretty good. Now I just need to find a song or two that I want to learn how to play -- and I'll have to learn how to program in Guitar Pro 6. At least it might pass a few nights while on the road and nothing else to do.
To the question at hand, I have found some Tabs are totally Crap, Nothing is tabbed correctly, or a bunch is missing etc. I have started finding much better quality tabs lately with 911tabs.com and about 5 others I use which I can't recall URL off top of head.
I know what you maen and fond it hugly irritating when I woudl get a tab and go to start learning and be like WTF, This is nothing close to what I hear when the band plays what kinda crack was this Tabber on??
I try to download at least 4 different versions or listed files for each song in hopes that when I analyze them I am able to find one good one which suprisingly has worked out perfect.
With teh New RSE Soundbanks it really opens up teh sound quality of teh Instruments now and allows you to add Violins, Piano, Keys, Drum, Recorder, Piccolo LOL J/K on last 2 Did you get the RSE soundbank special for $15 that was about 2 weeks ago I believe
I have been using my GP6 alot to export MIDI of teh drum tracks which I then Open in Cakewalk SONAR x1, load up Toontrack S2.0 with The Metal Foundry SDX and some Presets and I can have drums sounding like i have a pro drummer locked inside my pa cabs, actually better then some i have worked with as the never talk back, don't eayt, dont get to drunk to keep a beat and are ready to go at a push of a button/
I'll check out the 911tabs. GP6 is a great program, potentially, but I'm just a little disappointed with the quality of tabs lately. And I still have not had any time to sit down to learn how to enter music into GP format. Any suggestions on tutorials? I found some free GP tutorials on YouTube, but really, I need something to walk me through from the very start. I've had GP for years - but only have used it with files I have downloaded off the internet.
I have not really found any tutorials for GP6 yet either but will be sure to let you know when I do.
I am not sure if you go on Guitar-Pro.com or watch their youtube videos but supposedly they are in the works of having an official Tab site which I would assume will have tabs that have been inspected and verified to be correct.
I have been working with a guy in california whom has a Guitar lesson and theory web site and we recently added a free musician community site and have dedicated a section to tabs although I have not had tme to go through all of them I have added some of my collection yo umay want to check it out www.shredguitarschoolcommunity.com.
It is cool since it is free and I have been trying to add my collection of Guitar Mods, Refinishing etc. files to hopefully help people that were in my position a couple years ago when I started learning guitar again.
I will do some searching tonight and see what I can dig up pertaining to good sites with GP files and any good tutorials out there.
I will post a list of tab sites that I find here in a reply if no one minds.
Back in the day, when I was just playing guitar and singing at home, Guitar Pro was a pretty interesting program. Over the years, I have gotten the newer versions and the quality of the sounds are much better. It's still a great program to play along with and sing.
For the past 5 years, I have been playing bass guitar in a cover band. Although I'm still hacking away at the plank, I'm at a level now that I usually can recognize a bass line that doesn't make the grade. GP files, if tabbed out correctly, really sound great, and are a great tool for learning how to play a song. Unfortunately, most of the songs my band is learning how to play, require me to listen to the original tracks and/or watch covers being played on YouTube.
I hope the makers of Guitar Pro put some emphasis on quality tabs for us GP users. It would really help me to see how to play my part on bass, practice along with the GP file at slow speed to learn, and then mute the bass track altogether when I have it mastered and just play that part myself.
BTW, now that I am playing bass, I don't sing nearly as much as I used to. Some of my better bass lines in songs just run against me being able to sing at the same time. I do sing 3 songs per night for the band, while playing bass, but those bass lines are pretty simple 1/8 notes rhythm. On my better bass lines, I am weaving in and out of the singer's vocals. It's exactly those songs that I need help from good GP tabs. And it's usually those songs that the bass lines are incorrect (compared to the original tracks).
Anyway, if you find some good tutorials on programming songs into Guitar Pro format, let me know. Thanks.
I am curious did you get the RSE Soundbank upgrades that was released here lately?
It adds a bunch of Guitar, Bass, Drum and misc other instruments to help improve the sound quality, I have been playing with some of the 7 string metal guitars as I have been working on 7 string stuff lately.
