[Matty22]

This is just an idea, but the last few times ive been in the chat room, ive been talking to some members about Guitar Pro 5, and giving them some tips on getting started with it.

I was thinking this might make for a lesson of sorts.
I am sure there are people better qualified for this than me, but ill volunteer anyway.

What i thought was a basic run down,
- editting/viewing tab
- speed trainer/looping
- using the chord/bend tools and other features
- runing through the toolbars and where to find things..
- timing/signatures, note durations etc

I was thinking of some screen shots that kinda thing...

I dunno, just an idea, im happy to have a crack at it, from a basic point of view at least.

Any thoughts?

[tonedeaf]

Great idea I would say. I just bought Guitar Pro 5.1 at the Apple store and it's a great product. I'd like learn how to mix and add other instruments together with my work. But I think you have some good ideas there in how it can be used as a learning tool.

[Hiram]

I looked at it and was a little intimidated (a zillion buttons), was wanting to change tabs to chord and vice versa. But i didn't want to take the week to familiarize myself with it.

[Chris C]

Hi Matty,

This sounds like a great idea.

I've been toying with idea of buying Guitar Pro after seeing all the references to it on this site. But I know nothing about it yet.

I did enquire locally to see how much it was and was told that the recommended retail price was Aus $119 but that I could buy it in Perth for about $100 (which I guess is about US$75. Everything imported seems to blow out in price a fair bit because of our small market here.

I've downloaded the demo but haven't installed it yet, as I want to make full use of the 15 days demo time, and I'm busy with other stuff right now.

I do have some reservations about the "tools and toys" side of music, because - much as I love buying that sort of stuff - I know that I'll only really get the skills by actually playing the guitar. So I do want to 'try before I buy'.

But I'd sure like to hear more about it and how it's used. I'm sure that a lot of visitors to the site would like to read about it too. There's so much great material here from Kirk that has used GuitarPro, so I'm sure that being able to use the files he's offered would be useful.

Cheers,

Chris

[fly135]

I use it for playing GP Tabs. You can slow it down and loop measures. It's been a real good training tool for me. The tabs frequently have all the backing track parts so you can play along with the whole song.

[Chris C]

Originally Posted by fly135

I use it for playing GP Tabs. You can slow it down and loop measures. It's been a real good training tool for me. The tabs frequently have all the backing track parts so you can play along with the whole song.

That sounds very handy.

I have several CDs that came with various 'teach yourself' books but I've found them very awkward to use as learning tools, because I seem to need my hands to operate the CD playing equipment and the guitar at the same time.

Looping sections sounds ideal.

Is there much in the way of online archives of GuitarPro Tab files? Google pointed me at somewhere called mysongbook.com but the site wouldn't load. Not sure why.

Oh, I just found one called GProTab that has some. Maybe I need to just instal that demo and start experimenting....

Cheers,

Chris

[iltpff]

I have an older version 4; I wonder if it would do the same thing as the newer. I have not used it in a while so I don't remeber.

[Matty22]

My songbook got shutdown a while ago i think.

I pretty much use ultimate-guitar.com for all my tabs. ubt try picking a song and googling "Artist - Song Name guitar pro". GP is getting more and more popular, so there is getting more and more tabs out there in GP format.

[Dolenz]

I found a huge archive of songs on bittorrent. All zipped up and ready to roll.
Guitar Pro will let you import several other tab formats as well, such as Powertab.

I would suggest going out and downloading every tab you may be interested in because the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) as well as the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) are apparently cracking down on and threatening legal action on Tab sites. They are taking their lead from the RIAA but I personally think they are on shakier ground.

[Clancy]

Matty, if you would like to have a go at a basic beginners tutorial, that'd be great. I'm sure there are many members that would benefit from it.

Good suggestion.

Cheers

Clancy