Skip to main content

v1.4

1.4.0​

Time flies and its been almost one year since 1.3.0 was released. Hence it is already long overdue to have an official alphaTab release.

v1.4.0 brings again a lot of new features mainly centered around extending the file format support.

Music Notation​

This version of alphaTab adds quite a range of new music notation features and rendering adaptions. The following list is (roughly) sorted by the visual impact of the added feature.

rendering: Change on Paddings and Margins​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1524

Up to v1.3 alphaTab was fairly generious with the paddings and margins it defined and there was no possibility to adjust these sizes. This way alphaTab required quite a bit of screen space, even for small music sheets. With this feature we introduced configurable paddings and margins for all general spacings that affect the system and stave placement. At the same time we reduced the paddings to some more reasonable defaults resulting in a more concise display.

There is a range of new settings allowing to configure the paddings.

notation: Slash Notation​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1511

alphaTab can now display additionally a slash notation staff. On Guitar Pro 6-8 files the configured staves are respected, on alphaTex the new slash staff option can be used. Or the staff can be enabled on the data model via score.track[].staves[].showSlash.

\bracketextendmode nobrackets . \staff {score tabs slash} 1.6.4 1.6.8 1.6.8 1.6.2 | 1.6.4 {tu 3} 1.6.4 {tu 3} 1.6.4 {tu 3} r.2 | 5.5.1 | r.1

notation: Add numbered notation (Jianpu)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1628

alphaTab can now display additionally a numbered notation staff (aka. Jianpu). On Guitar Pro 6-8 files the configured staves are respected, on alphaTex the new numbered staff option can be used. Or the staff can be enabled on the data model via score.track[].staves[].showNumbered.

\bracketextendmode nobrackets . \staff {score tabs numbered} 1.6.4 2.6.8 3.6.8 4.6.2 | 5.6.4 {tu 3} 10.6.4 {tu 3} 12.6.4 {tu 3} r.2 | 5.5.1 | r.1

notation: System Brackets & Braces​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1730

Up to alphaTab 1.3 there was always a rectangular bracket drawn across the staves of one track. With alphaTab 1.4 the display is now configurable in multiple modes. See Brackets and Braces for more details.

\bracketextendmode GroupStaves . \track \staff {score} C4 D4 E4 F4 \staff {score} \clef f4 C3 D3 E3 F3 \track \staff { score tabs } 0.3.4 2.3.4 5.3.4 7.3.4

notation: Track Name Display​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1895

alphaTab has now multiple modes on how to display the track names. The settings are adopted from Guitar Pro and allow a variety of display formats.

\singletracktracknamepolicy AllSystems \firstsystemtracknamemode fullname \othersystemstracknamemode shortname \firstsystemtracknameorientation horizontal \othersystemstracknameorientation vertical . \track "Piano 1" "pno1" { defaultsystemslayout 3 } \staff {score} C4 D4 E4 F4 | C4 D4 E4 F4 | C4 D4 E4 F4 | C4 D4 E4 F4 | C4 D4 E4 F4 |

notation: Directions (aka. Jumps)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1852

Support for directions (aka. jumps) was added in alphaTab v1.4.0.

\tempo 240 . \ro \rc 2 3.3*4 | 3.3*4 | \jump Segno 3.3*4 | \ro \rc 2 3.3*4 | \jump DaCoda 3.3*4 | 3.3*4 | 3.3*4 \jump DalSegnoAlCoda 3.3*4 | 3.3*4 | \jump Coda 3.3*4 | 3.3*4 | 3.3*4

notation: Support for multiple tempo changes in one Bar​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1600

Starting with v1.4.0 alphaTab respects multiple tempo changes within a single bar.

. C4 {tempo 120} D4 E4 {tempo 140} F4 | C4.8 {tempo 80} C4 D4 {tempo 100} D4 E4 {tempo 120} E4 F4 {tempo 240} F4

notation: Ornaments (turn, inverted-turn, upper-mordent, lower-mordent)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1746

Ornaments like turns are respected in both display and playback of notes.

. C4 {turn} D4 E4 {umordent} F4

notation: Rasgueado Patterns​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1748

The exact Rasgueado patterns are now read from input formats and considered during playback.

(1.1 3.2 2.3 0.4) * 4 {rasg amii}

notation: Inline Fingering​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1645

In alphaTab 1.3.1 the finger numbers were shown above the stem which did not allow mapping the individual notes to the fingers. With this release the numbers are now displayed beside the respective note head.

:8 3.3{lf 1} 3.3{lf 2} 3.3{lf 3} 3.3{lf 4} 3.3{lf 5} (2.2{lf 4} 2.3{lf 3} 2.4{lf 2}) | :8 3.3{rf 1} 3.3{rf 2} 3.3{rf 3} 3.3{rf 4} 3.3{lf 5}

notation: Slashed Beats​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1646

Support for Slashed Beats were added where note heads are shown with slash notation.

