'Capo 3' Generates Guitar Tablature From Music in iTunes to Quickly Learn Songs

This a great app. I remember it back in 2008.

so where's the lawsuit?

Has the RIAA caught wind of this and tried to shut it down? I wouldn't put it past them.

Does anyone know of an app like this...but for drums?

This may just be worth it!!

The only question I have is how would the software detect if a given piece of music has alternate tuning?

For example, Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, and to an extent, Hendrix and a few others normally tune their guitar down 1/2 step from standard tuning. How is this software going to detect that, nevermind the nu-metal bands that play something crazy like a Drop C#, tuned down 2 1/2 steps?

And alternatively to that, what about artists who capo their guitar?

BL.

Very cool if it actually works!

bradl said:

This may just be worth it!!

The only question I have is how would the software detect if a given piece of music has alternate tuning?

For example, Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, and to an extent, Hendrix and a few others normally tune their guitar down 1/2 step from standard tuning. How is this software going to detect that, nevermind the nu-metal bands that play something crazy like a Drop C#, tuned down 2 1/2 steps?

And alternatively to that, what about artists who capo their guitar?

BL.

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If you know it's tuned down a half step, you can probably just dial that in. Not sure about more complex tunings but I might buy this tonight and I'll update.

Sounds very cool (if it works). Why not offer the same thing for other instruments, like piano?

Wow, damn cool!

If only they'd had this app (and personal computers!) when I was a teenager learning guitar.

what kind of sorcery is this!

bradl said:

This may just be worth it!!

The only question I have is how would the software detect if a given piece of music has alternate tuning?

For example, Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, and to an extent, Hendrix and a few others normally tune their guitar down 1/2 step from standard tuning. How is this software going to detect that, nevermind the nu-metal bands that play something crazy like a Drop C#, tuned down 2 1/2 steps?

And alternatively to that, what about artists who capo their guitar?

BL.

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I'm just learning about this software today, and it sounds pretty cool.

Maybe, it can detect the guitar 1/2 step down, capo etc. by pitch and frequency, and even if it can't detect this things, still pretty amazing that it can give you the chords for any song.

ownamac said:

Wow, damn cool!

If only they'd had this app (and personal computers!) when I was a teenager learning guitar.

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On one side, I'd agree..

But on the other side, it sorta takes the fun out of learning a song, as part of it is getting it down by ear. And that also helps with tuning by ear. Thanks to listening to songs over and over, I can tell just by listening to it not only the key of that song, but how the guitar might be tuned.

Either way, I just may get this if not just to figure out some of the overdubs put onto some songs.

BL.

I find this highly unlikely. I'm sure that for a solo guitar piece it is possible to generate some kind of tab, but for music that has multiple guitar parts playing simultaneously, how on earth would software detect what is going on? Also, as anyone here who actually plays guitar knows, the same note can be played in many different locations on a guitar. How would it figure out exactly where on the neck it is being played?

This is not trivial because something can be easy to play in one position and mind-bogglingly difficult in a different position.

Maybe I am underestimating what this software can do. If it can do what they make it sound like it can do, it would be worth much more that what they are charging.

This seems awesome. Honestly, tabs are good for me if my patients are low. Amazing Slow Downer is my all time favorite for figuring out tunes. It trains your ear well too.

somethingelsefl said:

Does anyone know of an app like this...but for drums?

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Lessons.

Like so many others are saying, this is cool if it works.

Also like so many others are saying, it seems unlikely, if not unreasonable, to expect this to detect things like alternate tunings. So I'll be curious as to how does it handle that. If the original performance is on a guitar tuned to Eb, will everything that should be on an open string be logically assumed by the program to be on 4th fret, and will it just show an error for that lowest Eb? Does it only recognize guitar parts, or can I put in like a Ben Folds song and it'll give me the piano part on guitar? How well does it use optimal transposition and tablature?

Finally, the old man in me agrees with some other posts on here that, it'll be a shame if something like this catches on too much and we keep giving people no reason to hone their ear-training skills. There's something to be said for teaching yourself how to hear a song and play what you hear rather than having a machine do all the work for you!

jorkie said:

Like so many others are saying, this is cool if it works.

Also like so many others are saying, it seems unlikely, if not unreasonable, to expect this to detect things like alternate tunings. So I'll be curious as to how does it handle that. If the original performance is on a guitar tuned to Eb, will everything that should be on an open string be logically assumed by the program to be on 4th fret, and will it just show an error for that lowest Eb? Does it only recognize guitar parts, or can I put in like a Ben Folds song and it'll give me the piano part on guitar? How well does it use optimal transposition and tablature?

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I didn't even think about that aspect. To take that a step further, I'd love to see how it would transcribe something like what Bond or eScala do, as both are classical 4-string quartets; or even something Harp, like Monica Ramos.

