Welcome to the Fretboard Diagrams Tool! This powerful fretboard maker helps you create professional fretboard diagrams directly from your guitar tablature. Whether you're visualizing scales, chord shapes, or note patterns, this guitar fretboard tool makes it easy to transform your tab notes into clear, visual fretboard diagrams.

This comprehensive guitar tab creator guide will show you how to use the fretboard tool to create, customize, save, and share fretboard diagrams with note names, numbering sequences, and more.

Your Fretboard Diagrams (Green) - Diagrams that you've created and saved to your personal collection. These are private to your account and only visible to you.

Community Fretboard Diagrams (Yellow) - Diagrams created by other users and shared with the community. These fretboard patterns have been published publicly and are available for anyone to use.

System Fretboard Diagrams (Grey) - Built-in diagrams from our comprehensive library. These are pre-configured fretboard patterns covering common scales, arpeggios, and note patterns.

Integration with Guitar Tab Creator

• Automatic Note Extraction: The fretboard tool reads the notes you've already entered in your tablature and converts them into a visual fretboard diagram
• Real-time Preview: As you add notes to your tab, the fretboard diagram updates automatically to reflect your changes
• Bidirectional Workflow: You can either create diagrams from tab notes, or insert saved diagrams back into your tablature
• Stave-Specific Context: Each stave in your tablature can have its own independent fretboard diagram, allowing you to visualize different sections separately

Search Tip

The search function uses a "contains" match, so searching for "major" will find "C Major Scale", "E Major Arpeggio", and any other diagrams with "major" in the title. You can also press Enter in the search box to trigger the search.

Viewing Diagram Details: Click on any thumbnail in the gallery to select that diagram. The fretboard diagram will enlarge in the preview area, and you'll see detailed information including:

• The diagram type (Your Diagrams, Community, or System) with corresponding color coding
• Author information (for Your Diagrams and Community diagrams)
• Diagram title/name
• Action buttons (Insert and Save)

Load More Results: If your search returns more than 10 results, a "Load More" button will appear at the bottom of the gallery. Click it to load the next page of results, which will be appended to the existing thumbnails.

Step 1: Position your cursor in the tablature at the point where you want to start creating a fretboard diagram.

Step 2: Click the "Create Fretboard" button (it shows a guitar icon).

This activates fretboard mode and extracts all the notes from your current position onward in the tablature.

Step 3: Once fretboard mode is enabled, the interface updates to show:

• The button changes to "Exit Fretboard" - Click this to return to normal tab editing mode
• A live preview of your fretboard diagram showing all extracted notes
• Author information panel with save options

How Notes Are Extracted

• Starting Point: The tool begins reading from your current cursor position and continues to the end of the stave
• String Mapping: Tab strings are automatically mapped to fretboard strings (tab's top line = low E string)
• Tuning Awareness: The tool uses your instrument's tuning settings to correctly position notes
• Muted Strings: Notes marked with "x" in the tab (muted strings) appear on the diagram with an "X" marker
• Filtering: Empty positions, dots, and placeholder characters are automatically ignored

Unsaved Changes Warning

If you create or modify a fretboard diagram and then try to load a different diagram from the gallery, the tool will detect unsaved changes and ask if you want to save your work first. This prevents you from accidentally losing your custom diagram.

What It Does

The "Show Notes" button is located in the main tab editor toolbar. When activated before creating a fretboard diagram, it displays the actual note names (A, B, C, C#, D, Eb, etc.) on each dot in your fretboard diagram.

How It Works

• Automatic Calculation: The fretboard tool calculates note names based on your instrument's tuning and the fret positions in your tablature
• Chromatic Awareness: Uses proper chromatic scale calculation to determine sharps and flats
• Octave Handling: Correctly handles octave relationships across all fret positions
• Visual Display: Note names appear in white text on the colored fret markers

Use Case: Learning Scales and Theory

The Show Notes feature is incredibly useful for educational purposes. Guitar students can see not just where to place their fingers, but also understand which notes they're playing. This is perfect for creating scale diagrams, chord tone visualizations, and theory exercises.

What It Does

The "Numbering" button is also located in the main tab editor toolbar. When activated before creating a fretboard diagram, it displays sequential numbers (1, 2, 3, 4...) on each dot, showing the order in which the notes appear in your tablature.

How It Works

• Sequence Tracking: Numbers are assigned in the exact order that notes appear in your tab, from left to right
• Incremental Display: Each note gets the next number in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.)
• Visual Display: Numbers appear in white text on the colored fret markers
• Fingering Patterns: Perfect for showing picking sequences or finger placement order

Use Case: Teaching Picking Patterns and Sequences

The Numbering feature is ideal for creating instructional diagrams that show the exact order to play notes in a scale pattern, arpeggio, or exercise. This is especially helpful for teaching alternate picking, economy picking, or specific fingering sequences.

Last Button Pressed Wins: If both buttons have been pressed during your editing session, the fretboard diagram tool uses whichever button was pressed most recently. This "last mode" approach gives you flexibility to switch between note names and numbering as needed.

