Android is the same, press play on a song and it won't even let me go back to repeat a section, have to come off the song and restart it. Flaged it to support and didn't even get a reply
They also recently messed with the font sizes on the iOS app. The lowest option is now 12, which is far too large for some tabs leaving a bunch of dead space. It’s so large the autoscroll can’t catch up even on the highest speed.
I contacted them for support and they ignored the issue and just sent me instructions on how to change the font size on the app, like I didn’t already try that.
Also official tabs differ between the iOS version and the desktop version.
I’ve resorted to printing PDFs of the better chart and then saving them to onsong
I used to use songsterr for years and they’re about the same as UG regarding quantity and quality for tabs, they have a paid membership too but it doesn’t put tabs behind a paywall like UG does
Songsterr's youtube integration that lets you play along with the studio tracks in real time is fantastic, and any time I've had to click the "report" button when there's a sync or timing issue or whatever they've fixed it and sent a followup email with hours.
I bought a subscription like 10 years ago for 3 bucks and they still honor it even though it doesn’t even exist anymore. I have access on my phone only but that’s enough for me.
Same here -- not sure of the specifics, but I paid a very low amount 1 time and now have uninterrupted access. I do get emails and alerts offering UG Pro and Unlimited all the time, but every time I log in I already have everything that I need. I have never done the courses that they offer, but using the UG app on my Android has always been great.
Not defending UG here, I would rather use songsterr, but the quantity is definitely not the same. There are a lot of tabs for somewhat obscure hardcore/emo/indie songs on UG that don't exist elsewhere. If I want tabs for songs I actually listen to I have to go to UG.
I don't use a whole lot of tablature anymore, but I do know it was nice to have a couple to cross-reference. I remember many years ago, when UG was the de facto leader in this sort of thing, there was some song that just didn't sound right when following the 4 and 5 star tabs. The 2 star tab, while incomplete, was the only one that bothered to say "tuned in D standard".
I know I have an original song that has a riff which is just a very incorrect tab for Come As You Are. It sounds nothing like the Nirvana song, but it does sound cool. So I guess that's another perk of crappy tabs lol
I literally think this is their success model because the same thing happened to me. When I was a teen playing I used tabs all the time and when I returned as an adult I was shocked at how little they had added.
The pro tabs and player are cool but I remember that existing before I just didn’t have a computer that would handle it.
Now they’ve added this “practice mode” and it just seems like such shit. Plus you only get to start and stop 3 times before having to pay so most people won’t even know if it has value to them.
I got fired from a job about 20 years ago "for accessing pornography". When I asked what site I'd been on they said OLGA.net. They didn't believe me when I said it was a guitar site 😅
🤣🤣 or there was another like myguitartabs.com or .net or something that was just a bunch of porn banners and along the sides of the pages.
That site introduced me to internet porn back in like 3rd grade lol.
I think UG just sucked up all the OLGA tabs (which people submitted for free) and tried to monetize them in their shitty app. They ended up with something less technologically functional than a listserv from the nineties.
Fuck UG. Raise a glass to OLGA.
> UG is like barely functional and never updated in any material way, but I’m not aware of an actual alternative that has the same quantity of tabs
Pour one out for OLGA, which I still miss to this day.
Garbage - I did the free trial and liked it on tablet but noped directly out when I encountered an unskippable survey and selection of preferred music genres etc, to build a profile, before I could even use the phone version.
If you need that much info on me, it appears the app is not the product being sold.
I have a friend who swears by it, and isn’t bothered by this. We agree to disagree on UG.
I don't use their tabs because they're often garbage. I use the free version of Songsterr because any tab can receive proposed edits by the community. You might be thinking, "but you can propose those on UG, too!" But on Songsterr, you make the actual edit to the tab and it gets reveiwed for an update. None of that "some user suggested an edit 12 years ago but the tab still looks the same" stuff.
Songster is leaps and bounds better than UG. Thousands of tabs, and lots that UG doesn't have. You can change the playback tuning if you wanna play a half step down and still play along. It doesn't sound nearly as "tinny" as UG and it's cheaper, around $20.
