Help: Good Tab Software?

Subject: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 11 Jul 00 - 06:03 PM

I've been asked to teach some fiddle tunes for dulcimer players to a group of folks and am struggling with the idea of getting some software to create the tablature for the lessons. I've looked into TablEdit a little bit, and it looks good, if somewhat unwieldy. I keep thinking that there must be something else as good or better out there.

Does anyone have any experience/suggestions for other products I might check out? Good stories and approximate prices are always appreciated!

Thanks in advance...

- Sean

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 11 Jul 00 - 07:03 PM

Sean, I've spent the last little while looking at TAB Freeware and Shareware. I'm sure that you'll get lots of other responses, but for my benefit are you talking about mountain dulcimer? If so, and pardon my lack of intimate knowledge, what tuning is typically used on the non drone strings? There is MD TAB at the Alternative DT site, but I'd need to check the source of the program that produces it. Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 11 Jul 00 - 08:55 PM

Sean, if you go to http://www.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/ and click on a particular song of your choosing you then have a swag of options to select mountain dulcimer TAB in more tunings than you can poke a stick at. I am still trying to track down the original software. Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 11 Jul 00 - 10:47 PM

Thanks awfully, John!

Yep, it's mountain dulcimer. And the main tunings I'll be teaching are (lowest to highest) DAD, DGD, and DAA.

If you happen across a site for downloading the original software you're talking about, I'd be appreciative if you could pass it on.

- Sean

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 12 Jul 00 - 03:53 AM

Sean, just in case I don't get back to you in a hurry I tracked down the software at the ABC Homepage - it shouldn't be too hard to find the URL and a quick text search on the page will find 'dulcimer' very quickly. Its a DOS program (not one of my strengths) and from what I can gather it needs to be run from the DOS prompt. I tried to follow the sundry commands from the instructions file but I couldn't get it to create a TAB file for me.

Either it needs to be run from pure DOS (not Windows DOS) or a DOS expert (say Dick Greenhaus) needs to have a look at the DOS commands. I found the instructions quite ambiguous, but I suspect that a DOS person would find them straight forward.

Hope this helps. Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 13 Jul 00 - 12:54 AM

Must admit that I still haven't been able to get this to work. No luck on NT yesterday, nor on Win 95 today. I'll try and contact the author. Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: Sean Belt
Date: 13 Jul 00 - 08:18 AM

John,

Thanks for putting so much effort into this. I'll be out of town and away from the computer for the next 10 or so days. So, if I don't respond, don't think I'm not interested.

- Sean

Subject: RE: Help: Good Tab Software?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 13 Jul 00 - 08:25 PM

No problems Sean, I'm on a few days leave at the moment - don't know how much time I'll have once I get back to work. I'll keep plugging away though. Regards, John