C4.4 {slashed} C4.8 {slashed} C4.8 {slashed} C4.4 {slashed}

notation: Dead Slap​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1742

Support for Dead Slaps were added where instead of playing any sound, a dead note is played on all strings.

().4 {ds} ().4 {ds}

notation: Beat Timer​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1896

Support for beat timers where added. On any beat the absolute playback position can be added.

:2 C4 { timer } C4 | \ro C4 { timer } C4 | \ae 1 C4 C4 { timer } | \rc 3 \ae (2 3) C4 { timer } C4 { timer } | C4 { timer } C4

notation: Free Time​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1643

Support for free time bars was added.

:2 C4*2 | \ft C4*2 | \ft C4*2 | C4*2 |

notation: Tenuto​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1645

Support for tenuto accentuation was added.

3.3{ac} 3.3{hac} 3.3{ten}

notation: String Numbers​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1645

Support for displaying string numbers was added.

3.3{string} 3.4{string} 3.5{string}

notation: Sustain Pedal​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1730

Support for displaying sustain petal was added, this currently does not affect the playback.

3.3 3.3{spd} 3.3 3.3 {spu}

notation: Golpe​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1743

Support for displaying golpe was added, this currently does not affect the playback.

3.3{glpf} 3.3{glpt}

notation: Fading Styles (fade-in, fade-out, volume-swell)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1744

The fading styles were extended to support fade-in, fade-out and volume swells on notes.

:1 3.3{f} | 3.3{fo} | 3.3{vs}

notation: Wah-Pedal​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1745

Support for displaying Wah pedal was added, this currently does not affect the playback.

3.3 3.3{waho} 3.3 3.3 {wahc}

notation: Barré​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1746

Support for displaying barré chord notation was added.

1.1 {barre 24} 2.1 {barre 24} 3.1 {barre 24} 4.1 | 1.1 {barre 4 half} 2.1 {barre 4 half} 3.1 {barre 4 half} 4.1 {barre 4 half} |

Player​

player: SoundFont3 Support (Experimental)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1807

alphaTab 1.4.0 added experiemntal support for SoundFont3 files. In SF3 files audio samples are encoded as OGG Vorbis which allows a smaller footprint when transferring soundfonts over network. This allows using higher quality sounds without a direct increase of file size transferred to clients.

The decoding of the audio samples requires additional CPU time which might affect users. Only the samples required by the song played will be decoded to reduce load.

alphaTab ships now a SF3 flavor of the Sonivox soundfont but still has enabled by default the use of the SF2 file (where embedded).

We did not thoroughly test yet the decoding of many files and the impact of the decoding time. Therefore the support is still considered experimental.

player: Live Change of Transposition Pitches​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1642

The changeTrackTranspositionPitch and setChannelTranspositionPitch APIs allow changing transposition pitches of individual tracks (or midi channels) on-the-fly while the song is being played.

alphaTex Extensions​

alphaTex: Support for Percussion Tabs​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1493

With alphaTab 1.4.0 you can finally also express percussion tabs. Learn more here

\track "Drums" \instrument percussion \tempo 120 \clef neutral \articulation defaults (KickHit RideBell).16 r KickHit KickHit (KickHit RideBell).16 r KickHit KickHit (KickHit RideBell).16 r KickHit KickHit (KickHit RideBell).16 r KickHit KickHit | (KickHit HiHatOpen) KickHit KickHit KickHit (KickHit HiHatOpen) KickHit KickHit KickHit (KickHit SnareHit HiHatOpen) KickHit KickHit.32 KickHit KickHit.16 (KickHit HiHatOpen) KickHit KickHit KickHit | (KickHit HiHatOpen).8{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} (KickHit SnareHit HiHatOpen){tu 3} KickHit.16{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} KickHit.8{tu 3} (KickHit HiHatOpen).8{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} (KickHit SnareHit HiHatOpen).8{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3} KickHit{tu 3}

alphaTex: Add Support for all Notation Elements​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1853

With this release alphaTex closes the gaps between other file formats by adding support for all elements alphaTab supports across other formats. All elements are now described respectively in the alphaTex documentation. Some key changes beside larger features already mentioned here:

  • Escape sequences (like \n) can now be used in strings.
  • Score metadata was extended for all fields.
  • Tempo labels can now be specified
  • System Layout details can be configured
  • Stylesheet details can be specified.
  • Transpose information can be specified.
  • Specify track properties (volume, mute, solo)
  • Specify the number of standard notation lines in standard music notation staves.
  • Beat Vibrato Types
  • Custom tuplets
  • Whammy bar types and styles
  • Bend types and styles
  • Beat Ottava
  • Legatos
  • Instrument Automations
  • Fermata
  • Custom Beaming Modes and Stem directions.
  • Show String Numbers
  • Invisible Notes
  • Slurs
  • Common Time Signatures
  • Key Signature Types
  • Double Bars
  • Ottava
  • Bar Scale (for system layouts)
  • Fixed Bar Widths (for system layouts)
  • Simile Marks

alphaTex: Multi-Voice Notation​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1853

Adding multiple voices to a single staff in alphaTex can now be done via the new \voice command.

