A 5 mm grid that measures 5 mm
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Notes & writing
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— mm
PNG at 300 DPI · SVG is vector, transparent · both export one sheet
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Prints a measured strip. If a ruler disagrees with it, your printer is scaling the page.
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1:1 detail · 62 × 40 mm
Drawn in real millimeters. Hold a ruler to the screen — if it disagrees, your display's reported DPI is wrong, not the PDF.
Printable bass tab paper, to exact spec
Four lines, one per string, E-A-D-G reading bottom to top. Most tab paper on offer is six-line guitar paper, which leaves you either ignoring two lines per stave or squinting past them.
Bass tab wants a little more room than guitar tab. Basslines carry more annotation per note — slides, hammer-ons, ghost notes, fingering — and all of it has to fit around the fret numbers, so 3mm between strings rather than 2.5mm.
Worth repeating for anyone new to it: the lowest string is the bottom line, which is upside down from how the strings sit when you look down at the instrument. Everybody writes it that way and nobody finds it intuitive at first.
Why bass tab wants more room
A guitar part is often chords, which stack as a vertical column of numbers needing no annotation. A bassline is single notes with something written on most of them.
Slides between positions are constant. Hammer-ons and pull-offs get used for fluency. Ghost notes, the muted x that carries much of the groove in funk and soul, sit between the notes. Fingering often goes below the stave and pick strokes above.
3mm rather than guitar tab's 2.5mm. Four lines instead of six leaves the room for it.
Five and six-string basses
This page draws four lines. A five-string adds a low B below the E, a six-string adds a high C above the G, and neither is available here.
The guitar tab page draws six lines. Use it and ignore the line you do not have, at 3mm spacing.
Rhythm, and when to use notation instead
Tab records no duration, which matters more on bass because the part is largely rhythm. The same notes at the same frets are a different bassline depending on where they sit in the bar.
Most people write stems above the top line. A workable minimum is four tick marks across the bar with the fret numbers aligned under them.
If the part is going to someone who reads, use staff paper. Session work, pit orchestras and big bands assume bass clef.
Frequently asked questions
Which line is the low E?
The bottom one — the opposite of how the strings look when you're holding it.
What string spacing?
3mm. A little wider than guitar tab, because basslines carry more annotation per note.
Five-string bass?
Not here. The guitar tab page does six lines if you need more.