Tablight
Overview
Tab
Chord
Key
Scale
About
tab
?
Tab mode
— type or paste a tab straight into the box, then
Analyse
to play it back note by note and work out its chords, key and capo.
Import and export
— shared by both panes.
↥ import
loads a tab, a melody or a
Tablight file
, and the file decides which pane it lands in;
↧ export
saves your work back out.
See import/export details →
What Tablight reads from the tab:
A
capo
line is applied automatically.
The
tuning
— the string labels down the left edge — is read for every block.
Keep the
six string rows the same length
so bar lines and notes stay aligned.
Chords
above the staff are detected and mapped onto the tab or lyric line below them.
Section markers
— a line on its own in square brackets, like
[Verse]
or
[Chorus]
.
melody
?
Melody mode
— build a tune on the on-screen piano, or switch to the
🎸 guitar
neck with the piano / guitar toggle at the top. Each note you enter is added to the box below, and
Analyse
sends the melody to the Key page to work out its key and chords.
More about the guitar neck →
Import and export
— shared by both panes.
↥ import
loads a melody, a tab or a
Tablight file
, and the file decides which pane it lands in;
↧ export
saves your work back out.
See import/export details →
Notes and chords
— tap once for a single note; on a touchscreen, hold several at once — piano keys, or fret positions on the neck — to enter them together as a chord, which lands when you lift your fingers.
Cursor
— tap any note in the box to move the insert point; the next note you play drops in there.
?
Song status
— which pane holds your song:
melody
— only the melody pane has content; the melody is the song.
tab
— only the tab pane has content; the tab is the song.
tab + melody
— both panes have content and are
in sync
: they came from the same song and still agree.
tab + melody
shown
red
— the tab was
edited or imported
since it was last in sync, so it may no longer match the melody. The
tab is the master
:
Analyse
uses it and rebuilds the melody from it, so clear the tab pane first if you want the melody to stay the song. Red flags that the tab
changed
, not that the notes are proven different.
server
instrument
lefty
?
Lefty
flips the guitar neck left-to-right for left-handed playing. The note names and pitches don’t change — only the on-screen layout mirrors.
note labels
?
Note labels
print each note’s name on its dot on the neck, so you can read the melody at a glance. Turn it off for plain dots.
sound
guitar
acoustic steel
acoustic nylon
electric jazz
electric clean
electric muted
overdriven
piano
acoustic grand
acoustic grand (HQ)
electric grand
electric 1
electric 2
display
dark mode
auto-scroll
midi
split hands
auto
at C3
at middle C
at C5
split
Loading…
Tab
Melody
−
dash
|
measure
✂︎
split
⇧
merge
⌫
delete
✕
clear
↺
undo
⎙
paste
?
Generate tab
builds a fingering from your melody using
standard tuning
,
no capo
and
all six strings
— the neutral defaults, so a tab appears in one tap.
To pick the
tuning
,
capo
or which
strings
to use yourself, press
Analyse
and use
Build tab
on the
Key
page, then commit the result with
Set tab
. Generate tab runs those two steps for you.
It can
fail
if the melody has notes a guitar in standard tuning can’t play — for instance notes below the lowest string. Choose a suitable tuning on the Key page, or move those notes into range first.
Generate tab
builds a tablature from your
melody
in one step — or press
Analyse
to open the
Key
page and choose tuning and capo position yourself.
🎹
piano
🎸
guitar
🎤
mic
?
Piano and guitar
— two ways to enter the
same melody
. Both add and remove notes, and whatever you play shows up in the melody box either way.
The
🎸 guitar
neck is special: every tap is a specific
string and fret
, so it also builds the
tab
as you go and keeps it in sync — the song stays
tab + melody
.
The
🎹 piano
and
🎤 mic
only know a note’s
pitch
, not where to finger it, so they can’t build a tab. Entering notes either way
clears the tab pane
, leaving the melody on its own — the song becomes
melody
.
what these statuses mean →
Your song is currently a
tab
— press
Analyse
to send it to the
Key
page, where it plays as notes. Typing here starts a new melody and clears the tab.
tuning
Standard
Drop D
Open G
Open D
DADGAD
Half down
capo
–
0
+
?