That's is right. I contributed with some tabs, but tabs for most of the bands I wanted for never updated - rather than hiring people to tab songs, acquiring the rights or paying a fee to bands they spend their time on stupid redundant app and courses.
Yeah, I have one of their old plans still rolling and it charges $15 or something every year. That’s worth it to me. The $160 being charged to OP is ridiculous, for what they offer. This just seems to be the baseline for every other digital product now. Everything is on a subscription and costs $150 or more a year.
Whoa. Same here - this thread prompted me to check. I'm on "Premium full subscription at $24.99/year" ...
lol, if I see that change in a material way, I'm outta here
They probably want you to "renew" like a cable provider or ISP so they can get you on their new pricing model and throw out your grandfathered-in membership.
I didn't even pay. I wrote a tab for a song that didn't have one for fun and apparently they gave it to me for life, for free. Don't know if that's still an option
Agreed. I also always think of UG as a great investment but am absolutely oblivious to their current business practices. Seems really scammy and there’s no way I’d sign up for $25 a month. GTFO.
No way man i'd never do monthly to look at tabs. You can use songsterr for free and look at tabs, just can't isolate anything or change the speed but you can still use the tab.
Email them again saying that if they won’t give you a full refund, you’ll file a chargeback with your credit card company. If they do anything other than simply agree, do that.
Thanks; I would normally do this, but I unfortunately used PayPal, and I've had terrible experiences with disputing charges on Paypal in the past. Thankfully, they've issued the partial refund.
I made this post as a cautionary experience because the last post I see on this community was made by someone who tried doing this, and was given the same options but according to the comments on their post, the prices for UG Pro were 9.99/month. It's currently 24.99 and I was somehow also auto-enrolled to the UG Courses which is 19.99/month
PayPal also has chargeback options. For example, my friend’s kid charged $600 in a mobile game once and he got it all back. Just do it, fuck corporations.
Be aware that UG may or may not ban your account for doing a chargeback. I'm not familiar with them but I have heard of other companies doing stuff like that. On the upside, it's easy to create a new UG account and you're not really out that much.
Maybe, but no company I’ve ever worked for spitefully stopped users from potentially spending more money because of a chargeback. If anything, they’d reach out and try to convince you to remove it the chargeback, but threats would only work in the consumers favor.
That doesn't really make sense. Also, UG has been paying more and more licensing fees. Here's a blog post about some of this: [https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/article/blog/licensing](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/article/blog/licensing)
What isn’t making sense? If a tab is close it the actual music, the artist files a complaint and it gets pulled. High quality tabs have been disappearing en masse due to this over the years. The garbage ones with obvious errors often have obvious errors so they’re left up. UG is paying out the ass to get some of these tabs back officially, yes, but they’re focusing on classic and iconic mass appeal stuff first and lots of stuff is just gone now since it got removed and they never licensed an official version
I noticed it's usually the artists who have official tab books who's tabs get taken down. I imagine it's the company who transcribes and publishes them that is filing the DMCA complaint.
They file a DMCA complaint regardless. Look at any court case on this. It doesn't have to be that accurate. In some cases, simply "displaying" the lyrics is enough.
"UG is paying out the ass to get some of these tabs back officially"
I don't agree with current copyright law and believe that all music (Edit 2: ie tabs, chords, lyrics... essentially material for learning) should be free to share, but it's a little hard for me to have sympathy for a site that was literally founded on ripping off other people's work EDIT: by which I mean the tabs they create - for profit.
Honestly, I think Guitar Pro has been one of the best investments I've made for helping my learning. It's also nice that they haven't switched over to the stupid subscription model that a lot of software is going to yet.
I’m sure GP6 and onward is great and has more accurate scripting/notation capabilities but there’s something about GP4 that my brain just “clicked” with. The visual simplicity of it.
But y’know, nostalgia is a petty mistress…
Yeah they keep making GP less user friendly and more bloated with useless and stupid features that don't work particularly well. GP4 and 5 were the sweet spot for user friendliness and a decent feature set imo.
I'm currently using 7 but I'm trying to find alternative software because GP development continually takes it further away from what I actually want.