I am about at the elevel where I can't take a song and put it to tab but I can listen to the tab and tell something is wrong although It takes me some time to tell exactly what it is but I am getting better.
I was actually really impressed when I first started using guitar-pro when I stopped playing in the early 90's 91-92 I believe there was nothing close to this or I probably would of never stopped playing.
I sure hope GP starts putting out or at least inspecting and verifying correct GP files as I think right now that is the weak link in what could be a even better program if you could get a file and know it was 100% correct I find it very annoying to find a file only to realize it is not correct after spending time downloading it and then making adjustments to get it sounding correct with the RSE soundbanks.
I will be sure to update you and any new info I find pertaining to GP and its files, tutorials etc.
I agree that the GP program is much better than the quality of tabs coming out for it. Back in the day, GP with midi sounds was better than most of my other options. With RSE sounds, GP is just that much better. Unfortunately, I'm at a level now where I really need accurate tabs/GP files to learn from or I just have to cue up an mp3 of the original track and play along with the audio recording.
Well, I do have a number of computer programs that can change tempo, pitch, and loop audio sections and also my Tascam DR-07 has those same features. So the options competing against GP have really advanced. The only thing I don't like about using those audio track slow-down devices, is that if I want to \"mute\" the bass line, it effectively kills the bass drum too and the bottom of the song falls out altogether. I can kill the bass guitar with my software, unfortunately, it kills the bass drum too and as a bass player, I am always listening to the drums to lock into the rhythm. If I have a good quality GP file, I can mute just the bass track and still play along with the full drum set.
Where I think GP fails, is that they don't want to push high qualtiy tabs for their high quality program. I suppose it's a matter of copyright laws that concern them. I still remember the RIAA closing down midi sites, like that was cutting into their profits!? And my favorite GP website was closed down years ago - never to resurface.
Ultimately, I would like a program that had separate midi and/or audio tracks, in high quailty tabs, that we could play in GP with RSE sounds. If we could have a vocal track somewhere in that mix - then that would be great. Unfortunately, the only multi-track songs with vocals I have seen on the internet cost about $10 per song. That is more than I am willing to spend per song for a title that my band may or may not end up playing.
I keep hoping to get more time to look into writing my own GP tabs using tabs I have in my Guitar World magazine. But, like I said, I have never actually tried programming a real song in GP. I only complain about the low quality tabs written by guys who actually have tried to contribute to the community.....
I have just recently run into what you were talking about by having the RIAA shut sites down which to me seems counter productve to sales seeing if I found a tab I wanted to learn I would for sure be looking to buy the original song to compare and gurantee i am playing it correctly notto mention at any show if the crowd found a song teh enjpyed it may lead to them purchasing the song or perhaps teh entire album.
I find that sometimes the companies Like RIAA never look at the bigger picture they seem to be stuck looking at the what they are loosing this second and not what they could gain in per say a month later.
I Have come to notice with GP6 that more then just guitar players have to be using teh software seeing hwo better drum parts are being programmed along with the options now to have keyboards and a whole slew of other instruments there must of been some feedback from other musicians asking for more features other then guitar,bass,drums or I would not of imagined they would spend that time and energy to include so many other instruments.
I do know of a couple new sites I have found that have the gp files I will make a list of new ones I have run across and post them so you can take a look and see if better tabs (more accurate) are posted on the newer sites and I am really hoping the one Arobas mentioned to have in the works solves the issue of inaccurate tabs.
The amount of effort the have put into the software it only makes sense they would want to ensure tabs are correct as it undermines the quality of the software if all teh tabs we can find are inaccurate it doens't make it worth the time or money to buy the software then.
www.guitarprotabs.org
www.tabscout.com
www.ultimate-guitar.com
www.911tabs.com
www.tabsmetal.org
www.tabs.guitarworld.com
Here are some of the ones I found real quick in my favorites I hope this helps you some and that there are some sites you haven't tried yet.
I do knwo that www.911tabs.com seems to be one that is a type of search engine that will use many of the sites mentioned when searching for specific tabs.
Here is the link that I received: http://licklibrary.ceros.com/iguitar...sue13/page/124
Works for me, but I'm a subscriber to Guitar Interactive Magazine online. If the link does not work for you, maybe you want to sign up for the free online mag and check them out.
Take care.