ABassC
Norman Schmidt's online ABC converter.
(submitted on January 21st 2005 by Kerri Brown)
ABC Convert-A-Matic
An online tool to convert ABC into sheet music and mid files. Very good!
(submitted on April 14th 2002 by glauber)
ABC help
Here's a link for ABC help. There is a link here for Chris Walshaw but it is no longer active.
This is a really easy to follow guide for abc's
(submitted on October 20th 2008 by bogman)
Abc Navigator
Freeware program with great features and doesn't appear to have any problems associated with Windows XP OS.
On my sound card the playback of tunes is the best I have come across so far - button accordion sound.
- Multiple files can be simultaneously opened
- Select/Copy/Paste/move/edit tunes
- Keys and Rythmes filters
- Abc editor with Syntax Highlighting
- Fast sheet music / staff notation Viewer
- Play tunes through your sound card
- Save tune as a Midi File
- Sets playlist support
- Print tunes functions
(submitted on February 25th 2005 by Donough)
ABC Transposer
This is a handy little program made by jensis of the session. He posted the link in a discussion recently, but I didn't want to see it fall back into the archives, so I posted it here. Very handy for transposing abc. Thanks jensis!
(submitted on June 22nd 2004 by Max Becher)
ABC Tune Search
A smart ABC pattern matching website, which does some intelligent, fuzzy search matching on input snippets of ABC. Input a snippet or phrase from any part of a tune, select the tune type, and watch it find the tune you're looking for!
(submitted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend)
ABC2WIN
All-in-one shareware package for Windows, by Jim Vint, which displays, prints and plays abc notation tunes. Caused an explosion in abc popularity when released in 1995.
(submitted on June 5th 2001 by Jeremy)
Abc4mac Home Page
Wil Macaulay has written some ABC software for the mac.
As well as abc4mac for OS 9 which converts abc tunes into postscript and midi files, he has written an application called Skink for OS X which is a handy way of editing and playing back abc tunes.
Unfortunately, Skink doesn't allow the exporting of postscript and midi files that abc4mac does.
(submitted on August 18th 2002 by Jeremy)
Abcedit - Joop Coolegem
[Freeware] Abc application - text editor, music display, midi playback.
Converts abc files to pdf & can be printed with Adobe.
Freeware.
(submitted on November 8th 2006 by Tonya)
AbcMus 2.0
The new version of AbcMus can play tunes with a definable "style", search (including music search and "loose match"), automatically set chords.
(submitted on March 3rd 2003 by hnorbeck)
Abcnotation.com
The home of abc notation
(submitted on August 16th 2009 by cwalshaw)
Abctool
Here's a nifty little python script for doing all sorts of things with abc files: transposing, pdf/midi output, even translation to Danish/German. Works great on non-windows (i.e. Linux)
(submitted on February 16th 2010 by RonanOD)
Audacity
Not for abc, but an excellent Open Souce (read: legally free) sound processing program.
In addition to numerous sound effects processing capabilities and the ability to cut-and-paste sound clips, it can slow down any MP3 file by pretty much any amount you want without losing pitch.
(submitted on March 8th 2004 by KeepFiddlin')
Audio Converter
A free and well-featured utility for converting between most audio formats. It is from http://www.softwarepile.com/ who also provide a respectable number of other free software utilities.
(submitted on June 26th 2007 by lazyhound)
BarFly
A shareware integrated ABC editor/player/viewer for the Macintosh - now also available in Carbon for OS X.
(submitted on June 5th 2001 by Jeremy)
Chris Walshaw - ABC
Current site of abc musical notational language.
Chris Walshaw last updated - 1st July, 2006.
Lists & links of abc software & tune collections.
Formerly at www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/
(submitted on November 8th 2006 by Tonya)
Fiddletabs
A resource for beginning fiddle players who have difficulty reading either sheet music or the standard abc text format which a lot of tunes are written. The software will translate either abc into a tabulated format which is easy for a fiddle player to understand. This fiddle tab format is originally reputed to have been used by the County Kerry Sliabh Luachra fiddle player Padraig O'Keeffe to teach his students early in the last century. Let's bring this tradition forward to the 21st century!
(submitted on August 7th 2005 by RonanOD)
Five Line Skink homepage
New home page for Five Line Skink - an abc editor/player/and music notation display. Written in Java, it runs on Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows. Free (as in beer) - donations gratefully accepted.
(submitted on January 27th 2005 by wil macaulay)
John Chambers' ABC Page
This isn't exactly software, but a very useful tool for seeing how your ABC tunes will look and sound in various formats (gif, midi, etc.). There's also a searchable tune collection.
(submitted on June 10th 2001 by Jeremy)
Media Convert
Seems to convert every conceivable digital format. All you have to do is upload a file to the website. No need to install software! Free as well.
(submitted on April 5th 2007 by RonanOD)
Melody Assistant
If you want a program that takes in abc files amongst many others, displays them, plays them and prints them but can also be used to edit or write the music from scratch then Melody Assistant does this. It also produces tab for string instruments and harmonica. If you want accordion tab then the upmarket Harmony Assistant is what you want. They are available as downloads in trial versions with no time limit, when you pay you can save files. Melody Assistant is $20 but free for the trial version, well worth a look.
(submitted on January 1st 2005 by Lurcherjohn)
Minimerge
Useful text merging utility which you can use for merging and sorting ABC files to create compilations. After merging, amend the X: numbering and put in a return between each tune - Fendweller
(submitted on July 26th 2005 by RichardB)
Mozart
This is a superbly easy piece of software that even children can use to compose, transpose and print music.This website allows you to try the software out before you buy it.Well worth a look.
(submitted on August 15th 2002 by lwood)
Muse
Muse is shareware for Windows platforms that will not only turn ABC into sheet music, but lets you "drag and drop" musical symbols from a menu onto a staff and then let you save the resulting sheet music as ABC and/or a midi file. It will also write tablature for guitar, banjo, mandolin and other instruments based on your sheet music, and will even let you set up a custom tuning for the guitar tab! A great buy at $40.
(submitted on September 4th 2001 by JeffK627)
MusEdit
MusEdit is a powerful yet inexpensive music notation editor (only $79, compared to $200-$800 for other similar software). Use MusEdit to write standard treble and bass music notation, tab notation for 2 - 8 string instruments in any tuning (including bass), rhythm notation, lyrics in any font, and to draw chord diagrams -either from a chord dictionary or by creating your own. You can also use MusEdit to translate standard music notation to tab, or vice versa; transpose; play your music as sound; print beautiful looking scores, and more... Plus, MusEdit comes with a printed, well illustrated, 284 page manual
(submitted on December 15th 2004 by mikk)
Reed Kolter Music, Inc.
This site doesn't directly pertain to ABC software. It is rather a link to a site regarding software that can "transcribe" audio files in terms of speed and key. In other words, you can use this software to slow tunes down so you can learn them and study phrasing in more depth. A helpful tool particularly for beginning and intermediate players. Not too pricey either.
(submitted on September 4th 2001 by Brendan)
Roni Music
Not exactly for ABC's, but an essential tool for slowing down a tune that is being played at supersonic speed. Reasonably priced and available for PC and Mac.
(submitted on October 11th 2002 by Caoimghgin)
SlowGold
Like the link for Reed Kotler this site has software that lets you slow tunes down. There is also a free demo available for downloading
(submitted on May 11th 2002 by donnchad)
Software Swing Metronome With Jig Rhythms
This metronome can play rhythms with swing including jig rhythm timings. Also has lilt bars as in traditional music, gradual tempo changes, and other features of interest to traditional music players. The drum stick and conductor visuals help you hit the beat exactly and stay in time. No abc at present but have plans to add ability to play the tunes as well in the future.
(submitted on September 23rd 2009 by robertinventor)
SUPER ©
Freeware and well-featured utility for converting between most video formats. It can be downloaded from http://www.eRightSoft.com. It is powerful and works well, but doesn’t use a full GUI interface, therefore requiring just that little more thought in its use.
It is recommended NOT to download this software from any source other than eRightSoft.com because of the real danger that malware could be downloaded as well from such other source.
(submitted on June 26th 2007 by lazyhound)
Switch - sound file conversion software
Switch sound file conversion software is an audio file format converter for windows. It can convert audio files from many different file formats into mp3 or wav files, including wav to mp3, au to mp3, aiff to mp3 and much more.
(submitted on January 16th 2006 by Just a person)
TablEdit
Good simple Program that creates Tab for all fretted instruments as well as flute, tin-whistle, harmonica, etc.
(submitted on December 10th 2001 by Brad Maloney)
The ABC Home Page
Probably the most authorative and comprehensive site on the ABC format on the web. Loads of info and links.
(submitted on June 5th 2001 by Jeremy)
The ABCTools And ABCFind Home Page
Two Windows programs. The first lets you transpose ABC tunes, make cheat sheets, check the syntax of your tune files.
The second lets you search ABC tune files for text or tune fragments.
(submitted on June 5th 2001 by Jeremy)
Tunepal for iPhone/Android
The amazing traditional music search engine is now available for iPhones and Android Phones!
Tunepal was listed in the top twenty cultural apps for iPhone by the Sunday Times (28 March 2010) and also featured in the Irish Times (16 July, 2010) and the Irish Daily Mail(17 July, 2010.)
Ever sat in a trad session and wondered what was the name of that great tune someone just played? Well now you can search a database of over 13,000 tunes from your Android phone BY PLAYING!
Just hold your Android phone up to a melody instrument such as the tin-whistle, flute, concertina, uilleann pipes, accordion or banjo, hit record and the melody will be extracted and submitted to the tunepal.org search engine for matching.
Matching tunes are downloaded to your phone, where you can view the ABC, the stave, email the tune to yourself, post it to facebook or play it back using the high quality playback engine based on ABC2MIDI.
Tunepal can search tune collections from thesession,org, Henrik Norbeck, O'Neills 1001, Nigel Gatherer and five volumes of Ceol Rince na hÉireann.
(submitted on July 24th 2010 by skooter500)
Tunepal.org
tunepal.org is a query by playing search engine for trad tunes, with a database of over 11,000 tunes. Play a tune and it will tell you the name
(submitted on February 2nd 2010 by skooter500)
www.musescore.org
Freeware / open source software for producing /editing 'high quality' music scores. Imports and exports midi, and music.xml files.
No direct support for importing ABC files, but there are plenty of options for converting these to /from midi.
(submitted on June 22nd 2009 by Col Arco)