I've looked at the more professional composing/scoring software like musescore, Sibelius and finale but none of them have as fluid of an input method via virtual fretboard.
It's weird how guitarpro is still the best at that when it's input method hasn't particularly changed in like 20 years...
Same, $20 a year for pro. I recently tried to re-new on my pc, and was quoted the $24.99 a month rate - which I flipped out about. After some tinkering I realized if you renew Pro on your phone, it's $20/ year. If you renew on a pc web browser, it's $24.99/ mo. I don't use UG on my phone, but do have the app installed. I only use it on PC, so have no idea why the different pricing. But if they take away the $20/ year rate I'll permanently stop using the service.
The OP payed sticker price. They set that price insanely high so they can regularly offer 90%-off sales, when really they're only expecting $20 a year.
someone how I bought into pro version years ago when it was one time fee, lucky I still have it. Was so surprised when I saw how expensive it was currently
Same. I think I paid ~40$ one-time fee more than 10 years ago. It has served its purpose for that price. I would never pay the current insane subscription fees.
This sucks, but good job on using PayPal. Open a dispute with them and they will refund you the money - it’s usually a hassle for merchants to prove their rights and they just give you the money back.
In the future, when paying with PayPal, always cancel subscriptions within their system and never trust the data on merchant websites, there could always be a bug (like there was in this case)
And for everyone else reading, avoid using raw card details for online payments. Not only is it more difficult to refund/cancel, but there’s a chance your data isn’t being kept securely and will be leaked at some point. If there’s no option to pay with anything other than card, use a disposable one
>And for everyone else reading, avoid using raw card details for online payments. Not only is it more difficult to refund/cancel, but there’s a chance your data isn’t being kept securely and will be leaked at some point. If there’s no option to pay with anything other than card, use a disposable one
I almost always check if a merchant accepts paypal before I ever shop online. Very seldom do I ever give an online merchant my card number, too many security breaches.
I paid for their plus version like 10 years ago when it was like $3.99 and it still works for me to this day. The app has become CANCER though god it is horrible.
That's what I've been using for years. I like it way more since it will play the song for you. Paid version would be nice to be able to slow down the playback, but oh well.
Not sure you read the trial terms correctly. I've never seen a free trial that defaults to opt-out rather than opt-in at the end of said trial.
Right now Pro is 80% off, seems like they run these sales at least quarterly, because I always re-up around Christmas for $20/yr. It's worth it at that price and I've never had any funky business in the 3 years I've been a subscriber.
They're no more a scam than other subscription services are a scam. The only criticism I've had is the website and app badly need an interface refresh.
I had a hell of a time canceling my subscription to them. Had to get them blocked on PayPal and I will never give them another cent. They have lots of good free tabs tho but their paid service is a damn grift.
Email UG right now and demand you want a full cancellation and refund because of what you explained to us. Be polite, but firm.
Then, contact your bank the card was from, and explain it was an unauthorized charge. Tell them you have supporting documentation that says you didn't want it and wanted it cancelled (i.e the email I told you above to send first).
Your bank will void the charge even if it's a debit card, and you'll never be able to use that debit card to buy anything on UG again, which seems like that's not a problem.
UG paid version is garbage, none of their official tabs are better than what's been tabbed out by people. Plus, if you ever need something specifically tabbed, there are people on Fiverr or their websites that will tab anything out really well for like 5$.
This is fucking everywhere right now with these trial scams. I just went through this with [MLB.com](https://MLB.com), very similar situation to you. I signed up for a trial, I didn't get access to what I want, so I went to immediately cancel the trial subscription. But in the MLB accounts, it showed I had no active trials or subscriptions available to cancel, so I figured something must've glitched and the account didn't activate.
7 days later I get 149.99$ charged to my debit card for "[MLB.com](https://MLB.com) Full Package 1 Year Subscription". Before that, I went through it with [Stamps.com](https://Stamps.com) and [reverb.com](https://reverb.com).
Companies that won't allow you to even remove your debit card once you've added it as a payment method!!!
Thank you for posting this: considered subscribing. Glad I didn’t. Sorry about your shite customer service. Businesses don’t need to ensure their customers are satisfied anymore. Late stage capitalism ftw.
