Editing

OxiGuitar is becoming an editor. This page grows with it: today you can move around the score, select, enter and change notes, change bars, copy and paste, add and change tracks (Tracks and notation), transpose, add effects, chords, text and lyrics, set the score’s information, undo, and find the bars that don’t add up.

The caret

A box over the page shows where the next edit goes: a beat of one voice, and on the tablature the string, framed. Click anywhere in the music to put it there, or move it with the keys, as in Guitar Pro:

When a voice is shorter than its bar, the caret has one more place after its last beat: typing there adds a beat. Click past a short voice’s last note to go there.

The page scrolls to keep the caret in view. Only the caret’s voice is drawn in full ink; the other voices are greyed, so you see which notes you are editing (a PDF prints them all in black). The palette’s voice buttons, 1 to 4 at its top, show which voice the caret is in. A click on a track’s name in the Tracks tab selects that track and moves the caret to it; the selected track’s name is highlighted.

Selecting

Hold Shift with the arrows, Home or End, or Shift + click, to select from where the caret was. Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right selects bar by bar. Within one voice of one staff a selection is a run of beats; once it reaches another track it takes whole bars of every track in between. Ctrl + A (Edit → Select All) selects everything, and Escape drops the selection.

Entering notes

Type at the caret, with Guitar Pro 8’s keys:

On the standard staff, click a line or a space: the caret marks it, and Up / Down move it a step at a time. Enter puts a note there, in the bar’s key (on a line or space the key signature sharpens, the note is sharp); on a guitar it goes on the string where its fret is lowest, nearest the caret’s string, and the caret moves to that string. A semitone up or down with Alt + Shift + Up / Down gives the notes the key leaves out. Clicking the tablature, or Tab, takes the caret back to the strings.

The Edit menu has the same commands and a few more: Insert Beat, Delete Beats, Clear Beats, Clear Bar, Move Beat Left / Right (it swaps places with its neighbour in the bar), Move Beat to Voice (into a voice that has room at that moment: a rest of its length takes its place), and Remove Unused Voices (voices after the first that hold no notes, in every bar of the track).

File → New (Ctrl + N) starts a new score: one bar of 4/4 at 120 and a steel-string guitar in standard tuning. Pressing Right at its end adds a bar. Save asks where to put it the first time.

A beat added after a voice’s last beat is as long as the beat before it. Typing into a voice that the bar doesn’t have yet starts that voice. Note lengths, dots, semitones and deleting beats act on every selected beat when a run of beats is selected.

The palette’s Note group works too: the whole to sixty-fourth note buttons set the beat’s length, and Rest, Dotted Note, Double-Dotted Note and Tie do what their keys do. They light up to show the caret’s beat: its length, its dots, whether it is a rest, whether its note is tied.

A tied note always plays the fret of the note it continues: change that note and its ties follow. Notes of a drum track are drum sounds, not frets; entering them comes later.

Every change can be undone. After typing, the bars that don’t add up are checked again (see below).

Tuplets

/ (or the palette’s Triplet) makes the beat a triplet, three in the time of two, or takes it out of one; with a run of beats selected, all of them. Custom N-tuplet (in the palette, or Edit → Custom N-tuplet…) asks for any grouping, n notes in the time of m, with the usual m filled in as you change n: 5 to 7 in the time of 4, 9 to 15 in the time of 8, and 2, 4 and 8 in the time of 3, 3 and 6. A beat added after a tuplet’s last beat is in the same tuplet, so typing on fills it.

Bars

The bar commands work on the caret’s bar or, with a selection, on its bars.

The Bar dialog (also Edit → Bar… and the palette’s Clef, Key Signature, Time Signature, Rhythmic Interpretation, Alternate Endings and Directions) shows what the bar carries and changes any of it at once, as one change to undo:

• Time signature, key and feel change from this bar until the next bar that had another, as Guitar Pro changes them. A tempo change inside a bar stays at the same point of the bar when its time signature changes.
• Clef changes the caret’s track from this bar until its next clef. A guitar’s staff sounds an octave below the written notes, and it keeps doing so in any clef (its bass clef has the small 8 too). Drum tracks keep the drums’ clef.
• Tempo is the tempo from the start of the bar: in the first bar, the song’s tempo.
• Repeat: whether a repeat opens here, and whether one closes here and how many times it is played.
• Alternate endings 1 to 8, Section (a letter and a name; empty for none), Double bar line, Free time, and the Directions: segno, coda, fine and the jumps (D.C., D.S., “to coda” and the rest).

