I’ve been using guitar pro 6 for more than 6 years and could not be happier!
This tablature software allows you to easily write songs on a variety of instruments using tab notation. And you can find fan-made tabs of loads of popular songs to download and learn from.
We downloaded Guitar Pro 6 to my MacBook Pro which runs OS X (version 10.8.5). It is important to note that it crashed immediately afterwards 4 times until I correctly added the 'sound banks' into the program. It was a separate file on the disc I didn't consider until I noticed every time I attempted a new instrument it crashed, erasing everything.
To switch back to a normal guitar sound, you simply need to create a second preset in Guitar Pro 6. Here are the two presets used in sequence in the riff from “Bat Country” by Avenged Sevenfold. “AvengedSevenfold-BatCountry-Radiosound” (click on the image to download the Guitar Pro tab) We hope this tutorial will prove useful to you. First make sure that you installed Guitar Pro 7 latest version from the Guitar Pro 7 or Help menu, then check the following points. Did you install the Guitar Pro 7.5 soundbanks? During the Guitar Pro 7.5 installation you have the choice to install or not install the Guitar Pro 7.5 RSE soundbanks. The Guitar Pro team is proud to present you a new selection of professional-grade Metal presets for you to install into Guitar Pro 6. From Megadeth to Metallica or Pantera, enjoy the sound of legendary guitarists when you play or write your tabs! M/ How do I install my new Metal presets in Guitar Pro 6?
It is without a doubt the absolute best tool for learning the guitar.
Guitar Pro is endorsed by a lot of big names in the guitar world, most notably Arch Enemy, Michael Angelo Batio and none other than one of Djent Hubs favorites, TesseracT!
Guitar Pro 6 XL Review
The difference between regular Guitar Pro 6 and the XL Edition is that the XL edition comes with an additional 100 soundbanks on top of the 100 that come as standard.
I actually don’t think it’s worth buying GP 6 XL version. You want to buy guitar pro 6 because of its incredible capabilities as a songwriting tool, it’s not meant for professional audio work. The soundbanks are still a wonderful feature of guitar pro 6 but there is no need to purchase extras in my opinion. The 100 soundbanks that come as standard will allow you to do everything you could need to.
I only recommend Guitar Pro Xl edition if you want to try out loads of different instruments in your songs and get even more variety in your options. It’s only an extra $15 after all, but it is by no means necessary.
Realistic Sound Engine
I think the best place to start when talking about guitar Pro 6 is with the realistic sound engine or RSE. The RSE provides you with realistic playback of your compositions. So instead of the generic midi sound, you can hear what it will sound like from an actual guitar. More from that, you have a whole range of instruments to choose from! You can add in all types of guitars, (even 7 and 8 strings woohoo!) basses, drum kits, orchestral instruments, and vocals! This is great to help you embody the potential of the piece of music your writing.
After you have chosen which instruments you then have a lot of freedom to master the tracks. Guitar Pro 6 comes standard with a big range of different effects pedals and even amp models, so you can really tweak all the settings to get the perfect tone. You could even program in all the settings of your band so that once you have your composition finished you can get a really good idea of what it will sound like when you play it together!
You can even adjust settings on how the guitars are played that will affect the sound. You can set a guitar to be strummed with a pick or the thumb or a finger. You can adjust for if it is played with a pick or fingerpicked and you can adjust the levels of palm mute! A great stepping stone into the world of home recording and mastering. If you want more options from the soundbanks then you will want to get Guitar Pro 6 XL for the additional 100 soundbanks
Why You Need Guitar Pro 6 For Your Band
Guitar Pro 6 is a great tool to have as part of a band. If nothing else because purchasing one copy of Guitar Pro comes with a license for 5 computers! So if you have a 4 piece band, 15 bucks each and you can all own a copy. Awesome!
More from that, if one of you has been writing a new song for the band and everyone needs to learn it you can write out the track, export it to a PDF and send it out. Or send the GP6 file to anyone who has the program. You can also export the composition to a Wave file and everyone can listen to it!
A friend of mine had a project where he had to write a composition for an orchestral trio plus the guitar. Not the easiest thing to do when you’re a guitarist and have no idea how to write in standard notation.
Luckily he had Guitar Pro!
He was able to write out scores for a cello, a violin, and a double bass, all using tab notation! The standard notation then appeared above and he was able to print it out and give it to them to play!
Another great feature of GP6 is, that say you’re a 3 piece band, guitar, drums bass. You feel like your band is missing something but you’re not sure what. Well open up Guitar Pro 6 and start adding in rhythm parts for a keyboard and see how that sounds! Why not start throwing in some banjo solo’s just to see? Why not! It’s easy to do and you could find that missing element that really gives your band the punch it needs!
Why Beginners Need Guitar Pro 6
This is honestly the best resource you can buy if you are learning the guitar. I have used it for many years as a substitute to a guitar teacher and it helped improve my technical playing to levels I didn’t think were possible. I went from fumbling around playing smoke on the water to playing Arch Enemy and Symphony X solos within a year.
