We all love really good audio, but good guitar sound samples are hard/expensive to do.
If you use MIDI instead, then you are probably use to using the standard Windows MIDI
Synth known as “Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth”. This is OK, but for really great sounds,
VirtualMidiSynth by CoolSoft is a great alternative. You can download it here:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth
You will also need a Soundfont to create the audio from the MIDI messages. Some recommended by CoolSoft can be found here: http://www.synthfont.com/soundfonts.html
Note, you may need to use the sfArk tool as mentioned on the page to unpack some of these as they can be pretty big)
Before you start GuitarSharp, you should get VirtualMIDISynth fully configured.
Start the VirtualMIDISynth application (Probably installed here if you can’t find it:
C:\Program Files\VirtualMIDISynth\VirtualMIDISynth.exe), in the Soundfonts tab, use the + button to add a Soundfont you downloaded and click Apply to use it. Then click
OK to close the window. VirtualMIDISynth will still be running and is available
in the system tray.
Once VirtualMIDISynth has been configured with the Soundfont, you can run
GuitarSharp to use it. In GuitarSharp, make sure the Playback | MIDI option toolbar is selected to output via MIDI. In the Explorer pane, use the MIDI button to select VirtualMIDISynth#1 as the MIDI DeviceName used for whichever Part’s output you wish (makes sense to use it for all the Parts really) if not already chosen by default.
You can now start GuitarSharp playing (Playback | Play toolbar item) and hear
the great sound coming from VirtualMIDISynth. Also, from the system tray you can
right click on the VirtualMIDISynth icon to show the MIDI Mixer to play around with
the sound for each instrument – just like a real mixing desk. This is great fun.
GuitarSharp 