This free pedalboard turns any computer into a guitar rig. Plug your guitar in, put headphones on, and you get 24 pedals, a working amp and speaker cabinet, a looper, a recorder, a metronome and a tuner, all running in your web browser. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for, and the sound never leaves your computer.
This guide walks you through everything: what to plug in, how to get sound out of your headphones or laptop speakers, how to beat the delay that every computer adds, and how to get the most out of the pedals, presets and tools.
Works best in Chrome or Edge on a laptop or desktop computer.
What you need
- A guitar and cable. Any electric guitar works.
- A way into the computer. A small USB audio interface with a guitar (Hi-Z or instrument) input gives the best sound and the least delay. You can also use the laptop’s headphone jack with the right adapter; more on that below.
- Wired headphones. Plug them into your interface if it has a socket. Bluetooth headphones add a delay you will feel on every note.
- Chrome or Edge. Safari and Firefox work too, but Chrome and Edge give you the most control over where the sound goes.
No guitar handy?
Press Demo riff at the top of the pedalboard. A built-in guitar riff plays through the pedals, so you can explore every sound before you plug anything in.
⚡ Getting set up in five minutes
The first time you open the pedalboard, a setup guide walks you through these steps. You can skip it and reopen it any time from Help.
- Tell it how you’re plugged in. Choose an audio interface or the laptop headphone jack, and whether you’re listening on headphones or speakers.
- Allow guitar input. Your browser asks to use your microphone. Your interface or headphone jack counts as one, so choose Allow.
- Find your guitar. Pick your interface under Device and strum. The page works out which input your guitar is on and sets Channel for you.
- Set your level. Strum as hard as you play and turn the gain knob on your interface until the bar sits in the marked zone. If the red Clip light flashes, turn it down.
- Pick a sound. Load a preset and turn Master up slowly. If anything gets too loud, press Esc and everything goes silent instantly.
Choosing your input
A USB audio interface (best)
Plug the guitar into the interface’s guitar input, set Source to Interface, and choose it under Device. If your guitar only comes out in one ear, change Channel to the input you’re using. Interfaces have a proper guitar input, so you get the full, bright tone of your pickups.
The laptop’s headphone jack
Most laptops have a combined headset jack, and you can plug a guitar into it with a guitar-to-headset adapter: a 6.35 mm guitar socket on one end and a four-ring (TRRS) 3.5 mm plug on the other. The four rings matter, because the guitar goes in through the jack’s microphone contact. A plain three-ring headphone adapter won’t work.
Set Source to Laptop jack. A laptop’s microphone input isn’t designed for a guitar pickup, so the sound arrives quieter and darker; Laptop jack mode boosts the top end to make up for it. Set your level with the microphone volume in your computer’s sound settings, and keep the Noise gate on to tame hiss. If the page warns that it can hear your built-in microphone, push the adapter fully in and pick the jack’s input under Device.
A USB-C headphone adapter
A USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter works too, as long as it has a built-in sound chip and supports a headset microphone. Plug the guitar-to-headset adapter into it, choose it under Device, and set Source to Laptop jack. The bonus is that your laptop’s own speakers stay available, because the computer treats the adapter as a separate sound card.
Choosing where the sound comes out
Headphones
Wired headphones are the best way to play. Plug them into your interface if it has a socket, which is usually the lowest-delay route. With headphones on there is no risk of the squeal you get when a speaker feeds back into a microphone.
Laptop or computer speakers
Set Sound to Laptop speakers. This trims the deep bass that small speakers can’t play, which stops them buzzing. Start with the volume low. With your guitar plugged in by cable, squealing is unlikely, and if the page ever hears one it mutes itself and tells you why.
Picking the speaker: the Output device setting
In Chrome and Edge, the Output device list in the Output panel lets you choose exactly where the sound goes, such as your interface’s headphone socket or your laptop speakers. It appears once guitar input is on.
When something is plugged into a laptop’s headphone jack, many laptops send the sound to the jack instead of the speakers. On Windows, the page offers a one-tap Choose speakers button to send it back. Macs switch their speakers off whenever the jack is in use and no web page can change that, so on a Mac use headphones in your adapter’s socket, USB speakers, or a USB-C adapter as described above.
⏱️ The delay issue, and how to beat it
Every computer takes a moment to bring your guitar in, process it and send it back out. Guitarists call this lag or latency. A little is fine; too much and your notes feel like they arrive late. As a guide:
| Lag | How it feels |
|---|---|
| Under 10 ms | Like playing through a real amp. |
| 10 to 20 ms | Very playable. Like standing a few metres from your amp. |
| 20 to 30 ms | Noticeable on fast, tight playing. |
| Over 30 ms | Hard to play in time. Work through the fixes below. |
The Lag box at the top right of the pedalboard shows your figure, split into two parts: the delay through your computer, and the small amount your pedals add.