The palette’s Repeat Start, Repeat Close, Free Time and Double Bar Line switch those at once, and light up when the caret’s bar has them; Triplet lights up on a triplet beat.

Copy, cut and paste

OxiGuitar keeps its own clipboard: copying and pasting work inside OxiGuitar, not with other programs.

• Copy (Ctrl + C) copies the selected beats or, with nothing selected, the beat at the caret. A selection across tracks copies whole bars of each selected track, with what the bars carry (time and key signatures, repeats, sections, tempo changes).
• Cut (Ctrl + X) copies, then takes the beats out of their voice, or the bars out of every track.
• Paste (Ctrl + V) puts what was copied in at the caret, or at the start of the selection. Beats go into the caret’s voice before its beat; a bar that then holds more than its time signature is marked red. Bars go in before the caret’s bar, in every track: the tracks that were copied, from the caret’s track down, get their bars, and the others get empty bars.
• Special Paste (Ctrl + Shift + V) pastes several times, or replaces what is there instead of inserting. Beats then take the place of as much music as they last, and what they don’t cover of the last beat they replace stays as rests. Bars then take the place of the bars from the caret’s on, and bars are added at the end when needed.

Beats and bars paste into any track. Between a drum track and a pitched one only the rhythm carries over, as rests. Notes on strings the track hasn’t got are left out. Chord names go with their diagrams.

Edit → Go to Section lists the score’s sections and moves the caret to the one you choose.

Transposing

Transpose… moves notes up or down, by semitones or by steps of the key, which keeps the music in its key (C, D, E up a step in C major become D, E, F). There are three ways in:

• Right-click on the page → Transpose…, or Edit → Transpose Selection…: the selection, or the caret’s beat when nothing is selected. A right-click outside the selection first moves the caret there.
• Right-click on a track’s name → Transpose…: the whole track.
• Tools → Transpose…: every track, with the key signatures.

Up is a positive number, down a negative one. Keep the fingering keeps each note on its string and moves its fret; otherwise each note goes to the fret nearest the one it had, so a run stays where your hand is. Notes that no string can play any more are left out, after a question saying how many. Drum tracks are never transposed. Undo brings everything back.

Effects

Every effect of Guitar Pro’s tablature has a key and a tool in the palette’s Effects group. Pressed once, an effect goes on; pressed again, it comes off. A note effect goes on the note on the caret’s string, and does nothing if that string has no note in the beat; on a staff without strings it goes on every note of the beat. A beat effect goes on the caret’s beat. With a selection, both go on every note (or beat) selected, unless all of them have it already: then it comes off all of them. Rests take no effects. The tools light up when the caret’s note or beat has their effect.

Guitar Pro 8’s keys, and a few of our own for effects it gives none (the effect’s first letter, with at most one modifier):

Slides in from below and from above and out upwards, popping and the semi-harmonic have tools in the palette but no keys. A note slides in one way and out one way: another slide on the same side takes the place of the first. A note has one harmonic: another kind takes its place. A grace note is a thirty-second, as Guitar Pro writes them, and takes no time in the bar.

The palette’s dynamics, ppp to fff, set the dynamic of the caret’s beat, or of every selected beat (rests too), and its notes play at it. They have no keys. View → Dynamics shows them on the page.

Bends and the whammy bar

B (or the palette’s Bend) opens the bend editor for the note on the caret’s string; Ctrl + Alt + V (or Whammy Bar) opens it for the beat’s whammy bar. Pick a type (Bend, Bend and release, Release, Prebend, Prebend and bend, Prebend and release; for the whammy bar Dive, Dip, Return, Predive, Predive and dive) and a pitch from ¼ tone to 3 tones, or drag the curve’s points on the grid: time across the note in twelfths, pitch up the side in quarter tones. A press on an empty grid starts a bend at that pitch. The curve has an origin, a middle held at one pitch between two places, and a destination, which is the shape a .gp file holds. Enter applies it, Escape cancels, and “No bend” takes the bend away. With a selection, the curve goes on every selected note (or beat).

