At the bottom is the 'guitar' itself, on which mechanical 'fingers' move about forming chord shapes as the instrument is played (either via incoming MIDI notes, from Guitarist's internal sequencer, or both). To the right are the effects and amp simulator. In the centre of the display is a kind of piano‑roll display for a built‑in step sequencer. In the top left are pop‑up menus for loading and browsing presets. The main window is divided into several sections. Guitarist's graphical user interface is very pretty and well rendered, with its various moving parts all smoothly animated. The installer is a 500MB download, and you're provided with a serial number that must be entered during installation.
Guitarist is available for Mac OS X (10.4 or higher) and Windows (XP, Vista or 7), and runs as a stand‑alone application or a VST or AU plug‑in. Sugar Bytes' Guitarist is in a similar vein, built upon large sets of guitar multisamples, with software mechanisms to mimic the interactions of pick, strings and fingers. There have been previous attempts to tackle the problem by modelling the behaviour of guitars - and, more to the point, guitar players - in software, most notably Steinberg's Virtual Guitarist (reviewed in SOS December 2002 and September 2006). Sometimes, even with the most painstakingly multisampled, velocity‑switched libraries, they end up sounding a bit stiff and artificial. Electric guitar is one of the most difficult instruments to recreate in sample‑based form. Sugar Bytes are the latest developers to brave the challenge.