How do I play the virtual guitar with my computer keyboard?

Keys 1 to 6 pluck strings 1 to 6 at whatever fret each one is held on, where string 1 is the highest and thinnest and string 6 the lowest. Space strums the held chord down, from the lowest sounding string to the highest, Shift and Space strums it up, and Escape stops every sound. On the fretboard itself, Tab reaches the frets, the arrow keys move along a string and across to the next one, Home and End jump to the open string and the last fret, and Enter or Space holds and plucks the focused fret. Space on a focused button presses that button instead of strumming, and typing in a field never plays a note.

How does the capo work?

Put the capo on any fret from 1 to 9 and every open string sounds that many semitones higher, the way a real capo shortens all six strings at once. Fret numbers stay absolute, as on a real neck: with the capo on fret 2, an open string is fret 2, and frets 0 and 1 are shaded and cannot be played. A chord shape you pick is placed above the capo, and moving the capo carries the held shape with it, so a G shape stays a G shape while the chord it sounds changes. The readout names that chord: A (G shape) for the G shape above capo 2, and the fretboard pane spells it out as A major.

Can I use alternate tunings like Drop D or DADGAD?

Yes. The Tuning list has standard, Drop D, half step down, DADGAD, open G, open D, open E and a bass setup, and the Strings field takes any six notes typed lowest string first, such as D2 A2 D3 G3 A3 D4, with sharps or flats. Each string can be tuned anywhere from E1 to E5. The chord readout works from the notes that actually sound, so a shape played in another tuning is named as whatever chord it spells there. A typo shows a message and leaves the strings as they were until the field reads as six notes.

How do I record and export what I play?

Press Record and play: frets, keys, strums, swipes and the looping pattern all go into the take at the times they sounded, until you press Finish take or Stop. Replay plays it back as played, or quantized to the nearest eighth or sixteenth note at the tempo it was recorded in, and the same Quantize setting applies to the WAV. The .wav button renders the take in the page as 16-bit mono at 44,100 Hz, with one extra second so the last notes ring out; .json saves every note with its time, string, fret and pitch, and Open .json reads such a file back. Up to 12 takes are kept in this browser, and one take can run for up to 5 minutes or 10,000 notes.

How are the strum patterns written?

One character per eighth note: D is a down strum from the lowest sounding string up, U is an up strum from the highest down, played a little lighter, a dot or a dash is a rest, B plucks the lowest sounding string on its own, and 1 to 6 plucks one string. The folk strum is D . D U . U D U, and the two picking patterns walk through the chord one string at a time. A pattern can be up to 16 steps, two bars of 4/4, and it loops at a whole-number tempo from 40 to 240 BPM, following each chord you pick while it plays. Muted strings are skipped.

Does it sound like a real guitar?

It sounds like a plucked string rather than a recording of any particular guitar. Each note is made by Karplus-Strong synthesis: a burst of noise circulates in a delay line one period long and is softened on every pass, so the note starts bright and mellows as it rings, and low strings ring longer than high ones. A higher velocity makes a pluck louder and brighter. There is no body resonance, fret buzz or pick noise, and a string plays one note at a time, so a new note on it cuts the one before, as a real string does. The pitch is the equal-tempered frequency of the fret, and the synthesized tone is tuned to within a cent of it.

Can I play it on a phone, tablet, PC or Mac?

Use a browser with Web Audio on an iPhone, Android device, tablet, PC or Mac. Tap a fret to play it, or swipe up or down across the strum pad at the right end of the neck to pluck the strings you cross, in the order you cross them; a tap on the pad strums down. On a narrow screen every fret stays at least 44 pixels wide and the neck scrolls sideways, with the string names and the strum pad kept in view. Browsers only start audio after a touch, so your first tap also wakes the sound.

Can I play a virtual bass guitar?

Choose Bass E A D G in Tuning. It resets the capo to none and opens E1, A1, D2 and G2 on rows 6, 5, 4 and 3 of the six-row fretboard, with rows 2 and 1 muted. Pluck with keys 6, 5, 4 and 3 or tap those rows. Low E is 41.20 Hz and its twelfth fret is E2 at 82.41 Hz. Selecting a guitar chord shape or tapping either unused row can sound the extra strings again. The bass uses the same synthesized pluck, with no sampled instrument or slap articulation.

