Introducing Soundslice: Invaluable New Collaborative Learning Tool For Guitarists

Youtube and tab, combined, and open sourced   18-Nov-12

There are two decent, and free, resources for tuition online. You can either go to Youtube and watch a tuition video (or even just listen to the song and work it out for yourself), or you can find the tab of the song and work it out from that.

Of course with Skype, Google hangouts, and various tuition websites, there are further options, but Youtube and Tab are certainly the most accessible options.

A new website called Soundslice combines both of these methods, Youtube videos can be uploaded onto the site, and users can then upload tab to run alongside the video in realtime, which can also be played in halftime.

The tab system currently works in a similar way to a resource such as Ultimate Guitar, where a user uploads the tab for the specific song. But unlike Ultimate Guitar, Soundslice will only ever have one tab per song.

Two options are currently being considered: the first is a Wikipedia type model where tabs can be added to and edited by anybody, and a moderater will decide whether to keep the new changes or revert to the old ones; the second is a model where everybody will own their own data, but will receive pull requests for shares.

At the moment, an unpaid membership will get you access to Youtube videos with tabs running alongside in real time, but there are plans for a paid membership structure which would allow you to upload your own tracks (rather than doing it through Youtube embeds), and an improved 'slow-down' function.

The method for adding tabs is actually a revelation in its own right, seriously user-friendly for guitarists who might not be trained musicians. Drag the note onto the relevant string, and then simply choose the fret number. This puts Soundslice somewhere in between Guitar Pro and Ultimate Guitar on a scale of the complexity of the tab.

Go to the Soundslice website for a demo of how the software works, and watch this space, as we'll have a full review of the website coming soon.

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@sonicamped