Follow-up to an alternative to tablature

Karlis Abolins · Post by **Karlis Abolins** » 27 May 2002 9:47 am

I recently started a thread about a proposed alternative to tablature. I appreciate all of the comments I received from the members who replied. I said that I was thinking of developing a program to help me with the issue. I have done so and want to share what I have so far with other members for evaluation. The program displays notes or scale numbers for scales or chords. It does not create tablature. In using the program I have discovered some fundamental things about the layout of the E9th guitar. I have also found it very easy to do what-if kinds of scenarios with new or changed pedals and strings.

I have decided to post the program for a limited time. I want to allow people who are interested to experiment with it but I do not want to get into support issues or have it become generally available on the internet. Please use the program if you wish. I make no claims about its usability.
http://home.attbi.com/~kabolins/guitarmap.html

Karlis Abolins

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 27 May 2002 6:47 pm

Cool, Karlis
Nice of you to offer it without charge.
Is there a way to increase the max number of pedals and levers? I'm a knee lever hog and would like to be able to enter up to 18 p+kl if possible. If not, I'll just make do.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

Roy Thomson · Post by **Roy Thomson** » 27 May 2002 7:10 pm

It would be nice Karlis if you could post some note/scale samples so we know what it should look like.

Karlis Abolins · Post by **Karlis Abolins** » 28 May 2002 5:28 am

Larry, I debated the issue of more pedals versus usability. If I add more pedals, I have to add scrolling to be able to see all of the extra pedals. I decided to go for simplicity. The real issue is screen resolution. In writing a program of this type, I made the program fit entirely on a screen of 640 by 480 which is the lowest resolution and the default for most people. I personally use 1024 by 768. If I programmed for that resolution, I could get all of your pedals on the same screen. Of course, I could have determined the screen resolution and used the max available at run-time. I have kept this simple at this point.

Roy, I will post some examples of program usage later to demonstrate the features. The program comes with 5 scales and 40+ chords. It also has the default E9th, C6th, and E9th/Bb6th copedants plus an experimental E9th copedant.

Karlis Abolins

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 28 May 2002 6:37 am

Karlis,
Would you be willing to share the source code?
I know there are several programmers on the Forum (me included -- I've been doing VB since V1.0) who could help with the development or creating other versions for special needs -- or just to have their own customizable code.

If not, I understand, but have actually begun a project very similar to this in C several years ago and decided it would be much easier to do the front end (or the entire app) in VB.

In any case, thanks for a useful tool.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

Tom Jordan · Post by **Tom Jordan** » 29 May 2002 9:22 pm

Karlis,

Thank you for a very useful program. My guitar is a U12 5/5, which presents just a small challange to get the most out of pedal/knee combos. This program really helps to visualize rodding changes before I do them.

Also, a nice "click-n-play" way to visualize the fret board.

Thanks for your efforts,

Tom Jordan

Karlis Abolins · Post by **Karlis Abolins** » 30 May 2002 6:12 am

I have posted a new version of the program with some enhancements that have been suggested. http://home.attbi.com/~kabolins/guitarmap.html
In experimenting with the tunings, I have come up with a tuning I call E69 Diatonic. I have included that layout in the sample as well as the E9th, C6th, and E9th/Bb6th layouts.
The E69 Diatonic tuning looks very much like an E9th tuning. The pedal is significantly different except for the AB pedals. The other pedals allow you to harmonize the major scale at a single fret. They also allow you to harmonize the major scale up the fretboard following the major scale pattern. I will post more on this tuning later

Karlis Abolins

Drew Howard · Post by **Drew Howard** » 30 May 2002 6:18 am

Karlis,

Thank you for sharing your program with us!

Very cool!

cheers,

Drew Howard

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www.newslinkassociates.com
www.drewhoward.com

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 30 May 2002 4:03 pm

I hope everyone appreciates what Karlis has done for us. This program is very useful for analyzing your existing or proposed tunings to help find chord and scale positions.

BRAVO, Karlis!!!!

We owe you one. If there's ever anything I can do for you don't hesitate to ask.

For those who haven't looked, the expanded program will allow even the most complex setup to be analyzed. You owe it to yourself to check this one out.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro