Find your harp key down the left and the position you’re playing in across the top — the cell is the key the song is in.
Song Key
Harp ↓
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
12th
G
G
D
A
E
B
C
A♭
A♭
E♭
B♭
F
C
D♭
A
A
E
B
F#
D♭
D
B♭
B♭
F
C
G
D
E♭
B
B
F#
D♭
A♭
E♭
E
C
C
G
D
A
E
F
D♭
D♭
A♭
E♭
B♭
F
F#
D
D
A
E
B
F#
G
E♭
E♭
B♭
F
C
G
A♭
E
E
B
F#
D♭
A♭
A
F
F
C
G
D
A
B♭
F#
F#
D♭
A♭
E♭
B♭
B
2nd position (cross harp) is highlighted — this is by far the most common position.
Or, choose by song key
Find the song key down the left, choose your position, and the cell is the harp key you need.
Harp Key
Song ↓
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
12th
G
G
C
F
B♭
E♭
D
A♭
A♭
D♭
F#
B
E
E♭
A
A
D
G
C
F
E
B♭
B♭
E♭
A♭
D♭
F#
F
B
B
E
A
D
G
F#
C
C
F
B♭
E♭
A♭
G
D♭
D♭
F#
B
E
A
A♭
D
D
G
C
F
B♭
A
E♭
E♭
A♭
D♭
F#
B
B♭
E
E
A
D
G
C
B
F
F
B♭
E♭
A♭
D♭
C
F#
F#
B
E
A
D
D♭
2nd position (cross harp) is highlighted — this is by far the most common position.
Important Tips
Or ignore all the instructions (like that IKEA dresser) and just have some fun…
Show only what you want
Use the SHOW: bar across the top to choose which windows are on screen — Live Note, Tabs, Scale Degrees, and Keyboard. Run it minimal (just Tabs) or go the full monty with everything showing — whatever suits what you’re working on. Your choices are remembered next time.
The spacebar
While you’re recording, tap the spacebar to Pause, and tap it again to Resume. A red ‖ marker lands in your tabs — at the cursor if you've clicked a spot, otherwise at the end. Great for grabbing a breath or lining up the next phrase without ending the take. On an iPad or tablet there’s no spacebar — use the on-screen Pause / Resume button at the top instead. And with Use keyboard to create tabs on, the spacebar instead drops a red ‖ pause marker into your tabs at the cursor — a phrase break, no mic needed.
Tabbing on the keyboard
Turn on Use keyboard to create tabs (the green button below the keyboard), then click the piano keys to add notes straight into your tabs by ear — no microphone needed. Handy when you know the note but not the hole. Click a spot in your tabs first and new notes insert at the cursor; with no cursor they're added at the end. Tap the spacebar to drop a ‖ pause marker (phrase break) at the cursor too. It's also off while a transposed view is active (↺ Reset brings it back).
The keyboard won’t tab while you record
During a take the piano keys still sound, but they do not add tabs — recording listens to your microphone only. The button below the keyboard reminds you: it reads Click “Stop” to Tab with Keyboard while you record. Press Stop and the toggle switches itself back on — tab away.
Changing playing positions
Pick your position before you record (the buttons lock during a take). The line above them shows your harp and the key the song comes out in — e.g. C harp – (Song in G) in 2nd. After Stop, switch positions and it changes to e.g. Play these tabs on F harp, telling you exactly which harp to grab.
Play in time with the Click
Turn on Click (under the tempo slider) for a metronome. Set the BPM and a basic time signature — the first beat of each bar is accented. It ticks while you record, so you can play in time, and again during playback. It’s an audible guide only — it is not written into your saved tabs. Tip: wear headphones while recording so the click isn’t picked up by your mic.
Note tracking — speed vs accuracy
Open Under the Hood and use Note Tracking at the top. Speed catches very fast notes (may add a few extras on quick runs), Balanced is the everyday default, and Basic waits a touch longer for the cleanest, most accurate tabs. The first note of a phrase always registers whichever you pick.