Finally, the old man in me agrees with some other posts on here that, it'll be a shame if something like this catches on too much and we keep giving people no reason to hone their ear-training skills. There's something to be said for teaching yourself how to hear a song and play what you hear rather than having a machine do all the work for you!

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Well said. We kinda dumbed down everything when the world shrugged off virtuosity for 3-chord songs with grunge; I'd hate to see learning such instruments go that way as well, with letting the machine do it for you.

However, on the other side of that, while this could teach you the song, it does nothing for teaching music theory, which key changes, modulations, and different types of chords are learned, let alone the different positions on the guitar that you can play them. So score (pun intended) one for the purists!

BL.

Cool

The previous version was amazing, this promises to be even more amazing and outdistance itself from "the amazing slow downer" which is its competition.

Cool.

Uhh, maybe

ArtOfWarfare said:

Sounds very cool (if it works). Why not offer the same thing for other instruments, like piano?

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I tried CAPO a while ago (6 months or so) and basically, it didn't work. Got every chord it tried to ID wrong, missed chord changes, etc.

Maybe it's better now...

I just downloaded the free trial Mac OS X App...and fails.

I analyzed a song the I recorded, so I know exactly what's going on. It misses chords, get's them wrong when it detects a chord change, etc. I appears to follow the bass line more than chords. Maybe it's because the chords are distorted (Beatle's She's So Heavy), but they are arpegiated in the intro. Doesn't get those notes, either. So, at least IMHO, it's not worth the download time.

iOS app?

There are cheaper music slow down and spectrograph apps in the iOS app store. So why is this Mac app so much better and thus worth the price?

Nunyabinez said:

I find this highly unlikely. I'm sure that for a solo guitar piece it is possible to generate some kind of tab, but for music that has multiple guitar parts playing simultaneously, how on earth would software detect what is going on? Also, as anyone here who actually plays guitar knows, the same note can be played in many different locations on a guitar. How would it figure out exactly where on the neck it is being played?

This is not trivial because something can be easy to play in one position and mind-bogglingly difficult in a different position.

Maybe I am underestimating what this software can do. If it can do what they make it sound like it can do, it would be worth much more that what they are charging.

Click to expand...

True, but I think the chord being played would be a huge step and playing it in the exact position of the artist wouldn't be as important. Plus the app might (others certainly do) be able to show you alternate inversions for different chords.

And even if multiple guitars or other instruments are being played, it's still more than likely the same chord is being played when you "add them together" I don't play guitar but I'd love this for keyboards- there are a couple of other less expensive apps I've tried that do an OK job but are much less polished than this appears to be.

blackcrayon said:

True, but I think the chord being played would be a huge step and playing it in the exact position of the artist wouldn't be as important. Plus the app might (others certainly do) be able to show you alternate inversions for different chords.

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Depends.

Sometimes a chord is played where the artist plays it at because of the characteristics of the string. Prime example:

Play an F5 chord with just 2 fingers. Compare how beefier the strings sound if you played it with the root at the 13th fret of the 6th string, vs. 8th fret on the 5th string, vs. 3rd fret on the 4th string.

I know for a fact that with one song in particular (the 1991 version of Lynch Mob's Tangled in the Web), that George Lynch is going for the brightness and clean reverb he would get by playing it not with his 1st finger on the 4th string, 3rd fret and 3rd finger on the 3rd string, 5th fret...

But instead, skipping the 3rd string altogether, by playing it with 1st finger on the 2nd string, 1st fret, and 3rd finger at the root (4th string, 3rd fret).

A lot of that takes ear tuning, which the app may not do, but would be interesting to see how they handle it.

And even if multiple guitars or other instruments are being played, it's still more than likely the same chord is being played when you "add them together" I don't play guitar but I'd love this for keyboards- there are a couple of other less expensive apps I've tried that do an OK job but are much less polished than this appears to be.

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Until you come across the Def Leppard effect, when on some songs on Hysteria, Phil Collen and Steve Clark aren't playing the same thing at the same time. Cases in point: Rocket, Hysteria, and especially Gods of War. They really don't play the same thing on that last song until the pre-chorus.

I get the feeling with Gods of War we'd confuse the poor app!

BL.

Thinking.

I tried to get it to analyze one of those weird Frank Zappa "Black Page" type pieces with a lot of complicated rhythms and notes. I must say it actually slows down the note progression nicely. I'm not sure if ANY program could analyze the nested polyrhythmic insanity of that stuff.

Carlanga said:

what kind of sorcery is this!

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Now that's funny!

I've been using this app for a few years now and it's a really helpful app. It also helps out for ear training and hearing specific notes in passages since you can slow it down without affecting the pitch.