Guitar Pro 5 - PC CDROM
As all guitarists will know looking for an accurate and well-written piece of guitar tablature isn’t always the easiest thing to do. With most online sites open for the public to contribute, hundreds of poorly written and downright awful tabs are posted daily. Many a time have I looked at a piece of tablature and personally emailed the Author to inform them of their errors.
“Powertab” was the first solution to this problem and to degree it worked. Midi playback makes it easier to hear blatant mistakes and easy conversion to written music made it practical to play on keyboard and piano. But there were still major flaws on the composition side, not to mention its very unprofessional look. But then came Guitar Pro. Unlike Powertab its not free, and with a base price of 60 Euros it’s rather costly. Personally, owning the prior version "Guitar Pro 4" I got "Guitar Pro 5" for 50%, which isn't bad considering what you get...
Its main feature of benefit over its competitors is its RSE (Realistic Sound Engine). Gone are the days of listening to punney midi playback electric guitars that just sound like an angry mosquito and a synth that sounds like it was used to write the birdie song. The play back is so rich in quality and fine in depth, you could almost substitute it for the real thing. Hence why many people including myself use its as a backing tool for instrumental practice.
Secondly its actual interface is adept and beautiful. Every pixel of the screen you look at is redolent with useful tools that can be used to improve and define your melody into something excellent. Upon first use I was really quite bewildered and daunted by all the different buttons and key commands, but after about ten minutes of use I really got to grips with the interface, which proves that, just because something’s technical in implementation doesn't always have to mean its complex to operate. There's also an inclusive tuning and chord dictionary, with massively extensive listings.
When actually composing melodies, GP5 is wonderfully quick and manageable. Simply type the fret numbers upon the blank tablature page and edit note lengths via a simple tool bar at the top of the screen. You can add a multitude of effects by yet another toolbar or use practical key binds for even quicker working. Even if you’re not used to writing in a tablature and just need to find an easy way to convert your sheet music, the keyboard input tool mean you can effectively do this in a few minutes and add articulation.
But one of the greatest features in my opinion was to be the Midi input tool. With is you can convert any midi file with pinpoint precision to a GP5 score. This basically means that even if a song isn't able to download as a GP file, you can simply get hold of a midi and learn it from that. Quite literally, there is no limit to what you can learn.
Another great thing is, if your using a tool such as, say, Guitar Tracks Pro you can use GP5 as a drum machine by composing the percussion track then exporting it as a Wav file for importation to the recording.
Guitar Pro 5 is truly one of the most useful tools a guitarist could possibly find himself or herself with. Whether you’re just planning on learning a few simple tunes or writing a masterpiece, GP5 is abundantly useful.