What the pedalboard does to keep its own delay tiny
Most lag comes from your computer’s sound system, not the pedals, but the pedalboard is built to add as little as possible. Browsers’ built-in compressors and limiters hold the sound back by 6 ms each, so the pedalboard uses its own zero-delay versions instead, including the safety ceiling that protects your ears. Distortion stages are smoothed only where it matters, which keeps a full Slash-style rig to about 3 ms of processing.
The Mode setting
Fastest adds no processing delay at all. Distortion can sound a touch rawer on high notes.
Low lag is the default and the best balance for most players: it smooths just the main distortion stage of each pedal.
Best sound smooths every distortion stage, at the cost of a few extra milliseconds when several drive pedals are on.
The one pedal that always adds a little delay is Pīwakawaka Pitch, the Whammy-style pitch shifter. Every pitch shifter needs 10 to 20 ms to work, so switch it off when you aren’t using it.
Reduce lag: your personal checklist
Press Reduce lag in the Lag box. It checks your setup automatically and flags anything that’s slowing you down: a Bluetooth output, mismatched sample rates between your interface and computer, a slower browser, or the laptop jack input. It also lets you compare the three modes, with the exact delay each one adds to the pedals you have switched on.
Measure it for real with Test lag
The figure shown at first is your browser’s estimate. For the true number, turn your volume down, unplug the guitar and connect a short cable from your interface’s output to its guitar input, then press Test lag. The page plays five clicks, listens for them coming back and shows your real round trip. The looper also uses this figure to line up your overdubs more tightly.
Eight things that cut lag
- Use wired headphones, plugged into your interface if you can. Bluetooth adds 100 to 300 ms, more than everything else put together.
- Turn off your interface’s direct monitoring, or turn its mix knob fully to playback. Otherwise you hear your dry guitar instantly and the pedalboard a moment later, which sounds like a doubled, flammy note.
- Use Chrome or Edge, and close other tabs and apps that use sound, such as video calls and music players.
- Match your sample rates. Set your interface and your computer’s sound output to the same rate, ideally 48 kHz. On Windows it’s under Settings, System, Sound, then your device’s format; on a Mac, use the Audio MIDI Setup app.
- On Windows, turn off Audio enhancements for your interface, and plug your laptop into power with a high-performance power mode.
- Prefer an interface to the laptop jack. A laptop’s own sound chip usually adds more delay.
- Keep the board lean. Switch off pedals you aren’t using and stay in Low lag or Fastest mode.
- Know the Windows limit. Web browsers can’t use the special ASIO drivers that come with audio interfaces. If you need under 10 ms on Windows, a desktop amp-simulator app that uses ASIO can get there on the same computer.
️ Playing the board
Each pedal works like the real thing. Stomp the round footswitch to turn it on, and its light glows. The strip above the board shows your signal chain from guitar to output, with a dot lit for every pedal that’s on.
- Turning knobs: drag up or down, use your mouse wheel, or click a knob and use the arrow keys. Hold Shift for fine moves. Double-click to reset a knob, or click the number under it to type an exact value.
- Try this: every pedal has three ready-made starting points. Turn on Guide mode to see them on the pedals, along with a short hint under every knob.
- The info button (i): explains what the pedal does and what each control is for, with a Hear it alone button that plays the demo riff through just that pedal.
- Adding pedals: press Add pedal. New pedals drop into their usual spot in the chain. You can have up to 16 at once, including doubles, such as two delays.
- Changing the order: drag a pedal by its dotted handle, or drag the names in the chain strip. If you put a pedal somewhere unusual, such as reverb before fuzz, the page explains what that does and offers to move it back.
- The options button (⋯): duplicate, reset or remove a pedal, match its level so on and off sound equally loud, or link it to a MIDI footswitch.
- Undo: made a mess? Undo and Redo step back through every change.
Presets and scenes
The Preset list holds 24 ready-made sounds, from clean and crunch to fuzz, metal, surf and ambient swells. Change anything and an Edited badge appears; press Compare to flick between your version and the original. Press Save as preset to keep your own, and Manage to rename, delete, share or back them up.
Scenes are like a real pedalboard’s quick switches: each one remembers which pedals are on, so you can jump from a clean verse to a fuzzed-up chorus in one press. Turn on the pedals you want and press Shift with Q, W, E or R to store a scene. Press the letter alone to bring it back.
To share a sound, open Manage, choose Export or share, and copy the share link or preset code. Anyone who opens the link is offered your preset. Back up all presets saves them to a single file, so you can move them to another computer.
⭐ The artist sounds
Under Artist sounds in the Preset list you’ll find complete rigs inspired by famous guitar tones, researched from what was actually used on the records. When you load one, a note appears explaining the gear behind the sound and how to play it. They’re inspired by these players and aren’t official signature products.
Edge-style: Streets intro
The cascading intro of Where the Streets Have No Name: a dotted-eighth echo on one side and a second, longer echo on the other, with your note in the middle, into a chimey amp. It sets the tempo to 129 BPM. Pick steady eighth notes, hit the top string hardest, and let the echoes fill in the gaps.
