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GuitarFlex vs MusicLab Real guitars
MusicLab's Real guitars and GuitarFlex both play a guitar from MIDI on Windows, but they start from different places. MusicLab's line, with RealGuitar as its flagship, is a family of seven guitars that MusicLab describes as sample-based, on Windows and Mac, at $139 to $199 for each guitar. GuitarFlex is modeled, not sampled: presets for steel-string and nylon-string acoustic and electric clean, crunch and heavy guitars, an 18.2 MB download, and $79.
What they have in common
- Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit, as a standalone program and as a plugin (VST3 in both).
- No other program needed. Neither one runs inside a player from someone else.
- Acoustic and electric guitars, with an amp for the electrics.
- A way to try first. MusicLab's trial is fully functional for 15 days. GuitarFlex has a demo you can download and try before you buy.
Where MusicLab's Real guitars stand out
- Mac as well as Windows, with AU and AAX plugins.
- More guitars. Seven titles, and RealGuitar 6 adds 12-string, baritone and Nashville tunings.
- It turns a held chord into a guitar part. Play from a keyboard, program a DAW track, or type chord symbols into its Song sequencer and pick from a library of 1,250 rhythm patterns. GuitarFlex has no patterns of its own.
- Techniques from the keyboard. Up and down strokes, hammer-ons, slides, bends, harmonics and more, by gestures, key switches, velocity, mod wheel, pedal and aftertouch.
Where GuitarFlex stands out
- Small. An 18.2 MB download that installs at 43.9 MB. MusicLab states a trial download of about 1,374 MB for RealGuitar and 10 GB or more of free disk.
- $79, against $139 to $199 for a single MusicLab guitar.
- No account and no online activation. A license key and your email address, entered once for each Windows user on each computer, and one license for one person, to use on all of their own computers. MusicLab's trial is unlocked with a license file from your MusicLab account.
- It never connects to the internet.
- Four slots (A to D) to switch between sounds or layer them, with Compare, Vary and Randomize, and over 70 sliders from pluck to cabinet.
- Your song to a file. It renders a MIDI file to FLAC, or to WAV with the included command-line renderer.
- Built to play ComposerFlex's band, our songwriting program, on the same PC with no setup. GuitarFlex does not strum by itself and has no keyswitches. With ComposerFlex it plays down and up strums, open, palm-muted or dead, with Strum spread and Strum fall.
Which to pick
- On a Mac: MusicLab.
- To play a chord and get a strummed part, with rhythm patterns built in: MusicLab.
- On Windows, at $79, with ComposerFlex or your own MIDI writing the parts: GuitarFlex.
- If you'd rather have no account and a small download: GuitarFlex.
Owning both
MusicLab builds a guitar part from the chords you give it, and GuitarFlex plays the parts ComposerFlex writes or any MIDI you hand it, so the two can share one PC. MusicLab's 15-day trial is on musiclab.com, and GuitarFlex's demo is here. This page doesn't compare how they sound. That's for your ears.
The facts side by side
Every fact about MusicLab Real guitars is from MusicLab's own pages, checked on 7 November 2026. Prices are list prices in US dollars; sales come and go.
| GuitarFlex | MusicLab Real guitars | |
|---|---|---|
| How it makes its sound | Modeled. It computes every note as you play, from the physics of plucked strings: the acoustic presets sound through the guitar's body, and the electric presets through a pickup, an amp and a cabinet. It plays no recordings. | Sample-based (the maker's words): it recorded samples of each fret of the acoustic guitar's strings, and describes modeling in how the guitar part is performed. |
| Price | $79, one-time | $139 to $199 each, excluding VAT (seven guitars, sold separately); bundles of $249 (the two acoustic), $299 (the five electric) and $449 (all seven); a multi-buy discount of 22% to 57% is applied in the cart |
| Download and disk space | 18.2 MB download, 43.9 MB installed | Installers from about 0.4 GB to 3.2 GB by title; 10 GB or more of free disk space |
| Memory the maker asks for | 4 GB, with 4 cores or more and 100 MB of disk (the minimum we state for every Flex program) | 4 GB or more of RAM |
| Runs on | Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit | Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit; macOS 10.15, 11 to 15 and 26 (Apple Silicon native) |
| Forms | Standalone and VST3 | Standalone; VST, VST3 and AAX on Windows; VST, VST3, AU and AAX on Mac |
| Needs another program | Nothing else | Nothing else (standalone included) |
| Copy protection | A license key and your email address, entered once for each Windows user on each computer. No account and no online activation. | A license file from your MusicLab account |
| Computers per license | One license for one person, to use on all of their own computers | Not stated on the maker's pages |
| Demo | A demo to download and try before you buy | A fully functional trial that works for 15 days after the first installation |
| Guitars included | Presets in groups: steel-string and nylon-string acoustic, electric clean, crunch and heavy, and a two-guitar band preset; four slots to layer sounds | Seven guitars sold separately, two acoustic and five electric; the main acoustic title has 6-string, 7-string, baritone, 12-string and Nashville tunings. Three ways to play: live from a keyboard, programmed in a music program, or a built-in song sequencer where you enter chord symbols and choose rhythm patterns. Chord voicing for 30 chord types in all inversions; 1,250 rhythm patterns; techniques chosen by gesture, key switch, velocity, mod wheel, pedal or aftertouch (up and down strokes, hammer-on, pull-off, legato, slides, bends, muted and slow strums, harmonics); humanization of timing, samples and strums; over 200 presets for a bundled open-source amp plugin, and it hosts outside VST3 effects |
More: virtual guitars compared: modeled and sampled, a table of 25 products, and all about GuitarFlex.
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