Audio (MP3/WAV) to Tablature Converter

[gtirard]

To each his own.

I've just started learn to play jazz walking bass, after playing only rock without theorical knowledge for more than 30 years (better late than never). I'm learning scales and arpeggios, I try to read sheet music and chord charts, and I transcribe some songs by myself because I know that I need to go through all this if I want to really understand harmony and upgrade my musical skills.

But sometimes I also play along these videos with tabs. Not only because it gives me a quick reward, but mostly because it lets me put under my fingers some good example of basslines that I'm not able to play otherwise yet. I gives me the motivation to continue learning the theory in parallel, and I'm sure all these learning techniques will eventually merge into better musical knowledge.

Music doesn't have to be hard necessarily, it can be fun. To each his own.

 

[toughluck]

Tab is an imperfect format, it's not like notation where there's at least a "correct" way to identify a note and it's placement. No software is going to tell you whether the performer played the G at the 5th fret or the 10th fret.

Counterpoint*: A tab made by the player will show the position without having to guess from the notation. If it's properly notated (with stems, flags or circled as needed), you don't even need a corresponding keyed staff to tell note lengths.

I know many competent guitar players who never learned musical notation so it would probably take them a while to learn. Meanwhile, if you already know how to play the guitar, tablatures are intuitive.

Of course, nothing beats a combined staff+tablature score for usefulness and educational value.

*) Pun oh-so-fully intended

 

[frankie5string]

Oh trust me, I could care less what some random troll has to say because they want to be a smart ass. It seems to be the thing to do with certain people on here.

You could care less? ;-) I think you mean you COULDN'T care less...
You can try something like Fadr. I've used it for a few things and it worked fine. It's more of a stems-divider, but will generate chords for you too.
Learn dots. Use AI to teach you dots.

 

[alecvbass]

I have a YouTube channel and a Patreon page where I do a variation of this, like so: Volumes - Bad Habit - Bass Tab Cover - Dingwall NG2 - Neural DSP Parallax

By far the fastest method i've found is to download the mp3 file with a spotify or youtube downloader, drop it into logic pro x and map the tempo, stem split the song so i can listen to the isolated bass, then going over each part, slowing down if need be and transcribing just the notes at first MIDI using the Umansky Bass or any other Submission Audio virtual instrument so I can hear what i wrote and add articulations and dynamics.

Personally i practice in logic because I can cycle any part and slow up down easily, but importing the MIDI and a bassless backing track in Guitar Pro is obviously superior since you can add more articulations and have specific fingerings.

I'm always keeping an eye out for ways to streamline and automate this process but so far I haven't had any luck - modern masters have so much compression that it's hard to hear some notes and most nuances even by trained ears listening to isolated tracks. Being such a niche thing right now I don't think we're going to have a specialized tool anytime soon.

 

[Tj smith]

Ultimate guitar works really well for me. They have a ton of tabs.

 

[Bassdirty]

Transcription is a skill, you can't automate it and there is certainly not some AI program that is going to listen to someone play and tell you where to put your fingers....

AGREED.

The only ways I imagine this working, is either AI "guesses" where you Should put your fingers, OR AI shows every OPTION on the neck for a given Note.
I'd love to see AI guess which fingers go where, as we've all seen AI generated Pics of Bass Players Fingers AND Basses (that go from 5 string on one end to 3 string on the other).


Seriously though, I didn't think was JonPDX's comment was 'elitist', he seemed to be pointing out why AI Tabs wouldn't be possible (or at least practical), as it doesn't know where you should (or the Original artist DID) put your fingers. BEST case is it does search for the actual song/artist. (Yet STILL MIXES it with EVERYTHING else it can find on the internet regarding that song/artist, true or false, as that's what AI does.

Just sayin.

 

[Brandon Shea]

Doesn't Songsterr claim they can do this now? I've never tried it because I've assumed that it'll get too much wrong.

Not quite tabs, but have you tried using an app like Moises to at least discover the chords? That might make it easier to improvise and figure out the rest by ear. Just my 2¢.

 

[markbmbass]

Music is hard. Sorry

Maybe you and the other guy could have a transcription party and talk about how hard everything is then. Sorry.

 

[markbmbass]

Doesn't Songsterr claim they can do this now? I've never tried it because I've assumed that it'll get too much wrong.

Not quite tabs, but have you tried using an app like Moises to at least discover the chords? That might make it easier to improvise and figure out the rest by ear. Just my 2¢.

Yes, I use Moises every single day. It's a great app.

My question really just initiated from saving myself as much time as possible because I have a very busy work life and very limited time to practice I'm always looking for ways to maximize that and accomplish more when possible in a shorter period of time

Skill and technique obviously takes
time, but ultimately was just looking for a way to speed up certain parts of the process for learning sets.

 

[Cerio]

Currently there's no tool that can do that job well without human assistance.
There are, however, tools that can help to speed up the process, I recommend trying Song Master Pro, or, even better, Song Master Pro + Prism:

 

[HotelX]

Back to the original request

I use Logic Pro: not fully automated, but you can convert the track to midi and then display it as a tablature, all in Logic.

