Onsong and tablature...

pasmithy

pasmithy

Jul 7, 2011
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SE PA
#1
First off, I'm a long time drummer switched to bass. I can read music (but very,very slowly).

I somehow I got involved in three "musical situations". So I downloaded Onsong, only to find that it doesn't take too well to tabs. Or at least I can't get them to work. I convert them to text files as the tutorial tells me too. but when they show up on the Ipad they are misaligned. If I go to the text editor the tab is perfect. Then I hit "done" and back in to the app it's all wonky again. If anyone knows of any tricks or tips I would greatly appreciate them.

For you guys that are dying to tell me to get better at reading, I'm working on it. But for the time being it would be nice to have some tabs for intro riffs and such that I can't "root/fifth" fake my way through. I wasn't having problems till I got involved in multiple, different genre, bands. Trying to keep this stuff straight does my head in a little.
 
#2
You have to put:
{start_of_tab}
in your text file.
It needs to be AFTER the title line! OnSong ignores the filename of text files and lists the song's title as whatever is in the first line. Example:

Fun fun fun - Beach Boys
{start_of_tab}
Intro
G|-----------------|-----------------|
D|-----------------|-----------------|
A|-6-~~~~~~~~~~~~~-|-6-~~~~~~~~~~~~~-|
E|-----------------|-----------------|
 
#3
Welcome to the wonderful world of workarounds for OnSong's wonky behaviors. BTW don't try to use the sync function - it will wipe out anything you've done since the FIRST time you synced :wideyed:. Use the backup function instead. Oh, and if things get weird "force close" the app and see if that (temporarily) fixes it. Kinda funny, I posted some of this to their user's forum a couple days ago and a day later they deleted the ENTIRE forum :wideyed:. I've had the program for a couple years but never seriously used it waiting for them to fix all the bugs folks are constantly reporting - latest version is 1.99994 I think as they have been delaying the release of V2 for all of that two years I think :wideyed:. I was forced to give it a go this week as the dropbox app is broken as far as the custom sort order of offline files go and I had just been using that. I've been waiting two months for dropbox to fix that :wideyed:. Oy vey...
 
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#5
I use Guitar Pro 6 (there is a version 7 out now). It does standard, tab and plays back many different instruments.

Load up a simple melody that you already know - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for example - leave the tab on and let it play without your instrument in hand. Now you are learning how to train your ear, read music and fret names of each note.
 
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#7
Oh, and it's funny about the forum. I did a search. And it looked like there was some info on that forum. But like you said the forum is gone now... Wonder if it's going to end up with me being one of the last to buy "a lemon"... lol (I hope not.)
 
#8
@5544 Just checked out Guitar Pro. And while it's pricey, it might be what I need. And would probably keep me from banging my head on the wall.
LOL

Onsong looks to be suited to "strumming and singing" musicians. I wish the guys on this forum that praised it, woulda been more specific as to how they were using it. It's not great for noting specific bass lines. Well at least I haven't figured it out yet...
 
#9
pasmithy said:
Onsong looks to be suited to "strumming and singing" musicians. I wish the guys on this forum that praised it, woulda been more specific as to how they were using it. It's not great for noting specific bass lines. Well at least I haven't figured it out yet...
Click to expand...
BTW I use .rtf files to transcribe bass lines using a notation system of my own devising kinda like ABC Notation (since the 70's). Index of /abc
 
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#10
OnSong works, and you don't need the tab tags. I keep my tab in Google Drive, and download them as Microsoft word docs. Put them into Dropbox, and upload into OnSong. Hit the edit button, and Convert To Text. Then, and this is your solution, hit the format button, which looks like the little sliders. Select a font of Courier New, which is a non-proportional font. That will make everything line up.
 
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