Guitar Pro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (November 2007) |
Guitar Pro is a multitrack editor of guitar tabulature and musical scores, possessing a built in MIDI-editor, a plotter of chords, a player, a metronome and many other tools useful to guitarists and musicians. Guitar Pro is a tabbing program for Windows and Mac OS X. It is made by the French company Arobas Music.
 |
|
|---|---|
  Guitar Pro 5 on Windows XP and Mac OS X Leopard |
|
| Developer(s) | Arobas Music |
| Stable release | 5.2 |
| Operating system | Windows / Mac OS X |
| Type | Tablature Editor MIDI Editor |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | http://www.guitar-pro.com/ |
Contents |
[edit] History
There have been three popular public major releases of the software: versions 3, 4 and 5. A few minor releases, with bug fixes and minor features added, were also made available.
Guitar Pro was initially designed as a tablature editor, but has since evolved into a full fledged score writer.
Up to version 4 the software was only available for Microsoft Windows. Guitar Pro 5, released on November 2005, undertook a year long porting effort and Guitar Pro 5 for the Mac OS X was released in July 2006.
[edit] Background
The software makes use of multiple instrument tracks which follow standard staff notation, but also shows the notes on tablature notation. It gives the musician visual access to keys (banjos, etc.) for the song to be composed, and allows live previews of the notes to be played at a specified tempo. It allows for certain tracks to be muted and provides dynamic control over the volume, phasing and other aspects of each track. Included in version 4 onwards is a keyboard that allows pianists to add their part to a composition.
Guitar Pro outputs sound by means of a library and/or, as of version 5, the "Realistic Sound Engine" which uses high quality recorded samples for a more realistic playback. By using its live preview feature musicians may play along with the song, following the tablature played in real time.
Files composed using Guitar Pro are recorded in the GP5, GP4 and GP3 format, corresponding to versions 5, 4, and 3 of the software. Such files are available for free on several websites, including songs of both underground and popular bands. However, copyright issues raised by the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) pressured some of these sites to close. Note that for example, Guitar Pro 4 cannot open GP5 files created by Guitar Pro 5, but prompts the user to upgrade their software to a newer version.
[edit] Uses
Guitar Pro is a software meant to help musicians and aspiring musicians to compose, transcribe, edit and study music. It also helps the sharing of compositions among groups of people and other musicians.
Guitar Pro 5 is also well suited for classical music study and composing. Prior to version 4, it wasn't possible to remove the tablature from the screen or printout, making it a little confusing for classically-trained musicians to edit standard notation scores; and impossible to achieve print-outs without the tablature notation. This limitation has been lifted as of version 5 and many improvements to standard notation and printout quality introduced.
However, Guitar Pro only gives the user the choice of a treble or bass clef when defining instruments, and often it will produce the wrong default clef for certain instruments e.g. a treble clef for a cello where a bass clef should be used; this would be exceptionally high for a cellist to play. There is also a minimal amount of correct musical theory compared to other programs such as Sibelius. This includes the way notes should properly be grouped, expressions and techniques.
[edit] Criticism
Guitar Pro's version, 5.1, is prone to various bugs, especially a tremendous memory leak[1]. There are imposed limitations such as tracks with a number of strings different from 6 not being able to be set as twin-string (the "Simulate 12-stringed guitar" option being greyed out), and a number of unintuitive features such as "Transpose" always transposing the entire track and not the selected region.
