Today we’ve improved our editor’s handling of tab with capos and shifted tunings. Editing is a bit more intuitive now, and we’ve fixed some bugs.

(A quick note: in this blog post, we’ll use the term “capo tracks” to mean tracks that either have a capo set or have an equally shifted tuning such as “Tune down 1 step.” And we assume you’ve left the default “Ignore capo in notation” option checked.)

Here’s what’s new:

Key signatures are independent

Previously, our editor assumed a global concert key signature and automatically set each track’s key signature according to its instrument transposition and/or capo. For capo tracks, this meant that the key signature was set automatically based on the capo position and concert-pitch key signature — which was confusing.

Now, you can set the key signature for capo tracks independently. This gives you the ability to set the key signature however makes the most sense given the capo position.

If you change the key signature for other (non-capo) tracks, your capo tracks’ key signature will not be affected. Non-capo tracks maintain a shared global key signature. (For example, if a slice has three tracks — flute, piano and capo guitar — changing the flute’s key signature will also change it for the piano, but not for the guitar.)

To edit the key signature for a capo track, just make sure a note within the track is selected, then use our editor’s “Change key signature” function.

Default key signatures are C

Previously, when you created a capo track, it wouldn’t necessarily have a C major key signature; its default key signature would be calculated from the slice’s global key signature transposed into your given capo. This was confusing!

Now, when you create a capo track, its key signature will be C major. From there, you can set it to whatever you want, without affecting other tracks.

(Note that this does not apply if you’ve unchecked “Ignore capo in notation.” In that case, the key signature will be the same as the other tracks in the slice.)

Bug fixes with note pitches

Previously, there were certain situations where we would use the wrong note spelling/pitch for given tablature data with a capo. This is now fixed.

If you have any slices with capo tracks and you notice the notes in the staff don’t correctly reflect the tab data, you can fix this by changing the track’s key signature to something else, then changing it to the original key signature. This will force our system to recalculate things correctly.

Bug fix with copy and paste

Previously, if you copied notes from a non-tab track to a capo track, the note pitches would sometimes be incorrectly calculated. This is now fixed.