Show HN: Guitoro, a virtual guitar you strum with your keyboard
Guitoro is a free browser guitar using recordings of real instruments. You can strum with your keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen, choose acoustic, classical, electric guitar or bass, and see chord fingering and each stroke. Song practice can be slowed to 20%, and there are free chord tools and tuners. No signup or download. 1 minute video demo: https://youtu.be/DtcluMLdSgs I would love feedback on how the strumming feels and sounds.
Discussion Highlights (20 comments)
fellowniusmonk
This looks very interesting, I may finally learn wonderwall.
lefstathiou
This is excellent. Thank you.
paaloeye
That's awesome!
iamben
This is absolutely amazing. Well done.
vegnus
Sick, love it
gtruong78
This is great, great design, great functionality, TY!
Rygian
Why does it show a left-handed guitar on Player view, and a right-handed one on Audience view?
jrflo
Holy shit, this is incredible. As a guitar player this actually feels like playing a guitar. So cool. Only suggestion I would have would be to make all 6 strings strummable independently in the chord instead of just the 4, so you can do finger picking on it.
LewisOrton
Before I knew it, ten minutes had gone! good job
waerhert
Very well done! When adding a chord on a key, I'm missing a small preview of the chords as they appear in the autocomplete list, or would be nice to be able to assemble a chord on a fretboard view. What made you start work on this app? And what is the logic behind how the chords are laid out on the keyboard?
ssteeper
It's great! As far as I can tell, the toggle for Let ring is not working: when i disable it, notes still ring out after letting go of the key (in solo mode on electric guitar currently)
mbil
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel: AAAAAA FFFFFF SSSSSS DDDDDD FFFFFF FFFFFF SSSSSS SSSSSS AAAAAA AAAAAA DDDDDD DDDDDD
_spduchamp
This looks great! I noticed that the strumming seems a bit off on chord changes. A good default is to let strings that don't change on chord change to continue to ring through. Just think about the strings as actual strings and the kinds of things that happen to them when you play. Also, different songs will have different techniques like bar chords that may have less brightness, palm muting etc. I'm working on a physical guitar digital luthier kit right now as part of a project at Toronto Metropolitan University working with disabled musicians. Our aim is to release it so anyone can build one. Here is our documentation of examining an existing assistive guitar built a few years ago in the UK. https://www.designingsoundfutures.org/kellycaster-mark-1/ Now we're taking lessons learned from that and working on robust versions for touring musicians, and variations to adapt to different assistive and artistic needs. Great to see others doing nifty work with this guitar based music stuff.
orliesaurus
I just spent 30 minutes playing with this. It's incredible, well done to the author!
ZeWaka
This is super fun, thanks!
SamInTheShell
This is kinda cool, but it's nowhere near as fun as being able to play the real thing. Sounds better IRL. It is nice that it shows the chords.
TomGarden
Had fun with this on my phone! Any chance of calculating velocity based on speed of pick movement? I'm sure some super basic ASDR and maybe a low-oass would get you to a very satisfying place
jamesdelaneyie
Really really enjoyable, but how do I turn on drive for the electric guitar?
vdev123
This is really good.
mbo
In solo mode, there should be a horizontally flipped version, such that such that the 0 key plays open E on the 1st string, and the 9 plays F on the 1st string, etc. That would allow me to hold my wireless keyboard backwards, facing the screen, rely on the muscle memory of my hands.