Can I play electric guitar with distortion?

Choose Electric overdrive in Tone for a soft-clipped synthesized pluck, or Clean pluck for the unprocessed sound. Tone applies to new live notes, replay and WAV export; already ringing notes keep their old tone. A take stores pitches and times rather than an audio recording, so replay and WAV use the tone selected then. This is a simple electric-style sound, with no guitar-input amplifier, pedalboard, cabinet model or microphone input.

Can I use this as virtual guitar software?

Yes. This is free browser software for playing a synthesized guitar, recording note timing and exporting a WAV take. Clean pluck provides the acoustic-style sound; Bass E A D G selects bass-range strings. Open the page in a browser with Web Audio support to use it. It does not include a native installer or a DAW plugin.

Virtual Guitar

Play a six-string guitar in your browser, on an onscreen fretboard with fifteen frets a string. Play synthesized notes with taps, keys 1 to 6 or a swipe across the strum pad. Hold a chord with one of 23 shapes, add a capo, change tuning, or loop a strum pattern at your tempo. The Bass E A D G setup opens four bass-range strings and mutes the two unused rows; Electric overdrive adds a simple distorted tone. Record a take to replay, quantize or save as WAV or a file of notes and times. Your takes and settings stay in this browser.

TonePatternVelocity80%

fretboardstandard, capo 0

str  open  +capo 0  fret  sounds
1    E4    E4       3     G4   392.00 Hz
2    B3    B3       0     B3   246.94 Hz
3    G3    G3       0     G3   196.00 Hz
4    D3    D3       0     D3   146.83 Hz
5    A2    A2       2     B2   123.47 Hz
6    E2    E2       3     G2   98.00 Hz

chord  G major
strum  D . D U . U D U, eighths at 90 BPM
keys   1 to 6 pluck a string, space strums

takenone yet

No take yet. Press Record, pluck, strum or play the pattern, then press Finish take.

Takes are kept in this browser, up to 12, and export as .wav and .json.

Quantize

voices 0 sounding

Open .json

Tuning

Strings, low to high

Capo

Tempo

BPM

Chord

Take

none yet

Tap a fret to pluck its string, press 1 to 6 to pluck with your keys, and Space to strum the held chord (Shift and Space strums up). Arrow keys move along the fretboard, and Escape stops everything.

String 6, standard tuningfret 0, then fret 12
E2 82.41 Hz, then E3 164.81 Hz
Capo on fret 2standard tuning
every open string 2 semitones up: F#2 B2 E3 A3 C#4 F#4
Stop, then quantized replay6 voices ringing; a note at 0.690 s, 1/16 at 90 BPM
0 voices left; the note replays at 0.667 s, order kept

Accuracy. Pitches are exact equal-tempered values from A4 = 440 Hz: open low E is E2 at 82.41 Hz, fret 12 is E3 at 164.81 Hz, and a capo raises every string by the same number of semitones. The sound is a synthesized pluck for demonstration, not a recording of a real guitar, and a shape that is easy to click may be hard or impossible for a real hand. Live notes reach you after your device's own audio delay; the take stores the times you played, and it is recorded and rendered to WAV in your browser.

