Orlando Lutes: Lutescribe

LuteScribe

LuteScribe is a free (and open source) MS Windows application by Luke Emmet for viewing and editing musical tabulature for lutes and related historical instruments.

It offers an editing window to view and edit your tabulature in a format that is easy to understand. Editing your tabulature is as simple as using a spreadsheet, and you can print or save as PDF. Check your work using the audio playback options. Screenshots below.

LuteScribe is compatible with common tabulature file formats such as Wayne Cripps TAB format, Fronimo FT3, Fandango JTZ, JTXML, MEI, ABC Tab, Music XML, Tab Code and has its own native XML based file format LSML. With LuteScribe you can write your own lute tabulature and open/view a vast amount of freely available tabulature from online resources such as:

Requirements

  • Windows 10 or 11.

Current version 1.2.3

The current version of LuteScribe is 1.2.3, released 14-Oct-2022. Main changes in this version since last release:

  • Integrate luteconv 1.4.7, allowing LuteScribe to open a wider variety of files, including MEI, Tab Code, Music XML, ABC Tab
  • Allow wheel mouse to scroll list of staves
  • For more details see LuteScribe change history.

Download

Download the current LuteScribe installer.

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License and source code

LuteScribe is free and open source (GPL 3) software written mostly in C# - perhaps a rather fitting language for musical software.

Source is available in Github at github.com/LukeEmmet/LuteScribe. Feel free to submit patches or updates.

Screenshots

Print view

Edit view