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A guitar controller is a video game controller designed to simulate the playing of the guitar, a string musical instrument. Guitar controllers are often used for music games such as UmJammer Lammy: NOW!, GuitarFreaks, Guitar Hero, and the Rock Band series. The controllers are played by holding down a colored fret button that matches a colored, on-screen note, while pressing the strum bar as the note passes through the target. The controllers also feature a whammy bar, which is used to bend notes and collect each game's equivalent of bonus energy. Different games and models of controllers have introduced additional features, such as effects switches, additional fret buttons, and fret touch pads. The fret buttons are colored usually in the order of (from lowest to highest pitch) green, red, yellow, blue, and orange.
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The guitar design for Guitar Hero Live does not use the five colored frets, instead using two rows (one black and one white) with three buttons each.
Implementation as game controllers
A Guitar controller is almost always an adaption of existing controller technologies for a given console—all features of the guitar are implemented using features found on a standard game controller. Generally speaking the following apply:
Other, vendor-specific features can be implemented using standard controls, or combinations of them- for example, the solo bar on a Rock band guitar controller is implemented using the same controller buttons as the main fret buttons, plus an additional modifier key, whereas the Slide Bar from recent versions of Guitar Hero is simply another axis.
The "tilt" function is also usually mapped to an axis.
Use as a musical instrument
Numerous attempts have been made to adapt Guitar Controllers for use as legitimate musical instruments. These attempts range from simple solutions that output a single note or sound for each button on the controller, to more complicated applications, such as MIDItar Hero and Armchair Guitarist that attempt to fully adapt the controller to use as an instrument, with a wide range of notes and playing styles.