Special tunings & the tuner
On a Natural Minor, Country, or Parrott harp, set the Tuning dropdown at the top of the sidebar — the tabs and keyboard retune to match. Turn on Bend Helper in the SHOW bar for a live tuner (a pitch slider showing how flat or sharp you are); it starts the mic on its own — no need to press Start — and never records tabs, so you can check a harp's tuning freely (turn it off to release the mic).
On a phone or tablet?
Open ? Help (top right) and choose 📱 On a Phone or Tablet? — it gives you a direct link and a QR code to the web version: no download, just open and play, with the same licence key. The phone version is simplified — live note, tabs, and playback controls, with fewer options than the full app. On phones and tablets the mic is released automatically when you leave the page. (Beta — a computer is still the best experience.)
Help
Phone & Tablet
Web version — beta
Using a tablet or phone right now? Tap the green button — the web version opens. Same app, same licence key.
Try it on your phone Scan the QR code — your phone opens the mobile version. Same app, same licence key.
Beta — the phone version is a simplified interface; for the full experience use a laptop or desktop.
How To Use
Fab Tabs — Harmonica Tab Creator
Tips & Shortcuts
Space bar: while recording, tap to Pause and Resume — faster than reaching for the mouse. (On an iPad or tablet, use the on-screen Pause / Resume button at the top.) With keyboard tabbing on, Space inserts a ‖ pause marker at the cursor instead.
Use keyboard to create tabs: turn on the green toggle below the keyboard to build tabs by clicking piano keys — no mic needed. Inserts at the cursor if you've placed one. While recording the keys sound but don't add tabs — the button reads Click “Stop” to Tab with Keyboard and re-arms on Stop; off in a transposed view.
Playing Position: set it in the sidebar before you record (locked during a take; defaults to 2nd); the line above the position buttons shows your harp and the key the song comes out in.
Phone & tablet (beta): open ? Help and choose 📱 On a Phone or Tablet? for a link + QR code to the web version — no download, same licence key. The phone version is a simplified interface with fewer options.
Real-harmonica playback: after a mic recording, both ▶ Playback and the Save Audio/Tabs file play your actual harmonica (not a piano), in time with the tabs. Typed/keyboard tabs use the piano — it switches automatically.
Record in pieces: hit Stop, then Start again to add more to the same sequence — the new notes append to the end. The real audio is kept across takes and the silence between them is trimmed on playback/save.
Edit your tabs: click a note to place the cursor (also the start point for playback). Backspace/Delete removes a note — and the real audio updates to match (deleted notes are cut). ↶ Undo (⌘Z / Ctrl+Z) steps back; ✕ Clear starts over. Clear and Undo sit under the Start / Pause buttons.
Getting Started
1
Choose Your Harmonica Key
Pick your harp's key from the Harp Key dropdown — for example, C for a C harp. The app covers every key from G (lowest) to F# (highest).
2
Allow Microphone & Click Start
Click Start and your browser will ask to use your microphone — click Allow. The active mic name shows beside the tab sequence header, and recording begins automatically. If mic access fails, see Microphone Tips below.
Virtual mics (Audio Hijack, Loopback, BlackHole, etc.) work in Fab Tabs as long as their session is running before you click Start.
3
Play a Note
Play a single clear note. The large display shows the detected tab and note name.
Tip: For tabs, it really doesn't matter which key harp you use — the holes are always the same. So for most uses, you can record, save, and transpose your tabs on a C harp; the numbers never change when playing on a different key harmonica.
4
Build Your Tab Sequence
Each note you play is added to the sequence. Use Pause to stop recording temporarily — a red ‖ marker appears inline in both the tab and Scale Degree views. Click Resume to pick up where you left off. Use Clear to start fresh.
Auto-pause: if you stop playing for about a second, Fab Tabs automatically pauses tab commits until you start again — this keeps voice, breath, or room noise from sneaking spurious tabs into the sequence between phrases. The on-screen keyboard goes quiet during that window, but the Live Note and Tuner stay live so you can still see what you're playing; play a note and tab-recording wakes back up instantly.
