Cesure

Overview

Cesure combines a guitar tablature editor with playback, audio transcription, chord detection, practice aids, and collaboration tools. It runs on the web and supports Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can start editing without an account, but saving and syncing scores, using AI transcription, or hosting a collaboration room requires one.

A score can be worked on in tablature, standard notation, a combined staff-and-tab view, or piano roll. Notes can be entered by keyboard, by tapping the score, or with a MIDI keyboard; copy, paste, and undo work across the views. For more options, see our Guitar Tab Software list.

Key features

Score editing and file support

Cesure imports Guitar Pro files in .gp, .gp3, .gp4, and .gp5 formats, along with MIDI, MusicXML, and AlphaTex. It exports scores as PDF, MIDI, or MusicXML. AlphaTex export is reserved for Pro. The app also supports tab playback, MIDI, and audio recording.

Audio transcription and chords

MP3, WAV, and M4A recordings can be transcribed into editable tabs. The maker describes the result as a draft and says clean recordings of a single instrument work best. Transcription uses BasicPitch on the maker's servers, with five free conversions per month and unlimited conversions on Pro.

Chord detection is free and unlimited. It runs on the user's device, so it is available offline as well.

Practice and collaboration

Practice tools include measure looping, a tempo speed trainer, chromatic tuner, metronome, tap BPM, a scale reference, and a piano. For playing with others, users can create a room and share its six-character code to enable synchronized playback and built-in voice chat.

Pricing

Cesure is freemium, with a free plan and a seven-day trial. Free costs nothing, billed forever, and allows three saved scores, unlimited version history, and five AI transcriptions per month.

Pro costs €4.99 a month, billed per month. It includes unlimited AI transcription, an unlimited synced library, watermark-free PDF and MIDI, and MusicXML and AlphaTex export. Saving and syncing scores, transcription, and hosting a room require an account.

Platforms

Cesure is available on the web and supports Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.

Who it's for

Cesure suits guitarists and other musicians who want to create and revise tabs, work from recordings, or use practice tools alongside notation editing. Its range of notation views and file formats may also be useful for people moving scores between different workflows. The transcription is presented as a draft, so it is better treated as a starting point than a finished tab, particularly for recordings with multiple instruments.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Multiple editable notation views and several note-entry methods.
• Pros: Offline, unlimited chord detection is available for free.
• Pros: Practice aids and synchronized playback with voice chat are included.
• Cons: The free plan is limited to three saved scores and five monthly AI transcriptions.
• Cons: Account registration is required for saving and syncing, transcription, and room hosting.
• Cons: Audio transcription produces a draft, with clean single-instrument recordings recommended.

Alternatives

Other options in the category include Guitar Tab Maker, TabMaker, Guitar2Tabs, Soundslice, Songsterr, Noterix, Guitar Tabs X, and TuxGuitar.

Verdict

Cesure brings score editing, playback, transcription, chord detection, and practice tools into one cross-platform toolkit. Its free plan makes editing and chord detection accessible, while the saved-score cap and monthly transcription allowance mark clear limits. Pro removes those limits for transcription and synced library storage and adds further export options. The main caveat is transcription quality: the maker frames output as a draft and recommends clean single-instrument audio.