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Heads up: saved captures live only in this browser — clearing your browser data will remove them. Export a capture as JSON if you want a copy you can re-import in the Tab Maker.
- Pick a guitar sound (acoustic, electric, or classical) and a tuning — the virtual guitar retunes instantly
- Tap any string and fret to play it — fret 0 is the open string. Every note sounds and lands at the tab cursor as a fret number
- Pick each note’s value — sixteenth, eighth, quarter, half, or whole (keys 1–5) — and the cursor advances by it; rhythm stems under the tab show every note’s length. To fix a duration later, tap the note in the tab and pick a new length — the tab reflows. Playing a chord? Turn on Chord mode to stack notes, then hit "Next beat"
- Add techniques to the last note you played — hammer-on, pull-off, slides, bend, vibrato — tap a Muted string button to write an x, or type fret numbers straight into any cell to transfer an existing tab
- Press Space for a rest, Backspace to undo, or tap any beat to move the cursor — then hit "Play tab" to hear everything played back at your tempo, with each note ringing for its written length
- Hit "Preview" to see the finished tab with clean continuous lines and the note values drawn as rhythm stems — print it or save it as a PDF right there — or copy it as text, export it as TXT or JSON, save it by name in your browser to reload later, or send it to the Guitar Tab Maker to restructure measures
| Note value | Stem in tab | Length button | Key | Counts as | Sixteenths | TXT letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole note | 1 | 5 | 4 beats | 16 | W | |
| Half note | ½ | 4 | 2 beats | 8 | H | |
| Quarter note | ¼ | 3 | 1 beat | 4 | Q | |
| Eighth note | ⅛ | 2 | ½ beat | 2 | E | |
| Sixteenth note | 1⁄16 | 1 | ¼ beat | 1 | S | |
| Dotted notes · half again as long, written by spacing | ||||||
| Dotted half note | — | — | 3 beats | 12 | H. | |
| Dotted quarter note | — | — | 1½ beats | 6 | Q. | |
| Dotted eighth note | — | — | ¾ beat | 3 | E. | |
A dotted note lasts half again as long as the plain note — a dot sits beside the stem, and its TXT letter carries a dot too (so Q. is a dotted quarter = 6 sixteenths = 1½ beats). There’s no single button for dotted values; you write them by spacing — each note runs until the next one begins, so leaving a wider gap lengthens the note. Pick a length before you play, or tap a note already in the tab and pick a new one to resize it.
About the Virtual Guitar
Guitar Tool Hub's virtual guitar is a playable guitar in your browser — an online guitar simulator you play by tapping the strings and frets, with every note sounded by real sampled acoustic, electric, or classical guitar. What makes it different from other virtual guitars is the tab capture panel: the fretboard works like a keyboard, and each note you play is written down at the tab cursor as a fret number, so playing literally generates the guitar tab. Capture single-note melodies or stack notes into chords with Chord mode, give every note its own value — sixteenth, eighth, quarter, half, or whole, shown as rhythm stems under the tab, resizable any time by tapping the note and picking a new length — write muted strings as x, and mark hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends, and vibrato on any note you played — each technique is audible, from legato hammer-ons to gliding slides and pitch bends. Every cell is also directly typeable, so you can transfer an existing tab by hand. Then press Play to hear the whole tab back at your tempo, with each note sustained for its written length, techniques and all. Not sure where to start? Load the built-in sample song — the “Ode to Joy” theme from Beethoven's Ninth (public domain) — and the tab fills with a ready-made melody you can play back, study, and edit. When a riff is worth keeping, open the Preview — the same clean, continuous-line print rendering as the Guitar Tab Maker's, with the note values drawn as rhythm stems under every staff — and print it or save it as a PDF; copy it as text or export it as a TXT file, where a note-value line under every staff line letters each note (W, H, Q, E, S for whole to sixteenth, with dots for dotted notes); export it as JSON; save it by name in your browser to come back to it later; or send it straight to the Guitar Tab Maker for measure-level editing and saving. Supports all 27 tunings shared across Guitar Tool Hub, works on desktop and mobile, and needs no account or download.
- 01Playable virtual guitar — tap strings and frets to hear real sampled guitar sound
- 02Acoustic, electric & classical guitar sounds
- 03Tab capture: every note you play is written down as a fret number
- 04Melody capture and Chord mode (stack notes on one beat)
- 05Musical note values — sixteenth to whole (keys 1–5), with rhythm stems shown under the tab and after-the-fact resizing
- 06Muted / dead notes — per-string mute buttons write an x in the tab
- 07Technique symbols: hammer-on, pull-off, slide up/down, bend, vibrato — audible live and in playback
- 08Directly typeable tab cells — transfer an existing tab by typing fret numbers, with arrow-key navigation
- 09Reads like printed tab — six string lines with fret numbers sitting on them and barlines at every measure
- 10Tab playback — hear your capture beat by beat at 40–240 BPM
- 11Built-in sample song — load Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” theme (public domain) as a ready-made tab to play back and edit
- 12Space for rests, Backspace to undo, tap any beat to move the cursor
- 1327 tunings including Drop D, Open G, and DADGAD
- 14Print/PDF preview — clean continuous lines with rhythm stems under each staff, print or save as PDF
- 15Copy the tab, or export as TXT (ASCII tab with a note-value line under every staff line) or JSON
- 16One-tap hand-off to the Guitar Tab Maker for detailed editing
- 17Save captures by name in your browser — load, update, or delete them any time
- 18Auto-saves your capture in the browser
- 19Free — no account needed
Frequently Asked Questions
A virtual guitar is a playable guitar simulation that runs in your browser — you play it by tapping or clicking the strings and frets instead of plucking physical strings. This one plays real sampled guitar sound (acoustic, electric, or classical) for every note, supports 27 tunings, and writes down everything you play as guitar tab.
