• TabTrax 3.0 is the first major new release this decade (sorry, i’ve been busy) and includes a virtual drum kit, left/right hand and foot notations, improved music notation and print quality and many other improvements.
• TabTrax 3.0 is now released and is available to customers. The feature set for 3.0 is largely complete.
• Version 3.1 will be available in August or September 2011 and will import and play multitrack midi files for drum, guitar, bass and keyboard and support multitrack score editing and playback.
• Version 3.2 will be available in by the end of 2011 and will included mp3 overlays on top of tracks and other cool features.
• Mac and iPad versions? oh who knows. I’d like to start that this year but it depends how fast I get the above list complete.

As always, upgrades are free for life for paid customers and I always support customers within 24 hours.

To find out more about TabTrax, see our tutorials or visit out many videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/2112design

A. TabTrax is a windows program for the creation, playback and printing of sheet music for drums. It is able to import plain text tab files and convert to standard drum music notation and midi.

Q. Who uses TabTrax?

A. TabTrax is primarily used by drummers as a tool for learning new song, grooves, fills and techniques. However, it can also be used by non drummers to create drum tracks for songs and music created in TabTrax can be exported to other programs using the midi export feature.

Q. What kind of drum tabs can TabTrax import? Is there a special format?

A. Tabtrax can import any drum tab found on the internet. If Tabtrax cannot import a tab, you can send it to me and I will find the problem and either fix it or let you know how to fix it.

Q. What version of windows does TabTrax run on?

A. I currently develop the program on Windows 7 but the current version 3 will run on XP and beyond. If you are still running and older OS, you can contact me for version 1.9.

Q. How do I add a rest or make a triplet?

A. Please see tutorials

Q. When will TabTrax support guitar and piano?

A. By the end of the year, please see ‘Road Map’ post above

Q. Can I run on more than one computer?

A. Yes, you can run on as many of your own personal computers as you like.

Q. How long will I get support and how do I get upgrades?

A. You will get support forever. To get an upgrade, please email me and include the registration key provided to you at purchase.

Q. What do I do if a tab will not import?

A. The main reason tabs do not import is Tabtrax cannot find a bar separatorlike | or :. If the tab has a non standard bar separator like ] or < or something like that, simply replace them all with |. The easiest way to do that is open with notepad or wordpad and use Ctrl+H for replace menu the change whatever you find for a bar separator to |.

If that doesn’t work, please email the tab to me and I will try fix it for you.

Historically, modern music notation was created for keyboard instruments like piano. Notation is displayed on 2 staffs (or staves), one with a treble cleffs for the right hand and one with a bass cleff for the left hand. Middle C (261.626Hz) which is roughly in the middle of the piano keyboard and is shown between the two staffs.

Guitar Music Notation

For guitar music, it is not necessary to show left and right hand staffs since your left and right hands have specific jobs, i.e. picking strings with your right and pressing on the fretboard with your left (unless you are left handed, or Eddie Van Halen). So it is usual to display guitar music on one staff only, using the treble cleff (or bass cleff for bass guitar). However, middle C (261.626Hz) on a guitar is roughly in the middle of the guitar note range, so displaying middle C int the standard position, i.e. below the treble cleff, would result in many notes being displayed below the staff lines, which would look ugly and inconvenient to read. .

For this reason, it is normal in guitar music to display middle C one octave higher than normal position, i.e. between the 3rd and 4th lines up on the treble cleff.

Also, because the guitar range does not comfortably fit on one staff, there is an added notation, 8va, which is used to show that a whole range of notes is played one octave higher or lower than drawn.

Drum Music Notation

Drums and other percussive instruments do not have notes. Therefor the position of the “note” on the staff line is somewhat arbitrary. Drum staff do not use cleffs, instead they show two vertical lines.By convention (in the U.S. and U.K), the snare drum will be displayed where the C note normally lives, the bass drum on the bottom line (E) and the cymbals on the top line (F).

Since drums are played with both hands and feet, the direction of the tail (up or down) is often used to indicate the hands or feet, hands being tails up and feet, tails down (but this is not always the case and in TabTrax it is configurable). In any case, drum music display is a little different to other instruments because the tails up notes and the tails down notes are often independent of each other. In piano music, there are 2 staves, one for right hand and one for left, in drum music there is only one stave so by convention, tails up notes are used for hands and tails down for feet and just like in piano music, they are independent of each other.

Please stay tune for more on this exciting subject when i have more time to write.