A real recorded guitar under your mouse, your fingers or your computer keyboard. Pick a chord, then strum it by dragging across the strings or with the Space bar - or tap any fret for a single note. Acoustic, electric, nylon or our GX-1 signature model, four tunings, a left-handed neck and a live tablature of what you play.
Recorded strings on a neck drawn from a real one: rosewood, maple or ebony, real string gauges, frets spaced like on an instrument.
Every note starts as a recording of a real guitar string. The acoustic has one for every semitone from D2 to D5; the electric and the nylon are pitched from the nearest recorded note. Each string stops the note it was playing when you play it again, like a real one.
Drag across the strings over the body to strum: the direction gives a down or up stroke and the speed gives the volume. Tap a fret to play one note. Space strums down, Shift + Space strums up, and Q W E R T Y pluck the six strings one by one.
C, G, D, A, E, Am, Em, Dm and F sit on the number keys 1 to 9; hold Shift for their seventh. The fingering shows on the neck, the chord name and its notes underneath. Every other chord, with open and barre shapes, is in the guitar chord charts.
A guitar that does not exist anywhere else: the comfort-contoured double cutaway of the great fifties solid bodies, a flame maple sunburst top like the most sought-after collector guitars, and the headless neck of today's ergonomic designs. Two humbuckers around a single-coil, cyan side dots and a line of light along the body. Pick GOONS GX-1 in the Sound menu: warmer, with a touch of drive.
The same neck with four strings and a recorded electric bass: the online bass guitar plays each string from a row of your computer keyboard, so a bass line is under your fingers straight away.
Pick one in the Sound menu of the guitar at the top of the page. The neck changes with it - wood, inlays and strings.
Bright and full, with a long ring. Rosewood fingerboard and bronze strings on the neck. The one for strummed chords.
A clean electric tone with a quicker decay. Maple neck, nickel strings, black inlays. Picks out single notes and arpeggios clearly.
Soft attack, round and warm. Ebony fingerboard and nylon trebles. For fingerpicking and slow chords.
The electric samples through a humbucker-style chain: fuller lows, a push in the mids and a soft drive. Flame maple sunburst body, glowing cyan dots. For riffs and big chords.
Click C, G or Am above the neck, or press 1 to 9 on your computer keyboard. The finger positions appear on the neck.
Drag across the strings over the body, or press Space (Shift + Space for an up stroke). The first stroke starts the sound.
Tap any fret, or press Q W E R T Y to pluck each string of the chord from the lowest to the highest - an arpeggio in six keys.
Try nylon or electric, drop D or open G, the left-handed neck, or note names on the strings. The tablature under the neck keeps what you played.
| Type | Sampled guitar, playable on this page, free |
|---|---|
| Sounds | Steel-string acoustic, clean electric, nylon |
| Samples | Acoustic: every semitone from D2 to D5; electric and nylon pitched from the nearest recorded note |
| Neck | 6 strings, 15 frets on a wide screen, 9 on a tablet, 5 on a phone - more when a chord sits higher |
| Tunings | Standard (E A D G B E), drop D, DADGAD, open G |
| Chords | 18 on buttons and number keys: C G D A E Am Em Dm F, and their sevenths with Shift |
| Strumming | Drag across the strings (speed = volume), Space down, Shift + Space up |
| Computer keyboard | Q W E R T Y pluck strings 6 to 1, by key position - QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ |
| Display | Note names or keyboard keys on the strings, left-handed neck, live tablature |
| Input | Mouse, touch (several fingers) and computer keyboard |
| Riffs | 12 riffs with tablature, loop and 50 / 75 / 100% speed: public domain classics and traditional patterns, GOONS originals |
| Credits | Guitar samples from tonejs-instruments by Nicholas Brosowsky, CC BY 3.0 |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari |
Most virtual guitars are a row of buttons or a picture of a neck that plays a tone. This one plays recorded strings, one voice per string, and lets you strum through them: drag across the strings and each one sounds a moment after the previous one, louder the faster you move. That is the difference between hearing a chord and hearing a guitar.
Pick a chord and the fingers appear on the neck - numbers for index, middle, ring and little finger, circles for open strings, crosses for strings you do not play. The name and the notes of the chord are written underneath. When you want the next one, the guitar chord chart has 120 chords, each with open and barre shapes on the same playable neck. Starting from zero? The free learn guitar course takes you from the string names to a first song in eight lessons, and the guitar tuner gets your own guitar in tune.
Everything you play is written as tablature under the neck: one line per string, the fret number where you played it, strums grouped in one column. It is the quickest way to remember a riff you just found, or to see what a chord shape looks like as tab.
The guitar is free and needs no account. GOONS Studio adds the rest of the band in the browser - a sampled piano, drum machines, a bass synth and a sequencer - with a 7 days free trial, no card required.
Twelve riffs sit under the guitar: In the Hall of the Mountain King, Für Elise, Greensleeves, Ode to Joy, Dies Irae and a boogie shuffle, all public domain or traditional, plus six GOONS originals in rock, funk, surf, metal, reggae and blues styles. Pick one and it plays on the neck with each note lit and its tablature below; loop it and slow it down to 50% while you learn it.
Yes. The guitar at the top of this page is free, with no account and nothing to install: real recorded acoustic, electric and nylon guitar notes, 18 chords, strumming and single notes.
Drag your mouse or finger across the strings over the body of the guitar: top to bottom is a down stroke, bottom to top an up stroke, and the faster you move the louder it plays. On a computer keyboard, Space strums down and Shift + Space strums up.
Number keys 1 to 9 pick C, G, D, A, E, Am, Em, Dm and F (with Shift, their seventh). Q, W, E, R, T and Y pluck the six strings from the lowest to the highest. Keys are read by position, so the same physical keys work on QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards.
Yes. Tap a fret to play a note, or slide a finger across the strings over the body to strum. Upright, the neck shows the first five frets in full size; it widens on its own when a chord sits higher on the neck.
Yes. Press Left-handed and the neck is mirrored: the nut on the right and the body on the left, as you see your own guitar when you play left-handed.
Yes: standard (E A D G B E), drop D, DADGAD and open G. The chord shapes stay the same, so you hear how each tuning changes them, and the name of the chord you actually sound is shown under the neck.
From recordings of real guitars in the tonejs-instruments library by Nicholas Brosowsky, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. They load in the background once the page has finished loading, so the first strum is instant.
The guitar on this page is free, with no account. When you want a whole track, GOONS Studio has the piano, the drums and the sequencer - free for 7 days, no card required.
Free on this page, no account. Guitar chord charts →