Play Virtual Electric Guitar Online
Tap a chord button to strum it, or pick individual notes directly on the 6-string fretboard. Switch between clean and crunch/distortion tones, toggle reverb, and record your session.
🎸 Tap a chord to strum · Tap fretboard cells to pick individual notes
💻 Keyboard Q W E R T Y strums chords 1–6 · A S D F H J strums chords 7–12 · Z re-strums last chord
Screen Recording
Record your performance and download it as a WebM video.
Ready to record screen.
✅ How to Use the Virtual Electric Guitar
- Select Clean or Crunch tone before playing.
- Tap a chord button to strum that chord — notes play bass to treble with a natural downstroke feel.
- Tap any cell on the fretboard to pick an individual note (string + fret).
- Swipe across chord buttons to strum each chord as you pass over it.
- Swipe across the fretboard strings to play them continuously — just like strumming a real guitar.
- Switch between Pop/Rock and Jazz chord sets to change the available chords.
- Use keyboard Q–Y for chords 1–6 and A–J for chords 7–12; press Z to re-strum the last chord.
- Hit Start Recording to capture your session.
The Electric Guitar
The electric guitar is one of the most influential instruments in modern music. Unlike acoustic guitars that rely on a hollow body to amplify sound, electric guitars use electromagnetic pickups to convert string vibrations into electrical signals, which are then amplified through a speaker.
Origins: The first commercially viable electric guitar was the Rickenbacker "Frying Pan" (1931), designed by Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp. It was a lap steel guitar. The first solid-body electric guitar, the Fender Broadcaster (1950), later renamed the Telecaster, revolutionised music by eliminating feedback issues common with hollow-body designs. Leo Fender's Stratocaster (1954) and Gibson's Les Paul (1952) followed, becoming two of the most iconic guitars ever made.
How pickups work: A pickup contains magnets wrapped in thousands of turns of fine copper wire. When a steel guitar string vibrates within the magnetic field, it induces a tiny electrical current in the coil. This signal is sent to an amplifier. Single-coil pickups produce a bright, clear tone, while humbucking pickups (two coils wired in reverse) cancel electromagnetic interference and produce a warmer, thicker sound.
Clean vs. Distortion: A "clean" tone is the natural sound of the guitar amplified without intentional clipping. Distortion occurs when the signal is boosted beyond what the amplifier or circuit can handle cleanly, causing the waveform to clip at the peaks. This adds harmonic overtones and sustain — the signature sound of rock, metal, and blues. Guitarists use overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals to control this effect.
Tuning: Standard tuning for a 6-string electric guitar is E2–A2–D3–G3–B3–E4 (low to high). Alternate tunings like Drop D, DADGAD, and Open G are widely used across genres to unlock different chord voicings and fingerings.
Playing techniques: Electric guitarists use a wide range of techniques including bending (pushing strings sideways to raise pitch), hammer-ons and pull-offs (fretting notes without picking), vibrato (oscillating pitch for expression), palm muting (damping strings with the picking hand), and tapping (fretting notes by tapping the string against the fretboard).
Cultural impact: From Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix to Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eddie Van Halen, the electric guitar has defined the sound of rock, blues, jazz, country, punk, and metal for over seven decades. It remains the best-selling musical instrument in the world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What tuning is the guitar in?
Standard EADGBE tuning — E2, A2, D3, G3, B3, E4 from the thickest string to the thinnest. This is the most common tuning for electric guitar worldwide.
How does the distortion effect work?
The crunch tone uses a Web Audio WaveShaper node with a soft-clip transfer curve — the same mathematical principle behind analogue overdrive and distortion pedals. The signal is boosted, clipped at the peaks (which creates harmonic distortion), then filtered to remove harshness from the upper frequencies.
Why does the chord strum sound natural?
Real guitar strums are not perfectly simultaneous — a downstroke sweeps from the bass string to the treble string over roughly 80–120ms. This instrument staggers each string by 22ms in the same direction, so chords have the slight roll of a human strumming rather than a robotic simultaneous trigger. A dynamics compressor on the output prevents clipping when multiple strings ring together, just like a real amplifier.
What chords are included?
Pop/Rock set: Em, Am, C, G, D, F, E, A, Dm, Bm, E7, G7 — covering the most common progressions in pop, rock, country, and folk. Jazz set: Cmaj7, Am7, Dm7, G7, Fmaj7, Em7, A7, Bm7, D7, E7, Gmaj7, Am9 — essential chord vocabulary for jazz, bossa nova, and neo-soul. Both sets use standard open and first-position voicings.
Chord Reference
| Set | Chords | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Pop / Rock | Em Am C G D F E A Dm Bm E7 G7 | Pop, rock, folk, country, blues |
| Jazz | Cmaj7 Am7 Dm7 G7 Fmaj7 Em7 A7 Bm7 D7 E7 Gmaj7 Am9 | Jazz, bossa nova, neo-soul, R&B |
References & Notes
- Samples: Gleitz midi-js-soundfonts —
electric_guitar_clean+distortion_guitar(MusyngKite) - Tuning: Standard EADGBE — E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4
- 34 samples per tone, E2–E6, pitch-shifted via Web Audio
- Distortion: WaveShaper soft-clip curve, 4× oversampled
- Chord voicings: standard open and first-position guitar chord shapes
This is a simulation tool for learning and entertainment.