What software for drawing chord charts?

matonanjin

Chubby, old guy trying to play some blues.
Anyone know of any? Anyone using a package?

Here is what I am wanting to do. I want to make a chord chart as a graphic file. Then I'm going to use that graphic in a labeling program. I'm going to print a label for many different chords to go on 3x5 cards for, you guessed it, flash cards.

There are packages out there like the most famous, probably, Neck Diagrams. But that is for designing the entire neck or a large part of it.

What I am looking for is a package that will
  1. just draw the few, or 4 or 5 frets of a chord,
  2. identify where it is at on the neck, i.e. 5th fret
  3. number which fingers are fretting which notes
  4. Save the diagram as a graphic file (jpg or TIFF)

This is the type of graphic I want to generate. I'm not even sure where I grabbed this. This is ideal but I don't need all frets identified numerically. Just one number identifying where it is at, 5 or 7 etc. And, again, it would be ideal but I don't need all notes identified along the bottom.

A7.jpg

Here is a 3x5 card I just hand drew for a D7 with what I am trying to achieve. You can clearly see why I need to improve my system:eek:
d7002.jpg
Here is what I did a while back using Excel. You Excel users will understand I put borders around every cell and had some tiny graphics to superimpose with fingering. But this was hugely time consuming. Way too time consuming to do it this way.A.jpg
 

Silicon Valley Tom

It makes me happpy to play The Blues!
This is a great question! I used PageMaker for years, but Adobe dropped it. If you run a Microsoft Windows Operating System, Microsoft will not allow PageMaker to be run on its more recent operating systems. So I went to InDesign from Adobe, and then my computer died. InDesign is still available but it is now a software package you rent by the month.

I hope someone answers your question, as I have a lot of things I want to do along this line. By the way I do have some good templates of guitar necks, which can be used with the proper software as described above, and some other types of templates of guitar necks.

I use JPG's and then the design software was used to superimpose numbers, etc. on top, to get the desired effect. Also, what you described is what a good piece of design software should be capable of.

A with Boxes 1-5.jpg


C Maj.jpg


guitar_fretboard_diagram_12 -1st.jpg


Tom
 

JestMe

Student Of The Blues
Ron
Neck Diagrams should do the trick for you. Use 'Inspector' to reduce the number of frets to what you want. Also you can use 'Generator' to generate arpeggios within the specific fret range that you want. We can do this!!! Let me know if i can help with some details... example from Neck Diagrams

upload_2020-10-7_17-57-32.png
 

matonanjin

Chubby, old guy trying to play some blues.
Ron
Neck Diagrams should do the trick for you. Use 'Inspector' to reduce the number of frets to what you want.
Thanks, Chris. I'll look at it again. I gave it a very cursory look before. It was over 2 years ago when I tried it and it was ver. 1. they are at ver. 2 now. If you say it should do the trick, I'm sure it will.
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
Ron
Neck Diagrams should do the trick for you. Use 'Inspector' to reduce the number of frets to what you want. Also you can use 'Generator' to generate arpeggios within the specific fret range that you want. We can do this!!! Let me know if i can help with some details... example from Neck Diagrams

View attachment 12763

That is one very cool tool. I'll be buying it as soon as I log off here.
I went through the tutorial, and there is only ONE feature that I think is missing. It would be really cool if it would let you place notes then tell you what the various names for the chord are.
I currently use this web page for that:
http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
I'll add my vote for Neck Diagrams. I have found it to be an immensely useful tool for a variety of purposes.

Depending on you actual objective, there may be various other and less expensive options.
Do a search for "blank chord diagram pdf" and you will find many preprinted free options you can use.
I find that a page with many chord "boxes" is very useful for mapping out chord changes for 8 or 12 bars,
and then adding variations to the chord sequence, either in alterations and/or inversions on subsequent rows of the boxes..
I hate playing a given set of chord changes over and over again without mixing up the inversions.
Sometime I'll play 4 different versions of a chord in a single bar. Writing them out in chord charts like that is a
good way to expand one's chord vocabulary.

Another option is to make your own using a rubber chord stamp and ink pad. Look on amazon.com for many options
of chord stamps in different sizes. These are also very useful for adding chord or different inversions or fingerings of chords to sheet music.
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
MikeS

That chord site looks to be very comprehensive for chords but also scales, arps, metronome... Nice
http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/

Here is another site I found to be helpful...
https://chordbook.com/guitar-chords/

Between the 2 sites there are a lot of bases covered I think.


