Linux: the best programs for guitarists

When I first started using Linux one of the things that stopped me from completely passing on was guitar software. «There is nothing to give the Guitar Rig and Guitar Pro with«, I said to myself. However, little by little I got to know some free alternatives very interesting that helped me forget about windows. This is the crème de la crème of Linux apps for guitarists. Almost all of them are available in the repositories of popular distros.

Guitar Pro

Guitar Pro is a score editor for guitar, although it supports all instruments supported by the MIDI format. It is a very useful tool in learning the guitar, since in addition to allowing us to listen to the song we can see the tablature and the score, as well as a diagram with the position of the fingers on the guitar neck.

Guitar Pro allows you to handle scores in a very simple and intuitive but very professional way. Besides 8 guitars, it supports various types of instruments such as pianos, organs, various types of strings, voices, percussion, synthetic effects, and other effects, with a total of 127 possible instruments.

Since version 5, guitar pro includes a new system called RSE (Realistic Sound Engine) to reproduce the audio of the scores instead of the MIDI format used by the previous versions. This system consists of the reproduction of sounds of real instruments previously recorded, which offers a sound very similar to that of a real instrument. This method of reproduction has the disadvantage that it consumes a large amount of system resources.

It also has a useful tool for chord construction. It has tools for tuning electric and classical guitars, tools for practicing scales, metronome, speed trainer among others.

Even if you are a rookie guitar player, you must surely have heard of Guitar Pro, the popular guitar tablature editor and player. The proprietary multitrack editor is very useful for editing guitar (bass and six-string) tablatures as well as creating full-fledged musical scores. Since its inception, Guitar Pro has gained a lot of popularity amongst guitar enthusiasts, with the 'gp' files being made available on sites like Ultimate Guitar.

Thanks to strong demand, a version for Linux already exists. Currently, this version is available for Ubuntu. It never hurts to clarify that, like its version for Windows, it is a paid application, although it is possible to try a demo, from here.

TuxGuitar

TuxGuitar is a free licensed sheet music editor with support for many operating systems, including Linux, Windows and Mac OS. The program is mainly oriented for guitar, although it supports all the instruments supported by the MIDI format.

It is a very useful tool in learning music, particularly in learning the guitar, since in addition to allowing us to listen to the song, we can see the tablature and the score, as well as a diagram with the position of the fingers on the neck of the guitar. guitar.

It supports the .ptb (powertab), .gp3-.gp4-.gp5 (guitar pro), and .tg (tux guitar) formats. It is capable of importing MIDI files and exporting in MIDI, PDF, and ASCII.

If you want to try a free alternative to Guitar Pro that is fully compatible with the latter, then TuxGuitar is what you are looking for.

Gtkguitune

gtkGuitune is a virtual guitar tuner. Its use is simple: bring or connect your guitar to the microphone and regulate until you have the right sound. It has several options depending on the tone in which we want to tune.

Audacity

Audacity is a free multiplatform computer application, which can be used for audio recording and editing, easy to use, distributed under the GPL license. It is by far the most popular audio editor on GNU / Linux systems.

General characteristics

• Audio recording in real time.
• Edit audio files type Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV, AIFF, AU, LOF and WMP.
• Conversion between standard audio formats.
• Import of MIDI, RAW and MP3 files.
• Multi-track editing.
• Add effects to the sound (echo, inversion, tone, etc).
• Possibility of using plug-ins to increase its functionality.

songwrite

songwrite is a tablature editor and player specifically designed for Linux. Songwrite allows you to create tablatures not only for guitar but also for banjo, flute and ukulele. Formerly known as Gtablature, this application also allows you to print your tablatures and play them with the help of an external player.

Guitaris

If you are a musician, or an aspiring musician like me, you surely always regretted the fact that there were no good programs to amplify your electric guitar live, like Guitar Rig. Those few programs available are old and practically abandoned.

Guitaris it is a simple jack guitar amp, with one input and two outputs. Designed to get good thrash / rock metal / or blues guitar sounds. There are controls for bass, mid, treble, gain (input / output), compressor, tube preamp, overdrive, oversampling, anti-aliasing, distortion, FreeVerb, vibrato, chorus, delay, wah, amp selector, tonestack , echo and a long etcetera.

For more information on how to install Guitarix, I recommend you read this other post.

Ardor

Ardor is a multiplatform multitrack audio and MIDI recording program. It is generally used as an audio mastering environment, although its characteristics go much further, since it is a sophisticated digital recording studio and one of the best programs for audio recording / editing that exists at the moment not only within the Open Source. It is generally compared to Pro Tools, the worldwide standard for professional studio recording.

General characteristics

It is worth highlighting the multichannel recording, non-linear and non-destructive editing, with an unlimited series of Undo / Redo, architecture based on plug-ins, etc. Furthermore, it can be controlled by audio material, similar to Nuendo, Cubase, or Digital Performer.

• 12 or 24 bit recording
• Any number of physical channels
• Support of standard audio formats: wav, wav64, caf, aiff, ...
• Time scaling
• Repeat per track or per session
• Automatic cross-fading
• "Mono" and "Stereo" audio support

Rosegarden

Rosegarden is a professional MIDI and audio sequencer, score editor, and general environment for music editing and composition. It is free software under the GPL license, developed for GNU / Linux, ALSA and KDE. It is intended as a replacement for commercial applications such as Cubase.

If you already have experience with audio sequencers, you will find a familiar editing environment, which combines the appearance of an audio and MIDI sequencer, since Rosegarden rests on an ALSA infrastructure. For audio recording, Rosegarden makes use of the Jack system, whose plug-ins LADSPA can process, generating highly varied and colorful effects.

Additionally, Rosegarden adds the use of the new DSSI plug-in architecture, which duplicates the audio processing alternatives. The score editor offers many possibilities while the MIDI sequencer allows us to directly create sequences, edit MIDI events, etc. Ultimately, Rosegarden feels like a fish in water in her music composition studio role.

muse

Muse is a MIDI / audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities.

This type of program is known as a digital audio workstation or DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), some known are Cubase, ProTools, FL Studio, etc. It is intended to be a complete virtual multitrack studio for Linux, released under the GNU General Public License.

Key features

• Audio and MIDI support
• Complete automation system for audio and MIDI
• Audio mixer with support for LADSPA effects, VST via DSSI, and stereo and mono tracks
• Support for MIDI instrument definition files (.idf)
• Custom keyboard shortcuts
• Support for "Drag and Drop" events
• Import and export of .smf files
• RTC (Real Time Clock)
• Arrange view with parts and tracks
• Dedicated MIDI editors
• Real-time editing
• Unlimited number of editors and undo / redo records
• Real-time step recording
• MMC sync, MIDI Clock, Master / Slave and Jack Transport
• VST support via DSSI-VST
• Integrated MESS architecture
• LASH enabled
• XML-based project and configuration files

Jack Audio Connection Kit

JACK Audio Connection Kit or simply JACK is a sound server or daemon that provides low latency connection between jackified applications, for audio and MIDI data.

To see a list of applications that support Jack, click here.