Common questions

How do I play the virtual guitar with my computer keyboard?: Keys 1 to 6 pluck strings 1 to 6 at whatever fret each one is held on, where string 1 is the highest and thinnest and string 6 the lowest. Space strums the held chord down, from the lowest sounding string to the highest, Shift and Space strums it up, and Escape stops every sound. On the fretboard itself, Tab reaches the frets, the arrow keys move along a string and across to the next one, Home and End jump to the open string and the last fret, and Enter or Space holds and plucks the focused fret. Space on a focused button presses that button instead of strumming, and typing in a field never plays a note.
How does the capo work?: Put the capo on any fret from 1 to 9 and every open string sounds that many semitones higher, the way a real capo shortens all six strings at once. Fret numbers stay absolute, as on a real neck: with the capo on fret 2, an open string is fret 2, and frets 0 and 1 are shaded and cannot be played. A chord shape you pick is placed above the capo, and moving the capo carries the held shape with it, so a G shape stays a G shape while the chord it sounds changes. The readout names that chord: A (G shape) for the G shape above capo 2, and the fretboard pane spells it out as A major.
Can I use alternate tunings like Drop D or DADGAD?: Yes. The Tuning list has standard, Drop D, half step down, DADGAD, open G, open D, open E and a bass setup, and the Strings field takes any six notes typed lowest string first, such as D2 A2 D3 G3 A3 D4, with sharps or flats. Each string can be tuned anywhere from E1 to E5. The chord readout works from the notes that actually sound, so a shape played in another tuning is named as whatever chord it spells there. A typo shows a message and leaves the strings as they were until the field reads as six notes.
How do I record and export what I play?: Press Record and play: frets, keys, strums, swipes and the looping pattern all go into the take at the times they sounded, until you press Finish take or Stop. Replay plays it back as played, or quantized to the nearest eighth or sixteenth note at the tempo it was recorded in, and the same Quantize setting applies to the WAV. The .wav button renders the take in the page as 16-bit mono at 44,100 Hz, with one extra second so the last notes ring out; .json saves every note with its time, string, fret and pitch, and Open .json reads such a file back. Up to 12 takes are kept in this browser, and one take can run for up to 5 minutes or 10,000 notes.
How are the strum patterns written?: One character per eighth note: D is a down strum from the lowest sounding string up, U is an up strum from the highest down, played a little lighter, a dot or a dash is a rest, B plucks the lowest sounding string on its own, and 1 to 6 plucks one string. The folk strum is D . D U . U D U, and the two picking patterns walk through the chord one string at a time. A pattern can be up to 16 steps, two bars of 4/4, and it loops at a whole-number tempo from 40 to 240 BPM, following each chord you pick while it plays. Muted strings are skipped.
Does it sound like a real guitar?: It sounds like a plucked string rather than a recording of any particular guitar. Each note is made by Karplus-Strong synthesis: a burst of noise circulates in a delay line one period long and is softened on every pass, so the note starts bright and mellows as it rings, and low strings ring longer than high ones. A higher velocity makes a pluck louder and brighter. There is no body resonance, fret buzz or pick noise, and a string plays one note at a time, so a new note on it cuts the one before, as a real string does. The pitch is the equal-tempered frequency of the fret, and the synthesized tone is tuned to within a cent of it.
Can I play it on a phone, tablet, PC or Mac?: Use a browser with Web Audio on an iPhone, Android device, tablet, PC or Mac. Tap a fret to play it, or swipe up or down across the strum pad at the right end of the neck to pluck the strings you cross, in the order you cross them; a tap on the pad strums down. On a narrow screen every fret stays at least 44 pixels wide and the neck scrolls sideways, with the string names and the strum pad kept in view. Browsers only start audio after a touch, so your first tap also wakes the sound.
Can I play a virtual bass guitar?: Choose Bass E A D G in Tuning. It resets the capo to none and opens E1, A1, D2 and G2 on rows 6, 5, 4 and 3 of the six-row fretboard, with rows 2 and 1 muted. Pluck with keys 6, 5, 4 and 3 or tap those rows. Low E is 41.20 Hz and its twelfth fret is E2 at 82.41 Hz. Selecting a guitar chord shape or tapping either unused row can sound the extra strings again. The bass uses the same synthesized pluck, with no sampled instrument or slap articulation.
Can I play electric guitar with distortion?: Choose Electric overdrive in Tone for a soft-clipped synthesized pluck, or Clean pluck for the unprocessed sound. Tone applies to new live notes, replay and WAV export; already ringing notes keep their old tone. A take stores pitches and times rather than an audio recording, so replay and WAV use the tone selected then. This is a simple electric-style sound, with no guitar-input amplifier, pedalboard, cabinet model or microphone input.
Can I use this as virtual guitar software?: Yes. This is free browser software for playing a synthesized guitar, recording note timing and exporting a WAV take. Clean pluck provides the acoustic-style sound; Bass E A D G selects bass-range strings. Open the page in a browser with Web Audio support to use it. It does not include a native installer or a DAW plugin.

Pitches are exact equal-tempered values from A4 = 440 Hz: open low E is E2 at 82.41 Hz, fret 12 is E3 at 164.81 Hz, and a capo raises every string by the same number of semitones. The sound is a synthesized pluck for demonstration, not a recording of a real guitar, and a shape that is easy to click may be hard or impossible for a real hand. Live notes reach you after your device's own audio delay; the take stores the times you played, and it is recorded and rendered to WAV in your browser.