Honestly, I've been using it for years, but never looked beyond Guitar Chord and Chord Names.
hmm.. I just looked and it looks like it may be having an issue with Adobe Flash Player in the Chord Name area, so it may not be as good a site as I thought any more.
 

matonanjin

Chubby, old guy trying to play some blues.
If it's seems to good to be true..................

Everyone thanks for the responses and help. Thanks to Chris for the suggestion of Neck Diagrams and especially thanks for the comprehensive/informative email.

Neck Diagrams appeared to be exactly what I need. I have worked with it some and it produces perfect graphics for what I need. In fact it does even more than I expected such as labeling the intervals or notes. It makes it really easy to do things such as marking muted strings (or strings not played).

For the first few days of trying it I just did a screen capture. That, of course, produces my entire screen. I pasted that into Photoshop, cropped it to just the neck with the chord, and saved that as a jpg. I then loaded that file into my label program, printed the label, pasted the label onto my 3x5 card, and, voila! my flash card. Perfect!

Perfect, except too many steps with the screen grab and loading it into PS, etc. All I needed to do was figure out how to save the neck diagram as a jpg. No where in the menu can I find how to do that. I posted on the Neck Diagrams forum and found out why this is going way too smoothly!:rolleyes: To be able to save neck diagrams as a graphics file one needs the "Pro" version of Neck Diagrams which is $55.

I'm not saying the Pro version isn't worth the cost. I'm sure it is, especially if you are a teacher. For my limited use I'm not sure this is justifiable. I'm going to work with it a little more. What I'm also going to look at, what I perhaps should have first look at, is just using graphics from t=some of the chord web sites some of you recommended.

This BGU group is always a source of help and information.
 

Al Holloway

Devizes UK
Perfect, except too many steps with the screen grab and loading it into PS, etc.
Are you on windoze? If so snip & sketch (just type snip in the search box) may be your answer. It enables you to just cut the bit of screen you want and then either copy it to clipboard or save it as a jpg. If your on mac your on your own as I never use any fruit based it products.

cheers

Al.
 

JestMe

Student Of The Blues
If it's seems to good to be true..................

Everyone thanks for the responses and help. Thanks to Chris for the suggestion of Neck Diagrams and especially thanks for the comprehensive/informative email.

Neck Diagrams appeared to be exactly what I need. I have worked with it some and it produces perfect graphics for what I need. In fact it does even more than I expected such as labeling the intervals or notes. It makes it really easy to do things such as marking muted strings (or strings not played).

For the first few days of trying it I just did a screen capture. That, of course, produces my entire screen. I pasted that into Photoshop, cropped it to just the neck with the chord, and saved that as a jpg. I then loaded that file into my label program, printed the label, pasted the label onto my 3x5 card, and, voila! my flash card. Perfect!

Perfect, except too many steps with the screen grab and loading it into PS, etc. All I needed to do was figure out how to save the neck diagram as a jpg. No where in the menu can I find how to do that. I posted on the Neck Diagrams forum and found out why this is going way too smoothly!:rolleyes: To be able to save neck diagrams as a graphics file one needs the "Pro" version of Neck Diagrams which is $55.

I'm not saying the Pro version isn't worth the cost. I'm sure it is, especially if you are a teacher. For my limited use I'm not sure this is justifiable. I'm going to work with it a little more. What I'm also going to look at, what I perhaps should have first look at, is just using graphics from t=some of the chord web sites some of you recommended.

This BGU group is always a source of help and information.

@matonanjin

I agree grabbing a screen shot and bringing it in to another piece of software, cropping... what a pain that would be.

How about if you could grab a partial screen shot right from Neck Diagrams...
  • You should be able to do a partial screenshot of just the chord that you want. I'm not sure what app would be useful in the Mac world [though I'm sure there is one available] but in Windows [Win 10] you should have Snipping Tool built in or perhaps Snip & Sketch [as Al Holloway referred to].... which is also part of the Win10 world.
  • I believe I have standard Neck Diagrams2 and I have made jpg file using "File / Export Diagram".[/S]

To use Snipping Tool or Snip & Sketch you could just 'frame' a rectangle around the chord you want and hit enter... then you would have it in your 'buffer' ready to past in your Word [or other] app. Easy peasy...

So... are you a Window or a Mac person...?
 
