Tabs with No Ads

December 13, 2008 8:35 PM

What are your favourite non-general guitar tab/chord sites?

I'm tired of the inaccuracy of fretplay, ultimate-guitar, and all of that other shit out there that litters every google search and usually leads to:

1. the tab you're looking for, but completely off the mark in transcription
2. the tab, albeit incomplete and hidden underneath a blanket of ads
3. some video of a guy teaching you how to play a james blunt song

etc, etc.

For example, www.dylanchords.info offers excellent transcriptions of almost every Bob Dylan song. Anyone know of any other resources like this? I'm specifically looking for a Rolling Stones one, or any blues/folk for that matter. But any site that's not 911tabs, or any of those other sites, is welcome, be it classical, spanish, or what have you.

posted by ageispolis to media & arts (17 answers total)

PJ's Guitar Chords is very good, he works them all out himself, horrible site to navigate though.

I've always had good results for the rated ultimate-guitar tabs. You can, if you look around hard enough find a bundled collection of Guitar Pro tabs, they're usually very accurate, and Guitar Pro is a great program by itself.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:54 PM on December 13, 2008

Here's a seemingly good Guitar Pro library.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:55 PM on December 13, 2008

I feel your pain. I have the same issues when looking for tabs. I've found chordie.com to be a decent general tab site as well as guitarmasta.net (some ads but not too obnoxious)

For specific bands/artists:

grateful dead: rukind.com
neil young: hyperrust.org
sublime: sublime spot
phish: emils tabs

I look forward to the other responses!
posted by premortem at 9:01 PM on December 13, 2008

Dude, been there, have the DVD and the t-shirt. More often than not, I've had the urge to punch my monitor when trying to decipher someone's half-assed tab. On the other hand, the fact that I know its wrong is a good sign.

Anyhow, that frustration led me to AskMe and this software called Transcribe. It slows down a particular passage of music to point of being able to pick it up yourself without having to rely on other people's shitty transcriptions. Its a time-based trial (30 days) but well worth the hours of headaches in sorting through inaccurate tabs.

I understand that my suggestion sort of flies in the face of what you're requesting but thought it may be worth consideration for you.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:48 PM on December 13, 2008

Lovebolts is my source for Bowie tabs. They've got Springsteen and billy Joel too.

BrokenBricks for the White Stripes.

Indieguiartabs for Decemberists, Shins, Andrew Bird and such.

I really like the way the Heartwood guy writes out his tabs. He's got a little of everything.
posted by magikker at 10:03 PM on December 13, 2008

I was about to suggest cohenchords.com as a great site for Leonard Cohen songs, but it looks like the site is gone. A search reveals that it disappeared last month and that a kind soul has mirrored it.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:50 PM on December 13, 2008

Chordie aggregates the results of many sites, and has none of the obnoxous advertising and pop-ups that chord sites normally have. It also has a built-in transposition dealie.
posted by interrobang at 10:56 PM on December 13, 2008

Gordon Lightfoot Chords, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Chords, Elliott Smith Tabs, Jeff Fahey Tabs, Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt Chords, Palace/Will Oldham Chords in French, The Magnetic Fields/Ass't Stephin Merritt Chords, The Band Chords, and, uh, Bee Gees Chords.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:31 PM on December 13, 2008

Been there, done that. Most of the ultimate-guitar type tabs are horribly wrong. Most of the guitar pro tabs are horribly wrong. Even most of the fan sites are horribly wrong.

I end up using Sheet Music Direct a lot - they have lots of tabs from books for 99 cents. Many of them are horribly wrong too, but more in a "wrong fret position for that chord" way than a "I'm not sure if these chords even go with this song" way.

Seconding Kevin's mention of Transcribe software - I paid for the full version and it's very useful. I've worked out a couple of solos with it despite a lack of good tablature.
posted by mmoncur at 12:19 AM on December 14, 2008

Say what you will about their post-90s output, Weezer's website has an excellent tabs section.
posted by Benjy at 6:47 AM on December 14, 2008

I've had good luck with video lessons from youtube. I think people that post a video of themselves put more effort into it than people who upload a tab. Getting the timing right is a lot easier when you see them play. And best of all, you can listen to their rendition of the song before attempting it so you know if it's crap.
posted by valadil at 9:00 AM on December 14, 2008

Video Game Jams has a lot of accurate tabs of video game music.
posted by ignignokt at 10:49 AM on December 14, 2008

I like www.songsterr.com. Not every tab is great, but I like being able to instantly listen to the tab to see if I like how its been transcribed.
posted by verevi at 1:37 PM on December 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

I like Chordie, but just for sheer guitar wankery, you've got to check out the Sonic Youth archive (hosted on their official website) which includes all their crazy tunings and notes on how to get those noises out of your guitar.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:05 PM on December 14, 2008

Roy Harper
Surprisingly playable classical tabs
posted by primer_dimer at 7:10 AM on December 15, 2008

I love this random site: Gunther Anderson has a bunch of tabs up.

Some are not quite right, in my opinion, but on the whole it's a good resource.
posted by frecklefaerie at 9:57 AM on December 18, 2008

Widespread Panic: Everyday Companion
posted by premortem at 8:47 PM on January 7, 2009