\track "Piano" \staff{score} \tuning piano \instrument acousticgrandpiano \voice c4 d4 e4 f4 | c4 d4 e4 f4 \voice c3 d3 e3 f3 | c3 d3 e3 f3

alphaTex: Specify Accidentals​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1729

With v1.4.0 alphaTab tries to respect the accidentals as specified when writing pitched notes. Additionally accidentals can be forced to the desired one.

\track "Piano" C#4 Db4 C##4 Dbb4 | \accidentals auto C#4 Db4 C##4 Dbb4 | C#4 { acc forceFlat } C4 { acc forceSharp } C4 { acc forceDoubleSharp } C4 { acc forceDoubleFlat } \track "Guitar" :4 2.2 { acc forceFlat } 5.3 { acc forceSharp } 5.3 { acc forceDoubleSharp } 5.3 { acc forceDoubleFlat }

Guitar Pro Extensions​

Guitar Pro 3-8: Respect Beaming Modes and Directions​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1892

alphaTab loads now all stem directions and beaming modes from Guitar Pro 3 up to 8.

Guitar Pro 6-8: Track Visibility Information​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1491

alphaTab loads now track visibility information from the LayoutConfiguration file and makes it available via track.isVisibleOnMultiTrack.

Guitar Pro 3-5: Respect Staff Visibility​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1888

alphaTab loads now loads the activated staves from Guitar Pro 3-5 files and shows the respective staffs when rendering the music notation.

Guitar Pro 3-8: Respect Tuning Visibility​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1889

alphaTab loads now loads the tuning visibility information from Guitar Pro 3-8 files and shows the guitar tunings accordingly.

Guitar Pro 3-8: Respect Chord Diagram List Visibility​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1890

alphaTab loads now loads the information whether to display chord diagrams for a track in the chord list from from Guitar Pro 3-8 files.

Guitar Pro 3-5: Beat Ottava​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1892

alphaTab loads now loads beat ottava information from Guitar Pro 3-5 files.

MusicXML Extensions​

musicxml: Support for Compressed MusicXML Files​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1492

alphaTab can now unzip compressed MusicXML files before reading.

musicxml: Support for Guitar Bends​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1462

alphaTab can now parse guitar bends from MusicXML files.

Thanks @ldupouey for this contribution.

Improvements & Bugfixes​

API: TypeScript definitions for JSON Settings​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1562 https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1578

alphaTab ships now TypeScript type definitions for the JSON flavor of the settings for better type safety and coding assistence when using APIs like settings.fillFromJson, new AlphaTabApi()

docs: File Format Compatiblity​

We invested quite some effort in documenting the currently supported file formats and features. For every format we now try to list out what features this format provides and what alphaTab understands from it.

Head over to the format docs to learn more about the feature coverage.

rendering: Central Scaling of Music Sheet​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1772

Up to this release alphaTab was handling the scaling of the music sheet across the different places where we draw items. This was prone to errors if for some paddings or sizes the zoom scale was applied wrongly. To eliminate this problem we moved the scaled rendering into the drawing layer (ICanvas). This way we do not need to handle the zoom level anymore across the whole codebase.

This should result in a more consistent zooming experience and less overlaps.

rendering: Tempo Automation rendering (label, positioning and scale)​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1906

In this release we improved the rendering of tempo information. Beside the addition of rendering the tempo label again, we also improved the placement of tempo changes above beats. This was crucial for the Support for multiple tempo changes in one Bar.

bundlers: Node20+ compatibility for Vite & WebPack Integrations​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1579

With Node20 there were some changes in copying files we had to adapt for the Vite and WebPack plugins. This could lead to wrong file copy steps.

audio: Prevent Audio Clipping Noises​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1607 https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1609

A really hard-to-catch problem was the generation of strange clipping sounds in some repeat and ending scenarios. We improved various bits which could lead to this clipping problem.

rendering: Ensure correct effect band sizing on line breaks​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1621 https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1641

When during layouting it is detected that a bar doesn't fit anymore into the system (line), it is removed from the system again. There was a problem that these "reverted" bars had already reserved some spacings and those were not reverted resulting in strange whitespace. This problem was fixed.

player: Scrolling Issue with ScrollMode.OffScreen​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1771

There was a problem fixed that scrolling with ScrollMode.OffScreen was not working as expected. This was due to wrong scroll properties being used.

notation: Vibratos on Tied Notes with Bends​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1843

There was a problem fixed that vibratos could not be combined with bends resulting in wrong display and audio generation.

notation: Bends on Tied Notes​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/issues/1825

There was a problem fixed that bends were not working when applied to tied notes.

alphaTex: Remember Clefs​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1905

Before this change clefs had to be specified on every single bar because alphaTab used some defaults on new bars. With this change alphaTab takes over the clef from previous bars.

bundler: Vite upgraded to v6​

https://github.com/CoderLine/alphaTab/pull/1913

The Vite bundler plugin was upgraded from v5 to v6.