Last edited:

JestMe

Student Of The Blues
@matonanjin

Google seems to indicate that "Dropshare" is the snipping tool for Mac machines... MAC people can use it to get partial screen shots...

Feel free to give me a shout... I can help make it easier, I'm sure.
 

matonanjin

Chubby, old guy trying to play some blues.
Al (@Al Holloway) and Chris (@JestMe) I am on Windoze. And, yes, it looks increasingly like I am going to need to scrape a portion of the Neck Diagrams window and take it directly to my lqabels program. Doing it this way is going to make the process worth the effort. Maybe?! If I learn chord shapes!!!o_O It seems that I had a utility at one time to do that. But I'll look at those recommended. thanks to both of you.

"I believe I have standard Neck Diagrams2 and I have made jpg file using "File / Export Diagram"." Chris, I could not find that. And on their forum the author of Neck Diagrams responded and said that I had to have Pro version.
 

Al Holloway

Devizes UK
I believe the sniping tool is being replaced by the snip & sketch so I would try that (I used to use snip on win 7 but it sometimes fails now on 10 or shows a msg stating it is to be replaced).

upload_2020-10-14_20-7-29.png

cheers

Al.

p.s. grabbed using snip & sketch / copy and paste
 

artyman

Fareham UK
I just use the Prnt Scrn button then paste it into MSPaint then use Select and Crop if I want something off the screen.
 

matonanjin

Chubby, old guy trying to play some blues.
I just use the Prnt Scrn button then paste it into MSPaint then use Select and Crop if I want something off the screen.
But those extra steps, as I explained above, is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I'm now loading it into Photoshop, cropping, saving and loading into my label program. If I can 1) save it as a graphic from Neck Diagrams, or 2) Save a cropped screen grab.
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
If you're looking for a good screen snap too for Windows, I've been using MWSnap for years. I started using it back when I had to write tech manuals for the telecom gear my company used to import. You can lasso anything on your main screen. It only works on the main screen of a multi-screen PC. It even has a few crude editing tools built in. Best part is it is free to download and use.

When I want to grab an entire window, Alt-PrintScreen will capture only the window with the focus. I use it when I need to grab a window with an extended dialogue screen open on top of it. Even that doesn't work on all apps.
 

JestMe

Student Of The Blues
Al (@Al Holloway) and Chris (@JestMe) I am on Windoze. And, yes, it looks increasingly like I am going to need to scrape a portion of the Neck Diagrams window and take it directly to my lqabels program. Doing it this way is going to make the process worth the effort. Maybe?! If I learn chord shapes!!!o_O It seems that I had a utility at one time to do that. But I'll look at those recommended. thanks to both of you.

"I believe I have standard Neck Diagrams2 and I have made jpg file using "File / Export Diagram"." Chris, I could not find that. And on their forum the author of Neck Diagrams responded and said that I had to have Pro version.

@matonanjin

Try this... Get your chord diagram ready in Neck Diagrams...

1 - Press your start button and type in Snip & Sketch.... that should bring up a screen to start Snip & Sketch [It's built into Win 10]. Then click New [Take a new snip] Then click and drag around over the chord diagram you want to capture.

2 - [A short cut to start Snip & Sketch] Press and hold these 3 keys
  • Windows key [Windows logo to the left of the space bar]
  • shift key
  • letter s
and then let them go and wait a minute. This will call up Snip & Sketch... Your screen will darken slightly The you can click and drag around the chord diagram you would like to capture....now paste it into your label program.

3. Check this out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc6OZvdVtYs

You'll be surprised how easy it is going to be.
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
@matonanjin

Try this... Get your chord diagram ready in Neck Diagrams...

1 - Press your start button and type in Snip & Sketch.... that should bring up a screen to start Snip & Sketch [It's built into Win 10]. Then click New [Take a new snip] Then click and drag around over the chord diagram you want to capture.

2 - [A short cut to start Snip & Sketch] Press and hold these 3 keys
  • Windows key [Windows logo to the left of the space bar]
  • shift key
  • letter s
and then let them go and wait a minute. This will call up Snip & Sketch... Your screen will darken slightly The you can click and drag around the chord diagram you would like to capture....now paste it into your label program.

3. Check this out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc6OZvdVtYs

You'll be surprised how easy it is going to be.
WOW! I guess I should have read the release notes!
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
FWIW, I use TechSmith Capture. It's a really nice screen capture/annotation tool.
 
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