TuxGuitar
TuxGuitar is a free, open-source tablature (tab) editor and player for musicians learning to play guitar, bass and other stringed instruments. It reads and writes a variety of tablature formats including GuitarPro files, MIDI, and its own native format. The app includes a built-in audio player with soundfont support, allows users to slow down playback for practice, display chord diagrams, transpose music, and edit both notation and tablature simultaneously. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and Android, making it popular among students and amateur musicians who want a lightweight, free alternative to commercial notation software.
AI Recommendation
1 suggestionTuxGuitar currently ships only as an x86_64 (Intel) package on macOS — there is no native Apple Silicon build. The official documentation explicitly states that on M-series Macs you must use the Intel x86_64 installer, which runs under Rosetta 2. Since TuxGuitar is built on Java and shows no signs of active development toward a native arm64 release, the Intel build will stop launching entirely when Apple removes Rosetta 2 in macOS 28 (September 2028), leaving you less than two and a half years to plan an alternative. Contact the TuxGuitar developer team ([email protected]) to ask whether a native Apple Silicon build is planned, but do not expect a rapid response — the project appears to move slowly. In the meantime, consider evaluating native alternatives such as GarageBand (built-in to macOS, free, limited but suitable for basic practice), Guitar Pro (commercial, industry standard, confirmed native Apple Silicon support), or MuseScore (free, open-source notation software, native Apple Silicon build available), so you are not caught off-guard when Rosetta 2 reaches end-of-life.
Recommended reading