Held notes: if you hold a single note for about a second or longer, ... is appended to that cell so you can see at a glance which notes were sustained. The marker also extends the note's playback duration.
The on-screen keyboard and the tab sequence always show the actual holes you played on your harp — they're not affected by which position the music is in. Position only affects the Playing Position display. Set your Playing Position in the sidebar before you record (it defaults to 2nd, the most common; the buttons lock during a take) and the line above the position buttons shows your harp and the key the song comes out in — e.g. C harp – (Song in G) for 2nd.
5
Play Back Your Sequence
Click ▶ Playback to hear your sequence. After a mic recording it plays back your real harmonica — the actual audio it captured; for tabs you typed or built with the keyboard it uses the app's piano voice. It picks automatically (real when there's a recording, piano otherwise). Playback reproduces the actual rhythm you played — your note timing is captured while you record. Start partway through: click a note in the sequence to place a cursor there and Playback begins from that point; with no cursor it plays from the top. (Starting a new recording clears the cursor.) The TEMPO slider scales that performance: 1.0× plays it back at your real speed; slide toward Slower to pick out details, toward Faster to hear the whole lick quickly. Turn on Click for a metronome — set the BPM and Time signature (the downbeat is accented); it ticks while you record, so you can play in time, and again during playback. Tip: wear headphones while recording so the click isn't picked up by your mic. As playback runs, the current note's tab cell highlights and the corresponding key on the keyboard lights up. If you've transposed to a different position, the keyboard highlight follows the transposed view — but the audio always plays the original recorded pitches.
Loop: click the Loop button next to Playback and it turns green — Playback will then loop continuously until you click Stop. Useful for learning a tricky lick by hearing it repeat.
Held notes (marked with ... in the sequence) play with a longer sustain during playback, so the rhythm of your original playing carries through.
6
Save Your Tabs
Click ↓ Save Tabs to download an RTF file (opens in Word or Pages) so you can edit, format, and print your tabs on your own computer.
7
Save Audio / Tabs (a playable file)
Click ♪ Save Audio/Tabs to save a small shareable web file (a “Fab Tabs Player”). It shows your colour-coded tabs with a ▶ Play button that plays them back at your own timing — each note lights up as it sounds, and you can tap any tab to hear it. It has a Slow–Fast speed slider and your harp key, position, and song key across the top (plus the scale degrees, if you have them turned on). You’ll be asked to name it, then it downloads to your browser’s Downloads folder. Open it in any browser or email it to a student — no install needed.
By default the saved file plays your real harmonica (the audio it recorded, encoded so it plays on any browser or phone); if your tabs were typed or keyboard-built it saves the piano voice instead. Click any tab in the saved file to jump there and keep playing, and use the ↻ Loop button to repeat. Your edits carry over too — deleted notes are removed from the audio, and the silence between separate takes is trimmed so it plays as one phrase.
Microphone Tips
Best results: Chrome or Edge on desktop. Position the harp 20–30 cm from your mic. The active mic name shows beside the tab sequence header when recording starts.
No built-in mic? On a Mac Pro or Mac Mini, use an iPhone via Continuity Camera (macOS Ventura+) — it appears automatically in System Settings → Sound → Input.
Chrome / Edge: Click the lock icon in the address bar → Site Settings → Microphone → Allow. Then reload.
Safari (Mac): Safari menu → Settings for This Website → Microphone → Allow.
Permission blocked / Safari won't allow the mic: In Safari, go to Safari menu → Settings → Websites → Microphone and set this site to Allow. Also check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and make sure Safari is switched on. Reload the page afterwards. (Safari can forget this between sessions, so you may need to redo it.)