Guitar neck
— tap a string to add that note to the melody. Hold several at once for a chord, or build one with the
( )
chord buttons below. Tap a note in the box to move the cursor; your next tap drops in there.
Tuning
and
capo
set what the open strings sound. You can change them while the tab pane is empty; once the song has a tab they
lock
, because the tab’s string-and-fret numbers are tied to them.
The
◀︎ ▲ ▼ ▶︎
buttons move the highlighted note around the fretboard —
◀︎ ▶︎
by one fret,
▲ ▼
by one string — and its pitch follows. They work once the melody has a fingering to move. On a chord they slide all the notes together; to move just one, tap that note on the neck first (tap it again to release).
Note labels
and
lefty
are in
Settings ⚙︎
— tap the
?
beside each there for what they do.
beta
?
Mic
— sing, hum, or play into the microphone and Tablight works out which notes you played. Nothing is sent anywhere: the sound is analysed in your browser and never leaves it.
Beta
— note detection is still being tuned. It works best with one clear note at a time; expect the odd wrong or missed note.
Press
● listen
and the readout follows your voice — the note you are on, and how far
sharp or flat
you are sitting. Press
■ stop
and the microphone is released; what you played is then worked out and shown as a
take
.
One note at a time.
Tablight follows a single pitch, so play or sing a
melody
: a chord, two strings left ringing, or a sustain pedal holding one note under the next will confuse it. On a guitar, damp the string you are leaving.
This surface has
two views
, and the headers switch between them:
take
is what was just heard, still separate from your song, and
melody
is the song itself. Nothing from a take reaches the melody until you press
↵ insert
or
⤥ overwrite
.
In the take,
tap a note
to hear it, correct it with
oct ▼ ▲
,
semi ▼ ▲
or
⌫ delete
, and tick it in or out of what gets inserted — the
?
beside the take says more.
—
Press ● listen, then sing or play.
take
what you sang
after filtering
notes found
✓ all
?
The take
— what Tablight heard, as a row of notes with their lengths in milliseconds.
Tap a note
and three things happen: you hear it, it becomes the note the buttons below act on, and its
tick
flips.
A note with a
solid border
is ticked and goes into your melody; a
dashed, faded
one does not. Every note of a new take starts ticked, so taking the whole thing needs no ticking at all.
✓ all
/
✕ none
flips them together — to keep three notes out of ten, press
✕ none
and tap your three.
The
filled
note is the one
oct ▼ ▲
(an octave),
semi ▼ ▲
(a semitone) and
⌫ delete
act on — that one note, whatever is ticked. It fills faintly rather than fully when that note is not ticked. Fix only what is plainly wrong here: a note that should not be there, or one an octave out. Everything else is easier in the
melody
once the take is in it.
Playing the take — the
loop
button — plays the
ticked notes only
, spaced as they will be written, so what you hear is what you get.
↵ insert
drops the ticked notes into the melody at the cursor,
⤒ overwrite
replaces the whole melody with them, and both say how many. Where you skipped notes, their silence is left behind too, so the notes you kept follow each other. Either can be taken back with
↺ undo
.
save take
copy raw take
● listen
(
chord
)
chord
(
chord
)
chord
|
measure
✳︎
section
⌫
delete
✕
clear
↺
undo
⎙
paste
⌫
selected
⌫
others
⧉
copy
↺
undo
oct
▼
oct
▲
✕
leave
oct
▼
semi
▼
semi
▲
oct
▲
↵
insert
⤒
overwrite
◀︎
▲
▼
▶︎
⇅ switch
→ other
dechord
⤵︎
?
The row of buttons below the piano or guitar neck.
