5-day Free Trial — try before you buy.
Main Features Who It’s For Phone & Tablet Updates Technical
Watch the Demo
Play into your computer’s microphone, Fab Tabs writes your harp tabs in real time — colour-coded, transposable, savable.
Then play it back. Watch the tabs and the live keyboard highlight the notes in sync with your tabs — so the harp finally speaks the same language as the rest of music.
Whether you’re learning a lick, teaching position theory, or sketching out parts for a gig — Fab Tabs does the writing, the transposing, and the explaining, so you can stay focused on playing.
Software version: V1.22 (check footer in Fab Tabs for current version number).
Already bought Fab Tabs? You always have the latest version at no extra cost. Just log in and go to My Account → Orders, open your Fab Tabs order, and click Download Fab Tabs — that link always serves the newest version. Open the file and enter your original licence key to activate.
📱 New — Phone & Tablet Web Version (Beta)
Want to use Fab Tabs on your iPad or phone? Open the web version — no download, just tap the link and play. Your same licence key unlocks it. Tablets get the full app; the phone version is a simplified interface.
Beta — for the best experience, a laptop or desktop is still the way to go.
Main Features
- Live tab detection — play a phrase and the holes appear on screen as you go. No typing, no notation software.
- Full harmonica notation — blow and draw holes, bends, and overblows/overdraws, all marked clearly and colour-coded.
- Works with all 10 hole, Richter-tuned diatonic harmonica (all 12 keys)
- Playback with tempo & loop — hear your sequence back as piano notes, slow it down to study a lick, or loop it to drill it.
- Scale degrees (the Number System) — see the musical numbers (1, ♭3, 5, ♭7…) in green below your tabs, so you understand why a lick works — not just where to play it. Includes a built-in plain-English primer.
- Position transposing — see the same lick in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 12th position, and exactly which harp and holes you’d use to play it there.
- Live piano keyboard — a visual, playable reference that shows how the harmonica maps to standard notes; great for working tunes out and for teaching.
- All 12 keys, pre-calibrated — tuned for how harmonicas actually behave (including bends), with optional custom calibration you can save, export, and import.
- Save & print — export to RTF for Word, Pages, or Google Docs. Mark them up and print for the stage or your students.
ONE INTERFACE — MANY OPTIONS
For students
Hear what you played. See the tab, the piano key, even the scale degree. Then hit play and watch your own recording highlight the notes on the keyboard and tabs in real time — so hole numbers stop feeling random and start mapping to a more universal reference. Switch to scale-degree view (Nashville Number System) and convert everything instantly into different positions. Everything starts to come together when the harmonica holes, scale degrees, and the keyboard are all speaking the same language.
For instructors
The triple display — tab numbers, scale degrees, and the live keyboard — shows everything at once: which hole, which note, which scale degree, and how those relationships shift from position to position. The harmonica stops being an abstract grid of isolated hole numbers and becomes a musical map. Even better — when your students use Fab Tabs in their own practice, they’ll see firsthand how it all fits together.
For gigging players & pros
Fab Tabs is an advanced tool presented in a simple, easy-to-use package — a road to better musical understanding. It’s not just for creating cheat sheets, but it’s great at that too. Need to tab out a horn line, a melody, an intro for a song? Play it, hear it back, edit it, transpose it to any position, print it.
For intermediate players
Working on bends or overblows? Want a better understanding of practical theory as it applies to harmonica? See the notes you played, hear them back, watch the keyboard. Fab Tabs makes the relationships between positions, scale degrees, and holes played visible — not just abstract concepts.
For beginner players
Some more advanced techniques are required to play certain notes (bends, overblows, overdraws). But even simple melodies using basic blow and draw notes will work — Fab Tabs detects those just as accurately, so you can build up your skills while seeing your playing in real time.
TECHNICAL
- Built for computers — no install. Fab Tabs runs right in your browser — open the file and go.
- Mac, Windows, and Linux. Works on desktop and laptop computers running most modern browsers (Chrome and Firefox highly recommended). Some browsers, including Safari, can be finicky accessing your microphone.
- Diatonic harmonicas. Designed for standard 10-hole diatonic harps. Basic alternative tunings (e.g. Country, or “Parrot” with the 7 draw flattened) will mostly work — as long as the hole layout is unchanged, re-tuned notes will appear as overblows or overdraws on the affected holes.
- Playing style. Optimised for lip pursing. Tongue blocking will also work, provided you play clean single notes.
- Tablets & phones (beta). Use the web version at harmonicamute.com/play — no download, same licence key. Tablets get the full app with an on-screen Pause/Resume; phones get a simplified interface (live note, tabs, and playback). For the best results, use a laptop or desktop.
5-day free trial — try the whole thing before you buy.
One-time licence — no subscription, ever.