Mic is in use by another app: Only one app can hold the mic at a time. Quit anything else that might be using it — Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Audio Hijack, or another browser tab — then click Start again.
macOS Microphone Mode must be “Standard”: macOS has a “Voice Isolation” mic mode that strips out everything except speech — which ruins harmonica detection. With recording running, open Control Centre (top-right of the menu bar), click Microphone Mode, and choose Standard. If no Mic Mode appears, your input is a virtual device — see below.
Avoid a Bluetooth mic: Used as a mic, Bluetooth headsets drop to a low-quality phone-call mode that wrecks pitch detection. Use the built-in mic, or a wired / USB mic instead.
Virtual mics (Audio Hijack, Loopback, BlackHole): These work, but make sure their session is running before you click Start, and that they aren't applying noise reduction, EQ, or gain effects — Fab Tabs needs the raw signal.
Playing Tips for Better Detection
One harp for everything: Tabs (and Scale Degrees) are universal — they don't change across different key harmonicas. So you can often just use your C harp for everything here.
Easy does it — avoid playing overly hard, and not too fast, to keep your pitch stable. A hard initial attack on a note can also give a bad reading.
Note Tracking (Under the Hood): three settings trade speed against accuracy. Speed catches very fast notes but can add a few extras on quick runs; Balanced is the default; Basic waits a touch longer so it filters stray notes — cleanest, though a very fast note may not register. The first note of a take always registers in every setting.
Vibrato — try to avoid adding vibrato to notes. The pitch wobble can confuse the detector and cause notes to be misread or split into multiple readings.
One note at a time — chords and double stops will confuse the detector.
Bends: Land on the target pitch cleanly. Sliding without landing may not register.
Bend notes: You can also custom-calibrate bend notes if needed.
Mic volume: If notes aren't registering or the signal seems weak, adjust the mic volume slider. Raise it if the input is too low, lower it if it's clipping.
Switching mics: If your mic isn't working or you'd like to use a different one, reselect it from the mic dropdown — or choose another available mic from the list.
Lower standard-key harps (G, Ab, A): System calibrations are now included for all 12 keys — but personal calibration on a particular harp often still gives the best results for these lower-pitched instruments.
High register (holes 8–10): These can be harder to detect automatically. Tap them individually in the Note Map to calibrate if they aren't detecting reliably.
Troubleshooting
Mic not working? Make sure the page is on https:// — browsers block mic access on http://. Check your browser's mic permissions (see Microphone Tips above).
Notes not registering? Lower the Background Noise Suppression slider in Under the Hood. Try playing a touch slower and more steadily.
A single note keeps detecting wrong? Tap it in the Note Map to recalibrate just that note.
High notes (holes 8–10) inconsistent? These are harder for the detector — calibrate them individually in the Note Map.
Lost your calibration after switching browsers/devices? Use Export to save your profile as a .json file, then Import on the new device.
Tab showing 2 instead of 3+ (or vice versa)? These share the same pitch — the system will usually favour 2 draw.
Mic permission denied? In Chrome/Edge, click the lock icon in the address bar → Site Settings → Microphone → Allow, then reload.
Still no luck? In some rare cases, a particular computer mic or individual player may not have success with this system due to the complexities of sound mapping across all variables. Try the suggestions listed above first before arriving at that conclusion — it's often mic-related.
Tab Notation Guide
4+ Blow on hole 4
4 Draw on hole 4
4' one semitone bend | 4'' two semitones | 4''' three semitones
(4) (7) Overblows / Overdraws
2 / 3+ These two notes share the same pitch. The system will likely favour 2d even when 3b was played.
5 ... Held note — appears when you sustain a note for about a second
‖ Appears inline when recording is paused — carried through to the saved file
Keyboard Reference
The on-screen keyboard is an excellent visual and audible reference. Play notes on it to hear pitches and see how harmonica tabs map to standard piano notes — handy for working out tunes, checking a bend's target pitch, or showing a non-harp player what you're doing.
Glissando: click and hold on any key, then drag across adjacent keys — each new key plays as the pointer crosses into it. Works on touchscreens too.