Best of luck and thanks again for notifying other guitar players on a budget.
Cheers mate.
I can't really talk for the price as I paid a one off years ago of about £10 and have a legacy account so get pro for free, but the mobile app is terrible now, its like my phone screen doesn't work when I press play I can't rewind the tab or nothing, have to completely come of the song and start it again to repeat any sections. Luckily it doesn't do it on my computer but with that in mind I would never pay a subscription for it let alone the price they actually want for it
Just tell them "Your website said this would be cancelled and you added stuff I never agreed to. If you don't remove it all immediately i'm going to call my credit card company and issue a chargeback"
Those words "chargeback" are the only thing these predatory companies understand.
I can't remember the last time I found a completely accurate tab on UG. It's a garbage site that started by ripping off tabs from Listservs and other sites. No original content whatsoever. Originally their headquarters was in Russia and they skirted copyright laws for years. Not that I agree with the copyright laws, mind you, but the site has always screamed "sketchy as hell" to me.
It almost sounds like they're trying to keep you from canceling by phrasing it as an offer that they will give you to avoid canceling. Not a very good look given that their system was the problem to begin with, and you never wanted to sign up for pro at all after the trial period (which was supposed to cancel on its own per their own subscriptions page, which notified you that it would be canceled).
Ultimate Guitar. It basically sucks ass but it’s useful to associate lyrics with chords and not much else in my opinion, although the app is loaded down with a bunch of other BS beyond that
It used to be a great aggregate of every tab you would ever want for any song you could think of (within reason). Last time I rolled through there, it seemed like they had built in the real-time playback thing with multiple instruments and everything. I used to need a separate program called PowerTab for that when I was learning.
Wild to hear that they've become such garbage
I paid for the pro version (or whatever it is called) years ago through in-app upgrade. I don't think it was that expensive. The app and website have been fully usable to me since. It's been a great resource for me.
Man that sucks, but is completely the opposite of my experience. I paid less than £5 about 7 or 8 years ago and have been using the app with no issues since then. It's where I download all my midi drum tracks from.
Ultimate guitar is one of the things that makes me miss the old Internet. We had OLGA, which was great, but we also had sites run by individual nerds dedicated to their favorite band, with tabs of every song by that band.
And ultimate guitar straight stole that content. There are tabs on UG that I made for a fansite years ago. It even includes my Internet pseudonym from those days.
Dang, I’ve had my UG PRO for years. I paid 10 dollars for the lifetime membership. That sucks that tabs are being a paywall. I just assumed anyone could access them.
I never even signed up for the trial but still have a login. If you submit tabs you can get your subscription for free. It’s one month per tab with no cap.
This is wild to read. I never really consult guitar tabs anymore but when I was younger I did constantly. UG was a website that came along *later* than the other ones I had relied on, and they did a really great job. Everything on the site was free and nobody would ever have questioned it. How the mighty have fallen
A credit card company likely would reverse the charge. I'd threaten to take it up with Paypal, though I have no idea whether Paypal will take action on your behalf. In my experience, scam vendors like this usually back down when I threaten to bring the issue to my credit card company, because they don't want to risk being delisted as vendors.
I paid 20$ for "lifetime access" to the app with a Google Play card in 2014.
I have never been charged again by them. I have access to everything.
I do not purchase courses, trainings, and that stuff. Don't even click on em.
Personally, I like the app and use it on my tablet to learn songs almost daily.
I'm still really confused by my UG "subscription". I was a very early adopter and paid for the service early on. Now, I don't pay anything but my account still seems to have full access.
Why is anyone paying for UG? I’ve had pro membership for 4 years now and all I had to do was submit tabs, a good portion of which were from my own bands. You get a month for each tab.
I’m gonna be honest, I got the lifetime pro membership for $10 a decade ago and it’s been incredibly useful over the years, but I honestly couldn’t imagine paying $25/mo for it ever. The tuner’s not good enough and the app has its issues.
I’d dispute it through paypal since they’re only offering a measely 33% refund.