If you don't expect perfect results "out of the box", it should give you a very good starting point for "exotic songs" for which you cannot find an already made bass-tab video on the tube.

My 0.02$

This is what I do. Definitely not perfect but it can put you in the ballpark

 

[Brandon Shea]

To each his own.

I've just started learn to play jazz walking bass, after playing only rock without theorical knowledge for more than 30 years (better late than never). I'm learning scales and arpeggios, I try to read sheet music and chord charts, and I transcribe some songs by myself because I know that I need to go through all this if I want to really understand harmony and upgrade my musical skills.

But sometimes I also play along these videos with tabs. Not only because it gives me a quick reward, but mostly because it lets me put under my fingers some good example of basslines that I'm not able to play otherwise yet. I gives me the motivation to continue learning the theory in parallel, and I'm sure all these learning techniques will eventually merge into better musical knowledge.

Music doesn't have to be hard necessarily, it can be fun. To each his own.

I've been going down the same road for the past year or so, and it's been super rewarding. Better late than never for sure!

 

[Docduval]

So odd all this You have to transcribe yourself talk. We don't say this to classical players who want to learn Bach.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

I recommend trying Song Master Pro

I have Song Master Pro.
I can't even get a nice chord chart from an easy song.

 

[skycruiser]

It may need to be a 2 or 3 step process. You may more easily find software to go from an isolated bass track (using Moises for example) to standard notation. This is a 1 to 1 translation. If you have this in something like musescore, you can then generate a set of tabs from that standard notation. Now you may find these tabs difficult to play because it won't account for playing position. In fact it may just dump everything on the lowest frets possible or something like that. You would then need to play it and make adjustments to string assignments for each note to suite your playing inclinations.

 

[Cerio]

I have Song Master Pro.
I can't even get a nice chord chart from an easy song.

Strange, I usually just need between 10 to 15 minutes to get a nice chord chart of any song. Of course, the quality of the recognition depends enterely on the quality and the simplicity of the source material (forget most jazz recordings with complex chords and forget very old, low quality, recordings from the 60s), and like any other tool out there it still needs human ears and manual correction, but it's, by far the best software I know for that task, and for many other things. It's an absolute time saver, and an essential tool for my practice.

 

[Cerio]

BTW, Band in a Box 2026 also claims to be able to autmatically transcribe polyphonic audio to MIDI, I've tried that new feature, but unfortunately it doesn't work very well. The technology is still not there.

PG Music - Band-in-a-Box for Windows - New Features

www.pgmusic.com

 

[SteveCS]

So odd all this You have to transcribe yourself talk. We don't say this to classical players who want to learn Bach.

That's because it is already written down. You don't have to work the notes out which means you can 1) learn them right first time and 2) go back to the known good source if you forget them. Not the case for most other music. In all seriousness, empriical evidence backed up by neurological and psychological research demonstrates time and again that writing stuff out, when done with structure and with the right mindset, is the most effective way of getting things right, getting the right things into memory, keeping them there and getting them out all in one piece for a long time to come. YMMV.

 

[kleinenenten]

Doesn't Songsterr claim they can do this now? I've never tried it because I've assumed that it'll get too much wrong.

Came here to say this. Just a few minutes ago I was looking up tabs on Songsterr, and a few of them mentioned being created by AI with some disclaimer about them not having been edited yet (or something to that effect). What little of those songs I did listen to via tab seemed pretty darn accurate. And yesterday I learned a song off that same site - nothing was necessarily wrong, and I have no idea which position the original bassist is in to play the song, but it was 95% or more correct. There was really only a single mistake (repeated each time that part was played) - and that was easily corrected. Now, some of the fingerings were a bit odd, and I transcribed it to a tuning I already had a bass in, but overall, Songsterr was a great experience.

All that to say, clearly AI is capable of doing a decent job. I don't know what Songsterr uses, but it seems solid overall. Perhaps it's proprietary. Good luck on the search - I've been looking off and on for something like this for the better part of 20 years. Maybe the tech has finally caught up.

 

[gtirard]

I made a demo with Logic Audio "from mp3 to score and tabs" here:

Post in thread 'Automatic conversion from MP3 to sheet music: praise for Logic Audio'

Mar 13, 2026

Just a quick & dirty demo of how to go from a full band mix mp3 file to a bass score with tabs:

1. Import the song
2. Find the tempo
3. Stem Spliter
4. Show the audio bass isolated track
5. Show Flex
6. Select Flex Pitch
7. Edit -> Create Midi track from Flex Pitch data
8. Cleanup the track in the piano roll (*)
9. Show the score
10. Add bass tabs

Everything was recorded in real time, it only took me 3 minutes.
(*) In real life, step #8 may require much more time than what I did here

Edit: Let's be honnest, I choose "The Look" from Metronomy because it works...

• gtirard

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