TabToolkit – iPhone App Review

TabToolkit ($9.99)

Version – 1.0.1

REVIEW – “Learning to play music was never this easy!”

Have you ever wanted to learn to play a song but you had trouble figuring out what the guitarist is playing?  Well this app may very well be the solution you have been looking for!  From the developer of the extremely popular “GuitarToolkit” comes “TabToolkit.”  This app will not only archive all of your tablature, but also play it back to you if it is in Powertab or Guitar Pro format!

If you’re a guitarist chances are you are familiar the form of music called tablature.  It is one of the few universally understood methods of notating guitar music.  One of the biggest limitations of traditional all text tab is that the rhythms can be difficult to figure out unless you have a recording to listen to while you learn.  But thanks to this app it is now simple to not only carry around advanced tab notations such as Powertabs and Guitar Pro tabs, but play them back directly on your portable device!

One thing that I do want to make clear is that this app is a tablature viewer and downloader, and as such it is not designed to be used for editing.  While it was a little irritating to me at first, it did not take long for me to find out just how easy it was to surf the web and download tabs for almost any song that I wanted!

When you open up TabToolkit you are greeted with a list of all the tablatures that are currently loaded in your database.  Selecting any of these tabs will take you to either the playback screen or to a more full screen tab viewer if it is not in Powertab or Guitar Pro format.

At the bottom of the screen there are a couple of options for managing your tabs in the bottom left corner.  The button in the bottom left corner will sort your tabs either by name or by Author.  Right next to that button is a button that will turn on “edit” mode for removing tabs that you don’t want.  In the bottom right corner of the screen is a button used for adding new tabs to TabToolkit.

Once you touch the button in the bottom right corner you will find that there are two ways to add new tablature into this app.  The first way is to transfer the files directly from your computer.  This is done by typing the web address that you see on the “Upload Tabs” screen and use the simple browser interface.  The second way is to touch the “Download Tabs” button in the bottom right corner and then search for tabs in Google.

I was very impressed with how easy it was to find tablatures and download them by using the built in browser support for this.  All I had to do is search for the song I wanted and I was able to quickly find and download tablature.  I was even able to find Guitar Pro and PowerTab versions for many of the songs I was interested!

The most exciting thing about this program is its potential to improve in the future.  This is just the first release of TabToolkit and the developer
already has plans to add several new features which include: effects such as bends, slides and tremolo, bulk tab upload and support for “looping” within tabs.

The places where this app really shine are in ease of use and utility.  While I could name dozens and dozens of apps that are a lot of fun, or creative, the list of apps that are truly useful is much shorter.  If you are a guitarist, this is an app that you will definitely want to have.  And for just $9.99 it won’t break your bank either.  So what are you waiting for, go and check out TabToolkit today!

- David H.

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Developer – Agile Partners

URL: http://agilepartners.com/apps/tabtoolkit/

DEVELOPERS NOTES

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© 2009, Davidh. All rights reserved.