( chord
and
) chord
build a chord with a mouse, one key at a time:
(
stacks each key you click into one chord (it stays lit while it's active), and
)
closes it and releases
(
, so your next click starts a fresh note. On a touchscreen you can skip these and just hold the keys down together.
| measure
drops in a bar line — or
hold
it to auto-place bars at the pauses in a recording;
✳︎ section
starts a new
section
— a named part of a song such as a
verse
,
chorus
or
bridge
. The Key page works out the key
separately for each section
, so a song that shifts key between parts is still read correctly.
⌫ delete
removes just the
one item
before the cursor — a single note, chord, bar or section mark.
✕ clear
wipes the
whole melody
and starts fresh.
↺ undo
steps back your
last change
— the safety net that brings things back if
delete
or
clear
went too far.
⧉ copy
(shown when items are selected) copies them to the clipboard;
⎙ paste
drops copied notes back in at the cursor — or loads a whole melody you copied as text.
With items selected, a second row appears:
oct ▼ ▲
move every selected note down or up an octave (greyed out when a note would leave the keyboard) — select the whole song (long-press the first and the last note, or
Ctrl+A
) to shift all of it — and
✕ leave
drops the selection (
Esc
).
The
four buttons on the right
move the
highlighted note
— the one just before the cursor — keeping its place in a recording. On the
piano
they are
oct
and
semi
(
▼
down,
▲
up), shifting it by an octave or a semitone. On the
guitar neck
they are
◀︎ ▲ ▼ ▶︎
, sliding it one fret along the string or one string across; its pitch follows its new place on the fretboard. On a
chord
, every note moves together — or tap one note of the highlighted chord on the neck to move just that voice.
melody
Your melody
🪄
?
🪄 clean up
— tidies a messy tab in one tap — removing stray line breaks that split a tab apart, and aligning the bar lines so every
|
lines up. Tap it before you
Analyse
for the best results.
Analyse
▶︎
●
▶︎
↥
import
↧
export
everything
↧ .json
tab only
↧ .pdf
↧ .txt
↕︎
refret
⛶
view
?
↥ import
is shared by both panes; the file decides where it lands. A tab —
.txt
or
.pdf
— goes straight into this editor, ready to edit. A
MIDI
(.mid) or a
Tablight file
(.json) opens in
melody mode
.
↧ export
writes the
tab only
, as
.pdf
or
.txt
— no melody, no recording. When the melody pane holds a song too, the menu also offers a
Tablight file
(.json): melody, recording and tab in one file.
↕︎ refret
— moves notes onto different strings without changing their pitch, to find an easier fingering. It opens once the tab is in sync with the Key page — after
Analyse
or
Set tab
.
⛶ view
— a clean, full-screen view of the tab to play from, with an auto-scroll you can start and set the speed of. Open it with
V
or the button;
✕ exit
returns you to editing.
?
↥ import
is shared by both panes; the file decides where it lands. A
MIDI file
(.mid), a
MusicXML score
(.musicxml, .mxl — export it from MuseScore, Sibelius, Guitar Pro…) or a
Tablight file
(.json) lands on the piano or guitar neck, so you can play it and edit it from there; a Tablight file can also include a tab, which loads into the tab pane. A tab file (.txt or .pdf) goes to the tab pane.
↧ export
saves the song as one
Tablight file
(.json) — the notes, any recorded timing, and the tab if the tab pane has one — so a single file holds the whole loop. With only a melody it saves straight away; with a tab too, the menu asks: a
Tablight file
, or the
tab only
as .pdf or .txt. Keep the suggested name to overwrite the file you loaded, or type a new one to save a copy.
A
Tablight file
(.json) is the one that comes back whole: importing it fills both panes, melody and tab, to match the song you saved. If the melody has no tab, the tab pane is cleared. It can also hold a recording, so the take you played in is restored alongside the notes.
A
MIDI file
or
MusicXML score
is
import-only
— Tablight never writes MIDI or MusicXML back out. Once it's in, you can change it (add or remove notes, or give the melody a tab) and save the result as a Tablight file, which you can re-import whenever you like.
▶︎
scroll
speed
3
✕
exit
◀︎
prev
next
▶︎
▲
string
▼
string
⇈
chord
⇊
chord
✕
exit