Guitar Pro 8: The Guitar Tab Maker for Beginners and Pros Alike
Turn your musical ideas into professional guitar tablatures with the world’s leading tab maker software.
Write Guitar Tabs with Precision and Professional Quality
Unlike handwritten tabs or basic text editors, Guitar Pro 8’s tab editor gives you dedicated tools for every aspect of the tab-writing process. Add specific guitar techniques like bends, vibratos, slides, palm muting, and let ring with simple clicks. Include chord diagrams, scale charts, and fingering indications to create comprehensive tabs that capture every nuance of your playing.
Multi-Track Composition for Complete Musical Arrangements
Professional guitar tab creation often involves more than just the guitar part. Guitar Pro 8 allows you to write tabs for multiple instruments simultaneously: guitar, bass, drums, piano, and over 200 other instruments. Compose complete band arrangements, backing tracks, or solo pieces with full orchestration, all while maintaining perfect synchronization between parts.
Realistic Audio Playback and Sound Customization
Every tab you write comes to life with Guitar Pro 8’s high-quality audio rendering. Fine-tune each note’s duration and velocity for realistic playback that matches your playing style. The integrated mixer lets you adjust individual instrument levels, while the dedicated drum mixer provides detailed control over percussion elements. Use the Focus/Unfocus feature to isolate specific tracks during complex arrangements.
Enjoy Advanced Tab Writing Tools for Lightning-Fast Results
Guitar Pro 8’s guitar tab software eliminates the frustration of traditional tab writing methods. The intuitive editor supports instruments from 3 to 10 strings, accommodating standard guitars, extended-range instruments, bass guitars, ukuleles, and banjos within the same interface.
The command palette improves your workflow efficiency by providing instant access to any feature through searchable commands. Whether you need to add a specific technique, insert a chord diagram, or modify note properties, the command palette reduces editing time from minutes to seconds.
Flexible note entry accommodates different working styles. Use your keyboard, mouse, or MIDI controller for real-time input. The “Play while editing” function provides immediate audio feedback, helping you verify accuracy without interrupting your creative flow.
Guitar Pro 8’s technique notation covers the full range of guitar playing effects. Add hammer-ons, pull-offs, string bending with precise pitch indication, vibrato with customizable intensity, slides between any frets, palm muting, natural and artificial harmonics, tapping notation, and pick direction indicators. All seamlessly integrated with both standard notation and tablature.
Add Professional Design and Customization Options to your Tabs
Creating professional guitar tabs requires more than just accurate notation – presentation matters, too! Guitar Pro 8’s enhanced design mode provides detailed control over your tab’s visual appearance. The extensive stylesheet system lets you customize staff sizes, system layouts, headers, diagram positioning, text fonts, and notation symbol styles.
Set custom stylesheets for different projects, adjust global score proportions for optimal printing, and create professionally formatted sheet music that rivals published tablature books. Improved export capabilities include transparent background options for image exports and high-quality PDFs for sharing or printing.
Organization tools help manage complex projects efficiently. Group multiple empty bars together for cleaner presentation, use repeat symbols to save space and improve readability, add text annotations anywhere in your score, and utilize specialized tools for lyrics integration. Song section indicators help organize your tabs into verses, choruses, bridges, and solos.
A Wide Range of Import/Export Options to Share Your Work
Guitar Pro 8 acts as your central hub for guitar tab creation, thanks to its extensive file format support. Import tabs from Guitar Pro formats (.gp, .gpx), PowerTab, MIDI files, ASCII tabs, TablEdit, and MusicXML. This compatibility lets you work with tabs from nearly any source and collaborate with musicians using other software.
Export flexibility matches import capabilities, letting you share your tabs in multiple formats. Save as Guitar Pro files for other Guitar Pro users, export to PowerTab for compatibility with that software, generate MIDI files for use in DAWs, create ASCII tabs for easy text sharing, or produce professional PDFs for printing and distribution.
Audio export turns your written tabs into playable recordings. Export complete arrangements as MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, or AIFF – perfect for creating demos of your compositions or providing audio references for other musicians learning your tabs.
The widespread adoption of Guitar Pro file formats in the guitar community makes sharing effortless. Your tabs can be easily shared through online tab communities, sent to bandmates, or submitted to publishers for commercial release.
Additional Features to Enhance Your Tab Creation Workflow:
- Audio Track Integration: Import audio recordings of your ideas and sync them with your tabs for real-time reference during composition.
- Chord and Scale Libraries: Access a comprehensive library of chord diagrams and scale patterns to enhance your tab writing. Thousands of chords and scales available!
- Piano Notation Support: Add piano parts with fingerings and sustain pedal markings for complete arrangements.
- Nested Tuplets: Write complex rhythmic patterns with advanced tuplet notation capabilities.
- Speed Trainer Integration: Play your tabs at various tempos to ensure playability and accuracy.
I use Guitar Pro every day. Many bands I worked with had scores of their solos in Guitar Pro format, and I noticed that more and more people were using this software, but I didn’t know how this software could be useful to me.
When I created my Youtube channel, I needed a software to transcribe my scores. I discovered that Guitar Pro is a great software for guitar, but also for many other instruments.
Since my Youtube channel is not limited to guitar, Guitar Pro offers me everything I need, and that’s why I use it every day.
With Guitar Pro I can edit a score in 5 minutes.
– Rick Beato
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Guitar Pro 8’s guitar tab maker supports instruments with 3 to 10 strings and offers unlimited custom tuning options. Whether you’re writing for 7-string guitars, 8-string extended-range instruments, or alternative tunings like Drop D or Open G, the software automatically adjusts the tablature display and fret calculations for you.
Unlike basic text editors or simple online tools, Guitar Pro 8 offers professional-grade features including realistic audio playback, technique notation, chord diagram integration, multi-instrument support, and publication-quality formatting. Your tabs will sound as good as they look!
Your Guitar Pro 8 license allows installation on up to 5 different computers, making it easy to work on your tab creation projects whether you’re at home, in the studio, or collaborating with other musicians.
Guitar Pro 8 is the leading guitar tab editor on the market, combining decades of development expertise with modern interface design and a comprehensive feature set. Unlike static tablature methods or limited online tools, this professional solution adapts to every aspect of your creative process, from capturing your first idea to producing publication-ready scores.
Whether you’re a songwriter capturing original compositions, a guitar teacher creating educational materials, a transcriber working with complex arrangements, or an amateur musician keeping track of your favorite riffs and songs, Guitar Pro 8 gives you the tools for professional-quality results.
Its seamless integration of composition, arrangement, and educational features makes it more than just a tab maker: it’s a complete musical workspace that grows with your skills and ambitions.
Explore our related solutions, including our music transcription software or our drum notation editor, to discover how Guitar Pro 8 can support every aspect of your musical journey.
With over 15 million downloads worldwide since 1997, Guitar Pro remains the trusted choice for musicians who demand the best guitar tab editor available.