The Inspector’s note and beat

Under the caret’s bar, the Inspector shows the note on the caret’s string and its beat, and changes them. The tickboxes switch effects as their keys do (on a selection, on every selected note or beat). The drop-downs and numbers set what the keys only start at a default: the accent, how the note slides in and out, the harmonic and how far up an artificial or tapped harmonic sounds, the trill’s speed (sixteenths, thirty-seconds or sixty-fourths) and the fret it trills with, the fingers of the left and right hands, the dynamic, the speed of tremolo picking, grace notes, the brush and how long it takes, the pick stroke, and tapping, slapping or popping. Edit… beside the bend and the whammy bar opens their editor. On a rest only its dynamic shows. Each change is one step to undo.

A .gp file keeps trills in sixteenths only: saving a faster trill as .gp names it among what the file can’t hold. A .gp5 file keeps them at any of its speeds.

Chords, text and lyrics

A (or the palette’s Chord, or Edit → Chord…) opens the chord dialog for the caret’s beat. Build the chord: its root, its type (major, minor, augmented, diminished, suspended second or fourth, power chord), a sixth, seventh or extension (6, 6/9, 7, maj7, 9, maj9, 11, 13, add9), alterations (♭5, ♯5, ♭9, ♯9, ♯11, ♭13) and a bass note. The name follows (“C7(b9)/E”), and the list beside the diagram gives the ways to play it on the track’s strings, easiest first; click one to make it the diagram. Or click on the diagram: on the grid to place or take away a note, above a string to make it open (o) or not played (×), with First fret to move up the neck; the chord your notes make is named, as Guitar Pro suggests one. A name you type is kept as you typed it. The track’s chords picks one the track already has. Show the diagram off keeps the name alone. The first time, the diagram starts from the beat’s notes. On a rest, or after the voice’s last beat, a chord with a diagram puts its notes in the beat. Remove the chord takes it off the beat. The palette’s Chords opens the same dialog.

Shift + T (or the palette’s Text, or Edit → Text…) sets the text above the caret’s beat; empty takes it away.

Lyrics are typed on the page, as in MuseScore. Put the caret on a note and press Ctrl + T (or the palette’s Lyrics, or Edit → Type Lyrics): a small field opens under the beat. Type the syllable, then:

A syllable already there shows in the field, to change; an empty field leaves the note without one. Lyrics go on the notes of the track’s first voice, on its first staff; a tied note continues the syllable before it, and rests and grace notes get none. Every syllable is one step to undo.

Lyrics are kept as Guitar Pro keeps them, and a file’s lyrics follow its rules on the page: a space or a hyphen starts the next syllable, each further space or hyphen leaves a note empty, a plus joins two words on one note (“got+to”), and text in square brackets (“[Verse 2]”) is a note to yourself, not shown.

The Inspector shows the beat’s chord and text, with Edit… to change them.

The song’s information

The Song tab, beside the Inspector on the right, holds the score’s information, in Guitar Pro’s order: title, artist, subtitle, album, words, music, copyright, transcriber, notices and instructions. Type in a field; it is set when you press Enter or leave the field, as one step to undo. The title, subtitle and artist show at the top of the page and of a PDF.

Undo and redo

Edit → Undo (Ctrl + Z) and Edit → Redo (Ctrl + Y), or the arrows in the toolbar, undo and redo every change, as many times as you like. The menu names the change: “Undo Infer Key Signatures”.

Bars that don’t add up

The Inspector, on the right, shows the caret’s bar: its time signature, and for each voice how much it holds against it, as Guitar Pro 8 shows a bar, counted in the time signature’s own unit (quarter notes in 4/4, eighth notes in 6/8): “2/4” for two quarters in 2/4 (green), “1.5/4” for a dotted quarter (red), then Full, ½ beat short or 1 beat too long, and how many notes and rests were entered. The caret’s voice is highlighted, and the last line says on which beat the caret’s beat starts. It follows every move and every change, so it is the quickest way to see what a bar still needs while composing.

A bar whose beats are longer or shorter than its time signature is laid in translucent red on the page. Such bars are allowed (many files have a few), and the PDF export shows the music without the red. When a file has any, the line at the bottom of the window says how many and where the first is. Tools → Next Bar That Doesn’t Add Up (F4, as Guitar Pro’s “Check bar duration”) moves the caret to the next one in the tracks shown, going round to the start. A voice that holds nothing (Guitar Pro fills unused voices with empty beats) doesn’t count.