tab2gp5 — ASCII TAB → Guitar Pro 5 (beta)

Beta status: This tool converts ASCII TAB files from (sometimes very old) archives into Guitar Pro 5 (.gp5). The focus is on robust parsing, adaptive quantisation and a correct GP5 structure (header → measure → track). It is intended as a starting point for further improvements.

Beware that's a helper, some adaptions of the text tab in cases where the score results in nonsens may help.

Core functions

• Reads ASCII TAB with typical header/comment lines and various TAB patterns (E|, |-, E|-, ...).
• Recognition of tab blocks (6 strings), bar lines |, vertical chords (multi-digit frets).
• Adaptive quantisation (e.g. 16→32→64) and optional fixed time signature via argument.
• First note in the bar: small lead-in distance is not interpreted as a rest.
• Error tolerance for implausible string/fret values (skipped instead of aborted).
• Export as .gp5 via pyguitarpro.

Note: Recognition/quantisation is heuristic and not yet perfect in all edge cases (beta).

Installation

# Prerequisite for GP5 export
pip install pyguitarpro

Call & Parameters

python txt2gp5.py INPUT.txt [OUTPUT.gp5] [options]

Options (excerpt):

• --title ‘Song title’ — Title in GP5.
• --author ‘Author/Artist’ — Artist/author in GP5.
• --tempo 120 — BPM (default 120).
• --tab-spacing 2 — Number of columns at the beginning of the bar that do not indicate a pause (lead-in).
• --bases 16,32,64 — Quantisation bases (for auto-resolution per bar).
• --fret-max 24 — Maximum fret number (error tolerance).
• --dry-run — show parsing & quantisation only (no GP5 writing).
• --meter N/D — fixed time signature for all bars (e.g. 3/4, 5/4, 6/8). The denominator is set internally as gp.models.Duration(D).

Examples:

# 1) Standard-Export with title/author
python txt2gp5.py test/take_five.txt out.gp5   --title "Take Five (Archiv)" --author "Archiv" --tempo 170 --tab-spacing 2

# 2) Fixed meter (i.e. 5/4 für Take Five)
python txt2gp5.py test/take_five.txt out.gp5 --meter 5/4

# 3) Only testing (no GP5), quantization and tmeasure borders
python txt2gp5.py test/andere_datei.txt --dry-run --bases 16,32

Tests & Quality

• Entire ClassLab library scanned: > 2,000 files were processed; < 20 errors occurred (e.g. exotic encoding/format).
• Random samples checked in TuxGuitar: selected converted files were opened in TuxGuitar and played back as audio samples — timing and metronome are plausible in these examples.
• Known limitations: Free-form TABs without clear bars/sticks, mixed formats or manually ‘shifted’ numbers can override the heuristics (beta).

Examples (folder test/ in the repo)

The repo tab2gp5 contains sample material under test/:

• 2× TAB (*.txt) and the generated gp5 files

Brahms

Buxtehude

Brubeck

Notes on usage

• For drop D or alternative tunings, there are detection/heuristics (e.g. D| as the lowest string). If necessary, set the desired tuning in the code.

• For very uneven column spacing in the bar, --tab-spacing and --bases or --meter (fixed time signature) help.

• Check the beginning of the tab and adapt it if necessary.

• Sometimes parsing is disturbed by uncommon pattern, if so, visual cleaning the text tab may help a lot ...

Roadmap / Contributions welcome

• Extended symbols (hammer-ons/pull-offs, slides, palm mutes, etc.).

This tool is in beta and intended as a starting point. Pull requests, issues and test data are welcome!

Experiences

• Several runs on my private copy of the classtab archive. 3040 files written, 40 fails.
  • quality depends on the written TAB notation
  • sometimes additional text/chars can lead to wrong recognized tab lines => if eliminated out of the ascii tab file can normally be parsed
  • good results were achieved for example with:
    • Mozart: Kleine Nachtmusik
• Did some trials on ultimate guitar tabs. experiences are similiar.

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© 2025 – tab2gp5 (ASCII TAB → GP5)