Moving your Ultimate Guitar playlists into gigbrain
gigbrain can copy your Ultimate Guitar playlists, in order, and turn each into a setlist. No pasting songs one by one.
Can I import from my phone?
No, the import needs Chrome on a computer. It uses a bookmark, and phone browsers cannot run one. Once the songs are in, they are on your phone too.
Before you start
- Sign in to gigbrain in one tab and to Ultimate Guitar in another.
- Importing playlists is part of gigbrain Pro. Every new songbook gets 14 days of Pro. See the pricing page.
The steps
- In gigbrain, open Import from Ultimate Guitar. The page shows a button labelled GigBrain.
- Show the bookmarks bar in Chrome (Command Shift B on a Mac, Control Shift B on Windows) and drag that button onto it.
- Open any song on tabs.ultimate-guitar.com while signed in, and click the new bookmark.
- Tick the playlists you want and press Import.
- Keep the Ultimate Guitar tab open until the gigbrain window says it has finished.
What gets copied from Ultimate Guitar?
The chords and lyrics of each tab, its title and artist, and the playlist order. Each playlist becomes a setlist with the same name. Your Ultimate Guitar playlists are left as they were.
Songs already in your songbook are reused, not duplicated, so running the import again only adds what is new.
How long does it take?
Most playlists finish in a few minutes. Official tabs take a few seconds each.
gigbrain then looks up each song's length, tempo and timed lyrics. Give a large import a few minutes, then check the dots next to the titles. Green means the song is fully prepared. Yellow means something is still missing, and the song scrolls by the length of the recording.
What should I check after the import?
- Capo. When the tab names a capo, gigbrain sets it on the song. Check it once, since a few tabs put the capo in the lyrics instead.
- Artist spellings. "The Beatles" and "Beatles" count as different artists.
- Tabs with no lyrics. Instrumental tabs have nothing to time, so they scroll by length.
What if the import stops halfway?
The import retries when the server is busy and tells you if a song could not be copied. Run it again and it skips the songs you already have. If a tab keeps failing, paste it by hand.
Should I import everything at once?
No. Start with the playlist for your next gig. Every imported song needs a quick check before it is ready for a stage, and a pile of songs you never play buries the ones you do. Import the rest later. A second run only adds what is new.
Say you play in a covers duo with three playlists: a pub set of 32 songs, a wedding set of 40 and a list of 85 songs to learn. Import the two gig playlists, about 70 songs, and leave the learning list on Ultimate Guitar for now. Then spend one evening on the songs for your next gig, and do the rest a few at a time before each rehearsal.
Is an imported tab ready to play on stage?
Treat it as a first draft. Community tabs are written by many different people, so they differ in what they include and how they lay it out. Before you play an imported song live, go through it once:
- Write out every repeated chorus in full. Many tabs say "Chorus x2" or just "Chorus", and the sheet cannot scroll through words that are not there.
- Add section labels where they are missing: Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Solo.
- Check the key against the recording you play along to. Some tabs are in a different key, or written for a capo the tab never mentions.
- Delete the parts you do not play, such as a long tab of the guitar solo, so the next verse is on screen when you need it.
Then press play and watch one verse and one chorus. If the sheet runs ahead or falls behind, the tab usually has a missing or extra section compared to the recording. Fix the sheet and the timing is rebuilt.
Ten minutes per song is normal for the first pass. Do the songs in your next setlist first and the rest when you have time.
Turn the playlists into gig setlists
A playlist is often a pile of songs you want to learn. A setlist is the order you play them on the night. Open each one after the import:
- Delete the songs you do not play live. They stay in your songbook.
- Drag the rest into playing order. The post on building a setlist that keeps the room has a shape for 25 songs.
- Add a song note where needed: the key you sing it in, the retune, who starts.
- Press play on two or three songs and watch the scroll. The post on chord sheets for a dark stage covers the formatting.
When it is ready, share it with the band by link, song notes included.
Coming from another app
If your songs live in OnSong or BandHelper, the comparison pages say what moves across: gigbrain vs OnSong and gigbrain vs BandHelper.