[Music] Get some rocking MIDI music from Guitar Pro tabs

Handy guides on how to do things, written by users for users.

Moderators: GZDoom Developers, Raze Developers

Forum rules
Please don't start threads here asking for help. This forum is not for requesting guides, only for posting them. If you need help, the Editing forum is for you.
Post Reply
User avatar
Koto
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2013 9:12 pm
Graphics Processor: nVidia (Modern GZDoom)
Location: Southamerican sacrifice zone (Chile)

[Music] Get some rocking MIDI music from Guitar Pro tabs

Post by Koto »

Currently if we want to put music in our PWADs, we simply put our favorite music in formats like WAV or OGG mainly (as long as we have the corresponding permissions). But what if we want to put our favorite music in MIDI, and that song that sounds in your head is not available in that format.

It probably exists in a Guitar Pro tablature.

Maybe you're wondering what Guitar Pro is. Read this before you go on.

If you know Guitar Pro, for this tutorial I recommend the 5.2 version, because it offers better results when it comes to exporting to MIDI. If you do not have it, there is an open-source version of this software called "Tux Guitar". I don't know the results with MIDI exporting, at least in Windows.

For this tutorial we will use the following things:
-Guitar Pro 5.2 for Windows.
-A Software-compatible tab (GP3, GP4, GP5)
-A test PWAD.

Let's start then.

1. Looking for a tablature.

Obviously if you want a tablature you search for "Guitar Pro tabs" in Google, Bing, or wherever, you will find many sites to download them, but currently there is a website that is used to search the tablatures from sites dedicated to their storage. The site is 911tabs, and simply enter the name of the song or artist, and you will see if they have tablatures with its corresponding download link from the site that stores it.

You may know Ultimate Guitar which is the biggest tab download site, but if your tab isn't here, you can search in 911tabs.

For this exercise we will use a Black Sabbath tab.

Enter the name of the band you want to search and then, a list with the matches for your search will appear. For our case we click on the first result.

We will see all types of tablatures that exist for the band (guitar, bass, etc.) but we need tablatures for GP (Guitar Pro), so we will click on where it is in the image.

Image

Now we will look for a song to download, in this case it will be "Warpigs".

Image

As seen in the image, we will have visualization of the instruments that contains the tablature, if it has the corresponding amount of instruments, then it is the ideal tablature. Some have a voice channel but it only works like a humming in the tablature.

If we believe that it looks according to the original song, then we download it through the button at the bottom of the page.

Image

Note: We must have an eye with the format to download, the GPX and GP formats belong to version 6 and 7 respectively, so they cannot be opened with version 5.2, the problem with the recent versions of Guitar Pro is its desynchronization with tempo and other parameters when exporting to MIDI.

2. Open (and export to MIDI) the tablature.

Once we have downloaded our tablature, we open it in GP 5.2, and we will have something like this:

Image

NOTE: If you see them differently and want them to see like the picture, select the Multitrack and Horizontal modes in the screen menu.

As we can see in the channels of instruments in the lower left corner, the volume is somewhat low, it is advisable to upload them in order to normalize the MIDI if we want to put more. It is not nice to play a level with a low-volume MIDI and go to the next level with a MIDI sounding at its maximum, or vice versa.

If you wish, you can raise all the levels to the maximum, but in this case we will increase the original volumes proportionately remaining as follows.

Guitar 1 (11 → 16)
Guitar 2 (07 → 12)
Guitar 3 (07 → 12)
Bass (10 → 15)
Vocal (11 → 16)
Percussion (11 → 16)

Normally I usually mute the voice track (M), but in this case we will keep it. The same for the panning, you can change the values if you think it's necessary.

To complete this step, we will export the tablature in "File > Export > MIDI..."

Then opens the window that tells us where we will save the MIDI file. The default name is the same as the tablature, you can change it now or later once imported into the PWAD.

Image

This time we will save it to the desktop and keep the default name.

We add our song in our PWAD. We will put "d_runnin" to sound on level 01 of Doom II, and that's it.

You can download the test wad and note the results.
Attachments
MusTest.wad
(90.97 KiB) Downloaded 129 times
User avatar
UncleKitchener
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 04, 2017 5:39 pm

Re: [Music] Get some rocking MIDI music from Guitar Pro tabs

Post by UncleKitchener »

+1

The Guitar Pro library is pretty big and honestly, nothing really compares. Tab Pro tries, but that is mostly existing tabs or GP compositions, so GP still remains the reigning champion. Very few songs out there still in plain text for tabs and they can be easily converted into a GP project. Can both import and export to and from MIDI. Great for composition too.

Another great thing is having both general notation and tablature view on the app with MIDI-compatible GS channels, since most of the MIDI conversions are sound canvas/tone generator friendly. Can simply export into MIDI and straight up play it on my SC-55MkII or 88Pro, sometimes with slight tweaking.
Post Reply

Return to “Tutorials”