• If neither button is active, fretboard dots appear as solid colored circles without text
• If "Show Notes" was pressed last, note names appear on the diagram
• If "Numbering" was pressed last, sequential numbers appear on the diagram
• Muted strings (marked with "x" in tab) always show "X" regardless of button state

How Insertion Works

• Code Parsing: The tool reads the fretboard diagram code and extracts all note positions (string and fret numbers)
• Note Conversion: Fretboard string numbers are converted back to tablature string positions
• Sequential Addition: Each note is added to your tab in sequence, with dots filling other strings
• Cursor Advancement: Your tab cursor moves forward by the number of notes inserted, ready for continued editing

Note for Anonymous Users

You must be signed in to save fretboard diagrams to your collection. If you're not logged in, you can still create and insert diagrams into your tablature, but the save feature will be unavailable. The tool will prompt you to log in if you attempt to save while not authenticated.

What Gets Saved

When you save a fretboard diagram, the following information is stored:

• Title: Your custom title for the diagram
• Fretboard Code: The complete diagram code including all note positions, colors, and text labels
• Display Settings: Canvas dimensions and rendering preferences
• Author Information: Your user account (making it "Your Diagram" in the gallery)
• Privacy Status: Diagrams are saved as unpublished (private) by default

Important Note

You cannot save a diagram that already exists in your collection. If you select one of your own diagrams (green background), the "Save" button will be hidden since it's already in your library.

Dialog Functionality

• Cancel Button: Click "Cancel" to close the save dialog without saving. Your diagram remains in the editor for continued work.
• Enter Key: Press Enter while focused in the title input field to quickly save without clicking the button
• Validation: The tool prevents saving empty diagrams - you must have at least one note in your diagram
• Success Feedback: A green flash message appears for 2 seconds after successful save, then fades out
• Gallery Refresh: After saving, the gallery automatically refreshes to include your newly saved diagram

Automatic Protection

The fretboard tool automatically tracks whether you have unsaved modifications to your current diagram. If you try to switch to a different diagram from the gallery while you have unsaved work, you'll see a confirmation dialog:

"You have an unsaved fretboard diagram. Would you like to save it first?"

• Click OK: Opens the save dialog so you can save your work before switching
• Click Cancel: Discards your current work and loads the selected diagram

When Unsaved Work is Detected

The tool considers you to have unsaved work in these situations:

• You created a new fretboard diagram with notes from your tablature
• You added or modified notes in your tab while in fretboard mode, causing the diagram to update
• You have not clicked "Save Fretboard" since making these changes

The tool clears the unsaved work flag when:

• You successfully save your diagram
• You load a different diagram from the gallery
• You exit fretboard mode
• You switch to a different stave

No Notes Selected: If you activate fretboard mode at a position in your tablature that has no notes, the preview area will display "No notes selected" and the save button will be hidden. This prevents saving empty diagrams.

To create a diagram, you need at least one note in your tablature at or after your cursor position.

Stave-Specific Context: When you switch from one stave to another in your tablature (e.g., from verse to chorus), the fretboard tool automatically:

• Resets to the new stave's current cursor position
• Creates a fresh fretboard diagram from the new stave's notes
• Clears any selected gallery diagram
• Resets modification tracking

This allows each section of your tablature to have its own independent fretboard diagram visualization.

Efficient Loading: Search results are paginated to improve performance:

• Initial searches return the first 10 results
• If more than 10 results exist, a "Load More" button appears
• Clicking "Load More" fetches the next 10 results and adds them to the gallery
• Results remain in the gallery until you perform a new search
• A loading state prevents duplicate requests if you click "Load More" multiple times quickly

Login Required for Saving: Several features require you to be logged in:

• Saving custom fretboard diagrams to your collection
• Copying Community or System diagrams to your collection
• Accessing your personal diagram library

If you're not logged in, these features will show a prompt: "Please log in or register to save fretboards."

You can still use these features while not logged in:

• Creating fretboard diagrams from your tablature
• Searching and browsing Community and System diagrams
• Inserting diagrams into your tablature

Use Descriptive Titles

When saving fretboard diagrams, use clear, descriptive titles that will help you find them later. Include the key, scale/pattern type, and position if applicable (e.g., "G Major Scale - Position 2", "D Minor Pentatonic - Box 1", "C Major Arpeggio - 8th Fret").

Leverage Show Notes for Learning

When creating fretboard diagrams for educational purposes, activate the "Show Notes" button before entering fretboard mode. This creates diagrams that teach note locations on the fretboard, making them valuable learning resources for students.

Use Numbering for Technique Exercises

For exercises focused on picking patterns, fingering sequences, or note order, activate the "Numbering" button before creating your diagram. This shows students exactly which order to play the notes, making it perfect for technical exercises and drills.

Build a Personal Library

Get in the habit of saving useful fretboard patterns you create. Building a personal library of scales, arpeggios, and chord shapes makes your future composing and arranging work much faster. You can quickly insert these patterns into new tabs without recreating them.

Explore Community Diagrams

Don't forget to check the "Community Fretboards" checkbox when searching! You'll discover creative patterns and variations contributed by fellow musicians. If you find useful community diagrams, save them to your collection for quick access.

Use Strategic Cursor Positioning

Before clicking "Create Fretboard," position your cursor at the exact start of the pattern you want to visualize. The tool extracts notes from that position onward, so proper cursor placement ensures you capture exactly the notes you want in your diagram.