Arobas Music Releases Guitar Pro 6 with New Interface & Sound Engine

Arobas Music has released a new version of Guitar Pro, the company’s tablature and scoring software aimed at guitar players. Guitar Pro 6 allows users to create and edit a tablature score for one or more tracks, and to play them back via MIDI sounds (including the ability to slow down or speed up the playback speed). The new version is a ground-up rewrite, has a new interface, and features an improved sound engine for more realistic playback.

The company has made the user interface more “sober,” leaving more room for the score itself on the screen. Editing and sound setting tools are now accessible through a side bad panel. You can also have multiple files open at one time, and there is now a full-screen editing option.

For those creating their own tab files, Guitar Pro 6 has style sheets for customizing the appearance of your tab files, as well as new symbols for more detailed notations. Users can also hand adjust the size of each measure.

The software’s Realistic Sound Engine now uses studio-recorded samples with several articulations (thumb, index finger, picking, etc.), with different styles such as fingerpicking and slapping, too. It includes 50 effects-simulators, and non-fretted instruments are represented by some 100 different samples.

Note: A common use of Guitar Pro is to learn how to play guitar solos. Feed it the tablature info, and Guitar Pro will play it back. The software allows you to slow the speed of the song down as needed, and allows users to loop selectable portions of the tab.

Guitar Pro 6 supports Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Upgrading from previous versions is priced at US$39.95 (we noted on the site that it’s $29.95 until April 30th, 2010), and the full version is priced at $59.95.

Guitar Pro Screenshot
Guitar Pro Screenshot (reduced size)