X-TuxGuitar

Made as a portable and open-source edition of TuxGuitar, this is a lightweight software application that can help you easily compose music and edit tablatures and scores in a digital environment. Guitar Pro sounds can be imported from .gp3, .gp4, and .gp5 files.

As there is no setup pack involved, you can drop the program files in any part of the drive and just click the executable to launch X-TuxGuitar. It's also possible to save a copy to a pen drive to directly run it on any computer effortlessly. Unlike most installers, it doesn't modify Windows registry settings.

The GUI is user-friendly, represented by a normal window with well-organized layout, where you can begin by exploring the menu bar. It's possible to toggle between selection, score edition and sharp/flat mode, pick one of the two voices available, or show the mixer, player, fretboard, piano and matrix.

As far as composition functions are concerned, you can work with the time signature, tempo, clef, key signature, triplet feel, and alternative repeats. You can add as many tracks as you want and play with them, as well as delete any tracks, edit lyrics, or add and copy measures.

X-TuxGuitar lets you remove unused voices, apply effects, insert text, adjust the track's duration, re-arrange beats, set and manage markers, transpose the track, convert multiple files into other formats in bulk, tune the guitar, or apply and manage plugins.

It's possible to select the number of strings, offset, main instrument, percussion track and color, try to keep the notes at the same string, transpose chords and affected notes, change the window title, disable automatic table resizing, customize the font styles, switch to a different MIDI sequencer and port, and so on.

We haven't come across any stability issues in our tests, thanks to the fact that X-TuxGuitar didn't freeze, crash or display error dialogs. It had a good response time and left a small footprint on system resources.

To sum it up, X-TuxGuitar comes loaded with the necessary tools and customization preferences to help you compose music in a user-friendly workspace.