Some of these Apps let you embed special codes for things like strumming patterns.
I spent quite a bit of time trying to make this work with Songbook Pro, but found it to be only partially supported by the productā¦and eventually gave up on it.
Thanks! I just recently started with SongbookPro and this post helped me.
I finally understand how to write the chords so they fit the lyrics without using double lines and writing out the chords above.
If you learn to write Chordpro format (itās been around as long as computers) you can write out tabs and song sheet in note pad or similar programs and upload the to SongbookPro.
I think I posted a link to how to write in this format earlier in this thread.
Thanks to this thread Iāve started using Songbook Pro as well. Here are a couple of tips Iāve found when playing with it that others might find helpful around showing tabs.
I found that sometimes when trying to copy tab into it, one of the lines would be messed up and not be in a fixed width font like the other lines. I noticed when that happened that Songbook Pro was automatically putting in the {sot} {eot} markers. (Start of Tab, End of Tab). When I manually placed these in the appropriate spot it fixed it up. So if you have anything you want displayed in a fixed font (e.g. ASCII tabs) just put them between a line that has {sot} at the start and another line at the end with {eot}.
I found that on my phone PDFs exported from Guitar Pro could be really small and hard to read. After playing around I found that you can export from Guitar Pro into ASCII tabs. Just use File ā Export ā ASCII. This will create a .txt file that you can import into Songbook Pro and have it display the tab in ASCII format, which to me is a little easier to read on a phone-sized screen. Itās not as pretty as a PDF, but I donāt always have the larger screen of my tablet available.
Hi Toby, I didnāt even finish the discussion thread, but immediately went and purchased SongBook Pro for my IPad Pro (12 inch diagonal screen) based on your recommendation. I know how many songs you have in your repertoire and decided that if works for you it must be useable for me. I have Guitar Pro, but that is not the best for chord/lyric charts and I just finished editing my ten songs for Grade 2 consolidation performance in MS Word, So this looks like it could be a useful tool.
Hmā¦even more weird, the problem just appears in the manager but not in the iPad app.
How is your workflow to import songs and correct/adapt them?
I thought the best way is import from UG using the iPad app. Then switch to the Manager running on my Windows PC to make adjustments. Unfortunately the manager doesnāt seem to show the same renderings as the app but editing on the iPad is a pain without keyboard etc.
If you use a proportional font then it looks more natural because thin letters like i take up less space than say a w. However to display tab this no good because you want all the characters to be the same width, a non-proportional font such as courier is what you need. It looks like itās from an old fashioned computer display but it will make spacing tab easier
I donāt have the software so canāt comment on what it can do.
Donāt suppose you have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse lying around? The iPad can use them if you did. I use mine with external keyboard and mouse every day. In terms of software I just use Apple Notes now (probably doesnāt help you but thatās what I use)
Thatās what I do as well. Touch screen keyboards are an absolute nightmare for editing chord sheets and tabs.
Currently, I use Ultimate Guitar chord sheets as a starting point, and import them into Pages - Appleās free word processor.
Extremely tedious and labour intensive, but Iām very fussy about learning from materials that are error free and formatted exactly the way I want. Pages gives me the power and total flexibility I need.
Thanks for your reply. I got another question. I try to make SongBookPro display the following chord in a chord diagram: x 4 0 2 3 0. This should be an Asus4/Db according to GuitarPro. I tried to use the define directive as follows: {define: Asus4/Db base-fret 1 frets x 4 0 2 3 0} but canāt make it work. If I use the chord āAsus4/Dbā in my song SongBookPro displays an Asus4/C# in the chord diagram, maybe the closest it can find? Any suggestions?
P.S. with more testing it seems as if SongBookPro doesnāt interpret or use the ādefineā directiveā¦
I tend not to add chord boxes to SBP but if I did I would just write them out in tab manually, like the intro (no chords). ie just stack the chord fingering and a reference to the chord name. Quite quick and easy IMHO.
Yes as I explained, it was an example of manually adding tab. ie type in all the characters.
To make it it clearer I just edited the tab and added an open E.
I wish I had started this much sooner as well. Tab are 100% better. I have about 10 months worth of songs, that I will eventually need to go back and fix. I dont even know how to count my totals on SBP but there are a bigfoots skat worth. It will be a lot of work to go through and fix it all.
I guess the problem was tabs didnt have the lyric but were better for guitar and chords had lyrics but were only rhythm. I want both so i do tabs and add lyrics by hand. Another thing I do for every song is add all the correct infomation for the tempo and time signature in the advanced setttings Make sure the Key is correct. Stuff like that. I do the tags for drop tuning and have a few differnt wierd tags i made my self. Haha. That way when I have my guitar in certain tunings I can quickly find the song in that tuning and practice them making the most use of that time in that tuning.
Love this little program. It was you guys who turned me on to it last year way back in march 2024, maybe my 4th month playing.