Use keyboard to create tabs: turn on the green toggle below the keyboard, then click keys to add them straight into your tab sequence by ear — no mic needed. Click a spot in your tabs to insert at the cursor; otherwise notes are added at the end. While recording the keys still sound but don't add tabs — the button reads Click “Stop” to Tab with Keyboard and switches itself back on when you press Stop. While the toggle is on, the spacebar drops a ‖ pause marker at the cursor. Off while viewing a transposed position.
Position & Transposing
Playing Position (sidebar): pick the position you're playing in before you record — the buttons lock during a take. It defaults to 2nd (cross harp) — by far the most common. The line above the position buttons shows your harp and the key the song comes out in for that position: e.g. C harp – (Song in G) in 2nd, C harp – (Song in D) in 3rd. The keyboard and tab sequence always show the actual holes you play.
See it in another position: after you Stop, click a different position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 12th) and the whole view remaps together — the tab numbers and the on-screen keyboard switch to the harp you'd grab to play the same song in that position. The line above the buttons changes to e.g. Play these tabs on F harp, with your original shown dimmed above it. Keyboard tab-entry is paused in this view (↺ Reset re-enables it). The keyboard hole numbers always match the tabs.
↺ Reset to Original: a small button under the position buttons returns the view to the position you recorded in.
What doesn't change: the music. Scale degrees — the Nashville Number System (NNS) — stay constant since they describe the song, not the harp, and playback always plays your original recorded pitches.
Position Charts (in the Help menu — the “Before you start” button at the top of the page): opens a quick reference — find your harp key and position to see the song key, or start from the song key to find the harp you need. The Tab Legend (what the tab symbols mean) is the third button in the Tab Format row of the sidebar.
Saving: Save writes whatever's on screen. If you've switched to another position, the file's tabs and header match that view — the harp, position, and song key shown in the banner.
Note: the keyboard shows the whole harp (every hole 1–10), so every note in your sequence always has a visible key.
Special Tunings
Tuning dropdown (top of the sidebar): pick the tuning of the harp you're holding — Standard Richter (default), Natural Minor (Lee Oskar), Country (Major 7), or Parrott (Flat 7 Draw). The note layout, keyboard, tab legend, and overblow set all retune to match, so detection and the tabs read correctly for that harp.
Country (Major 7): a standard harp with the 5-draw raised a semitone (F→F# on a C), giving the major 7th in 2nd position. A new 5' bend appears down to the old note.
Parrott (Flat 7 Draw): a standard harp with the 7-draw lowered a semitone (B→B♭ on a C), giving the flat 3rd up top. The old note becomes a 7+ blow-bend.
Natural Minor (Lee Oskar): labelled the Lee Oskar way — by the 2nd-position (cross) key printed on the harp, not the blow key. So an “Em” harp is the one stamped Em; the key list shows those labels with “(as labeled)”. 2nd position plays natural minor, 1st position plays Dorian (only those two are offered).
Calibration: Country and Parrott reuse your normal calibration for every unchanged note and only estimate the one retuned reed, so they're as accurate as your standard harp. Natural Minor uses theoretical pitches (it's a different instrument) — calibrate it if you want extra precision.
Tuner (Bend Helper)
Bend Helper is a live tuner — turn it on from the SHOW: bar across the top (same row as Live Note / Tabs / Keyboard). A pitch slider appears under the live note: a centre target with a dot that slides flat (left) or sharp (right), green when you're in tune. Just turn it on and the tuner runs on its own — no need to press Start, and nothing is recorded as tabs. Turn it off to release the mic.
What it shows: how many cents you are from true (equal-tempered) concert pitch at your chosen reference A. The light-green band marks the ±35-cent “in range” zone, with a brighter “in tune” zone within ±12. The dot eases smoothly toward the pitch and gently glides back to centre when you stop — the cents number stays exact.
Tuning reference (Under the Hood → Threshold): set the A your harp is tuned to (440–446; most harps sit at 442–443). It shifts the tuner's in-tune point to match your harp and nudges note detection to line up with a sharp harp. It does not change the pitch of the piano or playback — those stay at concert pitch.