Yes — that’s exactly what this tool is for. Tap any string and fret combination to hear it played with real sampled guitar sound. It’s a genuine way to explore the fretboard, try melodies and riffs, and understand how notes sit on the neck before or without owning the instrument.
The fretboard acts like a keyboard: every note you tap lands at the tab cursor as a fret number on the matching string, and the cursor moves forward by the selected note length. Chord mode stacks several notes on the same beat instead, and the Muted string buttons write an x for a dead note. Press Space to leave an empty beat and Backspace to undo — the tab grows automatically as you keep playing.
Yes — press "Play tab" and the whole capture plays back through the same sampled guitar sound, with a playhead moving across the tab and every technique symbol articulated (legato hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides that glide, bends, vibrato, muted chks). Set the tempo anywhere from 40 to 240 BPM. The beat grid is even, and each note rings until the next hit on its string — so spacing works as duration, exactly like reading real tab.
Yes — pick the note value from the Note length control (sixteenth, eighth, quarter, half, or whole; keys 1–5) before playing each note, so every note carries its own duration. To change a note you already wrote, tap it in the tab and pick a new length — the rest of the tab reflows automatically. Each grid column is a sixteenth note, and the value is written the way tab writes rhythm: as spacing. Rhythm stems under the tab show each note’s value at a glance — a double-flagged stem for sixteenths, a single flag for eighths, a tall stem for quarters, a short stem for halves, a small circle for whole notes, and a dot for dotted values. The note values also travel with the tab: the print preview draws the same rhythm stems under every staff (and prints or saves as PDF from there), while the copied or exported ASCII tab writes a letter under each note (W, H, Q, E, S — dot for dotted) on a note-value line under every staff line. During playback every note sustains for its written length, so a half note genuinely rings twice as long as a quarter note.
Yes — tap “Load sample song” in the tab panel and the tab fills with the “Ode to Joy” theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (public domain), arranged on the top two strings in first position. Press Play to hear it, follow the fret numbers on the fretboard to learn it, or edit any note — it’s a real capture like anything you play yourself, so it exports and hands off to the Tab Maker the same way. Its mix of quarter notes with a dotted-quarter, eighth, and half-note cadence also shows how the rhythm stems under the tab read.
Yes — every cell in the tab panel is editable. Click any cell and type a fret number (plus an optional technique symbol like h, p, /, \, b, ~, or x for a muted note), and move around with the arrow keys. That makes it easy to transfer a tab you already have on paper or from another site, then hear it played back or keep building on it from the fretboard.
Yes. After playing a note, tap a technique button — hammer-on (h), pull-off (p), slide up (/), slide down (\), bend (b), or vibrato (~) — and the symbol attaches to that note, so playing fret 5, tapping Hammer-on, then playing fret 7 reads 5h7 on the line. You hear the techniques too: hammer-ons and pull-offs sound legato with no fresh pick attack, slides glide into the note from the previous fret, bends push the pitch up a whole step after the pluck, and vibrato wavers the pitch — both live as you play and during playback. The Muted string buttons write an x (dead note) on any string and sound a short percussive pluck.
Playing the virtual guitar literally generates the tab — each note is written down as you play, so you never type fret numbers by hand. Note that it does not transcribe audio recordings into tab: it captures what you play on the on-screen fretboard, not what it hears in a song file.
Yes. The virtual guitar has three sounds — a steel-string acoustic, a clean electric, and a classical nylon-string — all built from public-domain (CC0) recordings of real instruments. Switch between them any time; the tab capture is unaffected.
Open the Preview to see the finished tab drawn with clean, straight, continuous lines and the note values as rhythm stems under every staff — the same print rendering the Guitar Tab Maker uses — and print it or save it as a PDF right there. You can also copy it to the clipboard as classic ASCII tab (with the note values lettered under every staff line), download it as a TXT or JSON file, or send it straight to the Guitar Tab Maker, where you can edit every cell by hand, restructure measures, and save it — techniques and muted notes carry over exactly. Your capture also auto-saves in the browser, so it’s still there when you come back — and you can save captures by name to keep several and reload any of them later.
All 27 tunings shared across Guitar Tool Hub: standard (E A D G B E), Drop D, Drop C, Open G, Open D, DADGAD, half and full step down, and more. Changing the tuning retunes both the sound and the note names on the neck, and the tab export records which tuning you played in.
Yes — completely free. No account, no download, and no payment required. It runs entirely in your browser on desktop and mobile.