A free guitar rig for Windows and macOS. Plug in and play through your own VST3 amp sims and pedals, chained like a real pedalboard.
Plectrify is a standalone app: no session to set up, no tracks to arm, no recording to manage. Build a chain of amps and effects, tune up, and play.
GUITAR IN → [ drive ] → [ amp sim ] → [ reverb ] → OUT
Modules can be reordered, bypassed and swapped like pedals on a board, and the whole thing runs live with the lowest latency your interface can do.
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Your plugins, any order. Runs your own VST3 amps and effects, from any maker, in any chain you like. Mix a free overdrive into a commercial amp sim into whatever reverb you love. |
Thousands of real amp captures. Browse the TONE3000 library and load a capture of a real amp right inside the app. |
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Two amps at once. Split the chain into parallel paths, each with its own volume, pan, mute and solo, and merge them back. |
Only the controls you use. A plugin's editor can be overwhelming — map the few knobs you actually reach for onto the module card and hide the rest. Save the layout as a patch and reuse it. |
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Save and recall. Save whole rigs — chain, routing, every plugin's exact settings — and load them any time. Your last session restores on launch. |
Practice tools. Tuner, metronome with tap tempo, and a looper, all built in. |
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Ready for the stage. Put songs in a setlist and each one loads its rig. Scenes, MIDI learn and a stage view let you run the set from a footswitch. |
Yours, with nothing attached. Free and open source. No account, no DRM, no iLok, no telemetry — the only thing it ever phones home for is an anonymous update check. |
Grab the latest installer from the releases page:
- Windows 10/11 (64-bit): run
Plectrify-<version>-win-x64-setup.exe. Everything it needs is bundled. - macOS (Apple Silicon, 13.3+): open
Plectrify-<version>-macos-arm64.dmgand drag the app to Applications.
Important
The macOS build is signed but not notarized, so macOS blocks the first launch and may claim the app "is damaged" — it isn't. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or see the full instructions. Every DMG ships with a SHA-256 checksum you can verify.
Bring your own VST3 plugins — plenty of great amp sims and effects are free. One thing is included out of the box: Neural Amp Modeler, so TONE3000 captures play with nothing else installed. On Windows, install your audio interface's ASIO driver for the lowest latency; on macOS, CoreAudio already is the low-latency driver.
- Open Audio Settings and pick your interface — the ASIO device type on Windows — as input, and your speakers or headphones as output. The first enabled input channel is your guitar.
- Hit Scan Plugins once. Plectrify finds the VST3s on your system and remembers them.
- Add modules to the rack: an amp sim, then whatever effects you like. Drag to reorder, click to bypass, open a plugin's own editor from its card.
- Map the knobs you care about, save the rig, play.
The docs walk through all of it in more detail.
Found a problem or want something added? Open an issue or come say hi on Discord.
For bugs, the fastest route is inside the app: About & feedback builds a full environment report (build, machine, audio device, plugin chain — never your rig names or file paths), and Report a bug opens GitHub's bug form with it already filled in.
Plectrify is a JUCE 8 (C++17) app hosting VST3s, with the entire UI a Svelte 5 web app in an embedded web view. If you want to build it from source or contribute:
- CONTRIBUTING.md — build, run and test from source
- AGENTS.md — architecture and repository layout in depth
- RELEASING.md — how installers are built and published
- SECURITY.md — what to report privately, and where
Plectrify is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Installers include the complete licence and are accompanied by a checksummed source archive of the exact Plectrify and patched JUCE code used for the build.