[Harp-L] Seydel TabTool - usefull tool or just another tab editor

[Bernhard Lehnert <b.lehnert@xxxxxx>]

Hi to everyone at Harp-L,

I have written a computer program for everyone concerned with harp tabs
which I would like to introduce to you and about which I would like to
hear your comments (after all I will have do decide whether it's worth
putting even more work into it or not).

Bertram Becher of Seydel's obviously thinks that it is worthwile and not
only offered webspace for download but also attached his company's name
to it: It is now called the "Seydel TabTool".

For those who don't want to read more, please take 5 minutes for this
youtube video, for the others more detailed description follows:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prwGxPSkT28

The program is mostly a converter for tabs that has grown to be more
versatile than it was originally planned. 

Like many beginners I started with tabs and when I got interested in
alternate tunings I came to believe, that those would be far more
popular amongst beginners if only there were tabs for them. The TabTool
was first meant to convert harp tabs for alternate tunings. It is now
very good at it and you can make tabs for a number of different tunings
and you can (almost) easily add your own harp layout.

Than I had to deal with constellations like: Input G-Harp, Output
C-Chromatic - this lead to a not totally simple but powerfull
transposition feature. You can change keys on tab level easily. This
lead to a feature which helps translating tabs to any of the twelve
positions. It is also a nice way to find out, whether a certain tune can
be played on a Richter harp without overblowing.

I am most proud of the fact that the TabTool accepts so many different
ways in which people write their tabs (you can never be complete on
that, just think that "3b" can mean "3blow" or "3bend"). Even song texts
in the middle of the tabs are no problem. So you can just copy tabs with
texts and most of the time it is valid input to the TabTool.

Bertram missed the arrows in the tabs and so support was added for
different kinds of tab fonts. The Tabtool can convert it's own output
for use with SuperTab (NHL) fonts and the CASS harmonica tab font, which
is also a free true type font for harmonica tabs.

I am aware that there are a lot of pros on this list who do not use tabs
that much, but I guess that some of you teach playing as well and that
your students may use tabs.

Sorry for the long post. I am obviously excited about my own work and
may very well be to enthusiastic. The more important it is to me whether
other people think that this is a usefull tool, whether you think,
important features are missing and whether you would recommend it to
your students or not or whether you think that availability of tabs for
alternate tunings could have an effect on their usage.

Thanks for your patience,
Bernhard