Compromise-tuned harps (e.g. stock Seydel 1847) deliberately tune some notes — mainly the thirds — a few cents off equal temperament for sweeter chords, so a perfectly good harp won't read all zeros. That's the temperament, not an error.
Calibration — Under the Hood
Enable Under the Hood using the pink button at the bottom of the sidebar to access Calibrate, Threshold, and the Note Map.
1
System Calibrations — built in
All 12 keys come pre-calibrated and the system will default to those. The badge in the Calibrate section shows System Calibration for every key out of the box. If you calibrate your own harp, it overrides the system calibration for that key only. Your custom calibration is saved and will automatically be used for that key of harmonica.
Why custom calibration sometimes helps: every harmonica manufacturer uses slightly different tuning, and individual players can play a particular note or bend in their own way. We're all trying to hit the pitch correctly, but small differences are normal. If you find a particular note (or notes) isn't recording correctly, you can custom-calibrate just that note — see steps 2 and 3 below.
2
Calibrate your own harp
Select your key, then click ⊕ Cal. The app walks you through each note — just play and hold each one clearly when prompted. Small variations are fine. Hit Save & Finish any time. You may not need to calibrate every note — click Skip as needed.
3
Or... tap any note in the Note Map to recalibrate
If a single note is detecting incorrectly, tap it in the Note Map to recalibrate just that note — no need to redo the whole profile.
4
Important: Export & Import your profiles
Use Export to save your personal calibrations as a .json file. You can import it back into this program if deleted and all your profiles load instantly — no recalibration needed. System calibrations are always available even without importing.
Note: Hole 10 overdraw isn't calculated, due to technical limitations.
The Number System (NNS)
The idea in one line: instead of note names (C, D, E…), every note of the scale gets a number, 1 to 7. It’s the same do re mi you already know.
The major scale, by numbers: do re mi fa sol la ti (do) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (1)
Count up the scale and you’re counting 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, then home to 1 again. (Nashville session players use it — hence “Nashville Number System.”)
What vs. where — same lick, different holes: when you play a phrase, the Number System tells you what scale degrees you played; the tab (hole) numbers tell you where you played them. Play that same lick in 3rd position instead of 2nd and the scale degrees stay exactly the same — but the tabs, the holes, will be different. The relationship never changes; you just find it in a different place.
Why that matters: once you start watching this, it clicks — you begin to understand why certain notes work so well in a particular part of a song, or in a given position. “Oh — that’s the ♭3 I’m leaning on here, a big blues note.” Or, “this note sounds right in a traditional country tune because it’s the 3 — the major third.” That’s the whole reason Fab Tabs shows the numbers, in green, beside the tabs.
Spotting the blues notes: the plain numbers 1–7 are the bright, major-scale notes. The bluesy notes are the lowered ones — ♭3, ♭5, ♭7. So any time you see a flat (♭) in front of a number, that’s a blue note: the bent, soulful sound at the heart of blues and rock. Plain 3, 5, 7 = major; ♭3, ♭5, ♭7 = bluesy.
A little handy math: because the numbers describe relationships, patterns jump out. The classic blues progression is 1–4–5 — and it’s “1-4-5” in every key. Your home/resting note is 1; the note a fifth above it is 5. Just like our hole relationships stay the same across any standard diatonic harp, the numbers remain the same as well — as long as we’re talking playing in the same position. In 2nd position, the ♭7 is hole 5 draw — on every key harp. 3 draw (natural) is the 3rd (major) always.
On the harp (2nd position): in the usual blues setup, your 2 draw is “1” — your home base. That’s why blues licks keep coming home to the 2 draw.
Ask
Type a question or pick one below
Common questions
Your answer will appear here.
Select Your Original Position
Pick the position you originally played in. The file will record this as the "Played in" position.
CALIBRATE
Play each note when prompted. Hold it steady for 2 seconds.