Edge-style: Zooropa solo
A wah-driven lead that opens up as you pick harder, built from The Edge’s Zooropa-era gear, plus a second scene with the watery sound of the song’s opening.
Slash-style: Heaven’s Door, Estranged and cocked-wah lead
Three takes on Slash’s Use Your Illusion-era sound, built around the Toroa Lead pedal, a complete Marshall rig in one pedal. Heaven’s Door is almost dry, Estranged adds a low digital echo, and the cocked-wah lead parks a wah part-way for that nasal, singing honk. Keep the gain moderate and use the neck pickup with the tone knob rolled back.
Jack White-style: Seven Nation Army
Scene Q drops your guitar an octave so it sounds like a bass, for that riff. Scene W brings in a big fuzz for the slide solo, and scene E is the mildly overdriven slide chords.
And more
A Zakk Wylde-style heavy lead, a David Gilmour-style singing sustain, and R.E.M.’s What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? with a tremolo chop on scene W.
Looper, metronome and recorder
Looper. Press Record (or L) and play a part. Press it again at the end and the loop starts playing straight away. Press again to add layers on top, and again to stop adding. Undo layer removes your last overdub. Loops can run up to a minute, and with the metronome on they’re rounded to whole bars so they stay in time.
Metronome. Press Start click (or M). It follows the BPM box and Tap tempo, accents the first beat of each bar, and is left out of your recordings.
Recorder. Press Record in the Recorder panel to capture exactly what you hear, loops included. When you stop, you can play the take back or save it as an audio file.
While anything is recording, a red bar at the top of the screen shows the time and a Stop button, so you always know when the tape is rolling.
️ More tools
- Tuner: shows the note, how sharp or flat you are, and which open string you’re on. It mutes the sound while you tune.
- MIDI foot controllers: in Chrome or Edge, press MIDI and use Learn to link footswitches to pedals, scenes, presets and the looper, and an expression pedal to the wah or volume pedal.
- Your own speaker sound: the Cabinet can load a speaker impulse file (.wav) to copy the sound of a real cabinet and microphone. Use the Cabinet’s options button.
- Noise gate from your noise: with guitar input on, mute your strings and use the gate’s options button to set its threshold just above your hum.
Tips and tricks
- Leave the Cabinet on whenever you use fuzz or drive. It softens the harsh top end the way a real speaker does.
- Put a noise gate after a fuzz to silence the hiss between notes.
- Use Match level from a pedal’s options so switching it on doesn’t make you jump.
- Delay and reverb sound best last in the chain, so the echoes stay clean.
- Your guitar’s own knobs matter. Rolling the volume back cleans up most drive sounds, and rolling the tone back gives smoother leads.
- Everything saves automatically in your browser, so your board is waiting next time.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1 to 9 | Switch the pedal in that position on or off |
| Q, W, E, R | Recall scenes 1 to 4 (add Shift to store) |
| L and K | Looper: record, play or overdub; stop |
| M | Metronome on or off |
| T | Tap tempo |
| Esc | Panic: silence everything (press again to unmute) |
| [ and ] | Previous or next preset |
| Ctrl or Cmd + S | Save preset |
| Ctrl or Cmd + Z | Undo (add Shift to redo) |
| G and ? | Guide mode on or off; open Help |
藺 Troubleshooting
I can’t hear anything
Check that Start guitar is on, Master isn’t at zero and Panic isn’t lit. Turn up the gain on your interface and check Channel. If you’re on laptop speakers with something in the headphone jack, see the Output device section above.
My guitar only plays in one ear
Your interface sends each input to one side. Set Channel to the input your guitar is plugged into and the page sends it to both ears.
The browser blocked my guitar
Click the icon at the left of the address bar, set Microphone to Allow, and press Start guitar again. On a Mac in Safari, use Settings for This Website in the Safari menu.
It crackles or drops out
Your computer is struggling to keep up. Switch off a reverb or two, close other tabs and apps, and plug a laptop into power.
There’s a squeal
Sound from a speaker is getting back into a microphone. Wear headphones, or check that Device is your interface or headphone jack rather than a built-in microphone. The page mutes itself if it hears a squeal.
❓ Frequently asked questions
Is the pedalboard free?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser, with nothing to buy, install or sign up for.
Is my playing recorded or uploaded anywhere?
No. All the processing happens on your own computer. The only recordings are the ones you make with the Recorder, and they stay on your computer unless you save and share them yourself.
Do I need an audio interface?
No, but it gives the best tone and the lowest delay. A guitar-to-headset adapter in your laptop’s jack works well for practice.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?
It runs on phones and tablets, and an iPhone or iPad with a USB-C or Lightning guitar interface can work well. Most Android phones add too much delay to play comfortably, so a laptop or desktop is the best bet.
Why doesn’t it sound exactly like the record?
Famous tones come from the guitar, the amp turned up loud, the room, the studio and, most of all, the player’s hands. The artist sounds get you the gear side of the story; the playing notes that appear with each preset will help with the rest.
Ready to play? Open the pedalboard, plug in, and start stomping.
