This is pretty cool. There’s a new website – SoundSlice.com, that has a really intuitive, yet powerful way to create guitar tabs for any video on youtube. All you need to do is sign up for a free account, search for a video on youtube, and then begin writing the tab, which is synched with the video.
The tab editor allows you to easily slow down and loop any portion to make transcribing easier. There can also be multiple tracks for each video, either by the same person, or multiple people can each have their own interpretation of the song, with tools for collaboration on the way.
There is a 10 minute tutorial video available on the SoundSlice sight that will teach you everything you need to know to start tabbing out videos. It’s also all web based so there is no installation. It will work with Chrome, Safari and Firefox, and apparently it’s not done with flash as it works on the iPad as well.
There are, however, still some limitations to what SoundSlice can do. Still being a work in progress, things like notations for pull-offs and hammer-ons aren’t available yet, neither is a way to show alternate tunings as well as other features. But these, as well as many other features are in the works.
SoundSlice is the work of two people, Adrian Holovaty and PJ Macklin, who want to make tablature more useful and fun. Here’s there manifesto:
The Soundslice manifesto
- Sheet music/tablature on its own can only get you so far. The best way to learn music is to listen to the original recording.
- “Kids these days” look to YouTube videos to learn all sorts of stuff. Let’s take advantage of that.
- Once somebody transcribes a song, nobody should ever have to do that work again.
- “Transcribing” has the connotation of being a geeky, intense, isolated activity. Let’s change that.
This seems like a great way for all those guitarists with lessons on youtube to enhance their videos greatly. My only concern is the copyright issues that have caused problems for some other tab sites. Otherwise, I’d love to see this catch on as the new way everyone does tab.