But it wasn’t just getting the tabs up on guitar pro 6, you can get tabs anywhere online, it was the incredible speed trainer function. This completely amazing and hugely understated tool allows you to repeat a highlighted piece of music at a given speed, then gradually increase the speed on each play through. I liked to set the start speed of the speed trainer to 50% and increase in 10% chunks. But there were times where I would need to go as low as 20% and increase in 5% intervals!
Asides from improving your playing you can also begin writing your own compositions. You can start messing around with different riffs and tabbing them in, or coming up with chord sequences and listening to them played back. From there, if you keep practicing, you’ll be writing so many tracks that you’re going to need a 7 piece band!
Guitar Pro 6 also comes as standard with an awesome chord library. You can write the chord in tab notation, click on it, hit A and Guitar Pro will bring up the name of the chord! There are of course a lot of great online resources for chords you can check out such as Guitar-Chord.org but having a library of chords to hand is great. There is also a massive scales libraries full of some of the most exotic scales imaginable. You can go through the list and practice them if you wish but that’s not the best part. The best part is that you can highlight a selection of the music in one of your tracks, a riff or a solo, click tool-scales-scales from selection, and you will be told what scale is the best fit! Then you can write out the rhythm section easy as pie.
User Experience
When you first open Guitar Pro 6 it can seem a little daunting. You have a blank screen and need to go file, new, and open a new sheet, then all of a sudden you have a screen full of information and different buttons.
Relax!
It seems a lot at first if you have never encountered musical notation but if you hold you mouse over a symbol it will tell you what it is. And with some experimentation, you will be able to navigate your way around no problem at all.
From there you have all the different sections on the left, the musical note is the musical notation section. The guitar is the instrument settings, the amp is the effects, the one below that is mixing, then chord library and lyrics editor. That’s as far as I’ll go with explaining the buttons, this isn’t a tutorial after all!
My recommendation would be to explore all the buttons and click on everything to see what it does.
When it comes to writing in your music things couldn’t be easier. You simply use the arrow keys to navigate the strings then type in what fret to play. You can then click on the timing you want and carry on from there!
The drums in GP6 are a little more tricky. You want to insert a new track, select drums and ok, then you click on view and instrument panel. This will bring up the notation for adding drums. Each note corresponds to a different drum. This will take time and practice to get right. Especially if you have never played the drums! But don’t panic Guitar Pro provide lessons on writing drums here.
If you are looking for more advanced drum writing software, then have a look at our review of Ezdrummer 2.0
Now there’s a trick you need to know for writing other instruments in tab form. What you want to do is add a new track as a guitar and then go to the guitar section on the left and then pick your desired instrument from the RSE soundbank menu. This means that the guitar will be played as whatever instrument you selected. Easy!
Some people have reported that Guitar Pro 6 keeps crashing on them. Now for me, this hasn’t happened at all. It may be that my computer runs better? But more likely it is that most of these reviews are from 2014 and earlier.. Since then there have been several updates released which fixing te issues. That’s the only downside I’ve heard and for me, it hasn’t been a problem!
Overall
I can’t fault Guitar Pro 6. It is a fantastic piece of software for any guitarist from the beginner onwards. Click here to check the price on Amazon and buy your copy today!
Guitar Pro 6 Resources
Free Guitar Pro 6 tabs
I have always used https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ to find tabs for GP 6. They have a fantastic selection and great community. The tabs are all fan made, rated and reviewed and I have never had an issue with a download.
You can also use 911tabs http://www.911tabs.com/guitar_pro_tabs/ which is another great resource for guitar pro tabs but one I have used less often.
Paid Guitar Pro 6 tabs
If you are wanting something more professional you can pay for the proper sheet music at http://www.mysongbook.com/which is fully compatible with GP6. This is the music as written by the bands themselves so you are in for much higher quality music and it will help support the bands who made them.
Like I said before if you purchase this awesome learning software directly from Guitar Pro you get to select one free songbook from My Song Book!
Editing sheet music
has never been easier
Guitar Pro allows you to edit your music scores and tablature for guitar, bass, and ukulele, as well as create backing tracks for drums or piano. This is a most thorough yet user-friendly tool for musicians who wish to get better, compose, or simply play along. Download our free trial and start editing your own music.
Guitar Pro featuresFree Guitar Sounds
Guitar Pro 7.5,
a major step forward
This new version is free for Guitar Pro 7 users. Opening tool windows by clicking on the score, file explorer, tablature editing for 9- and 10- strings guitars, mySongBook integration, batch conversion tool, MIDI import improvement, better orchestral soundbanks, enhanced drums view – discover the many new features of this update.
See what's new in Guitar Pro 7.5The library of music scores
created by Guitar Pro
mySongBook brings you over 2,000 Guitar Pro transcriptions of your favorite songs available directly in the Guitar Pro software. You can shop for music scores by the unit or with our full access subscription that allows you to collect files from the entire library.
Browse the music scoresOur commitments
The Guitar Pro team is committed to assisting you.
Guitar Pro 6 No Sound Download