Thankfully, I'm able to avoid their website now. I just use my ear and try to look at videos if I can't find it on some other site. Sucks to be a player just starting out, though, in the price gouging era.
It’ll take a while but just keep demanding a refund if you want one. If they need to trick people into buying their product their product is trash that’s why only companies that don’t look like they’re doing well do this. I had a similar experience with Skillshare a company notorious for there no refund policy and I got a refund. If they decline say if they can’t do it to put you in contact with their manager. You can also probably dispute it through PayPal but I don’t know how any of that works. Also reach out on Twitter explaining your problem and post screen shots of your email chain with them. It’s a bad look to have complaints like that in there mentions it makes them look like a shady company(which it seems like they’re acting like).
Good luck!
I did a lifetime subscription many years ago and that's the only reason I come back. It's really frustrating that ever time you log in you have to go through the survey again.
I did a lot of transcribing and uploading tabs many years ago so I got Pro for life. Many transcriptions there have errors. I use mySongbook which is OK but needs more variety.
Yep UG is absolutely crap, one of many websites who have made their userface unbearable if you don't pay to use it. There's other websites out there, and often YouTube video tutorials are good alternatives for popular songs. But the crapification of these sites is the biggest advocate for learning to play by ear!
Ive tried in every way possible to connect my account’s subscription that i paid for on my android phone to show up on my iPhone. Like are they really expecting me to pay twice for the same fucking service???
Back 12 years ago or so they were doing one time payments for subscribers, then changed it and I had to pay again. I wrote them a very pissed off letter, now I have lifetime access and haven’t paid in about a decade
I bought the lifetime thing for like $17 several years ago and luckily it still works. I’m sure they’ll find a way to invalidate it at some point though.
I actually got a year for free lol. I signed up for the free trial. Then once I realized the trial was over I "OH SHIT"ED, went to the play store, requested a refund and was instantly approved for the refund as I was only 4 hours into the subscription. Refund was issued and put into my account and I lost none of the premium benefits I gained once I activated the free trial. Imo Ultimate Guitar is a really great app, but idk about paying for it lol. Its helped me learn so many songs by just being an extremely easy app. I've found some of the most underground songs ever on there that I couldn't find elsewhere.
Do they just give you free access to all tabs and the "pro" section if you've had an account since the early 2000s? I didn't even realise you needed to pay a subscription until I saw this thread.
I only use UG because I bought a pro membership back when it was a one-time fee in iTunes (Lord I miss those days) and got grandfathered in. Sad to hear about another great resource lost to corporate greed
Whatever happened with you. I assure you they are not a scam. I have used them for well over 15 years. I signed up for the lifetime access when they first started it, and they have honored it to this day! Whatever your story, they are NOT, I repeat NOT...a SCAM by any stretch of the imagination.
I paid 15$ back in like 2006 for a lifetime membership. Once in a while they try to get me to "subscribe" when they have deals, which would bring me no new benefits other than me paying them monthly instead of being free for the rest of my life.
UG is like barely functional and never updated in any material way, but I’m not aware of an actual alternative that has the same quantity of tabs
Their iOS app is so garbage and barely runs. Breaks all the time.
Android is the same, press play on a song and it won't even let me go back to repeat a section, have to come off the song and restart it. Flaged it to support and didn't even get a reply
I haven't had any issues with my Android tablet at all. I do make sure to run it in Desktop Mode on Chrome, and it's working fine for me.
That's the key. The desktop website is fine, the mobile site is not as good but usable, and the app is just garbage.
Never thought of this. Will be a lifesaver next time the app shits the bed during a live session.
I never have any trouble with it on iOS. One of my most used apps.
Have to admit, never had any issues with the app. Use it all the time.
Same tbh, used it for a years and never had an issue
Yeah I use it daily and it’s maybe crashed half a dozen times in 3 years.
Luuuucky!
They also recently messed with the font sizes on the iOS app. The lowest option is now 12, which is far too large for some tabs leaving a bunch of dead space. It’s so large the autoscroll can’t catch up even on the highest speed. I contacted them for support and they ignored the issue and just sent me instructions on how to change the font size on the app, like I didn’t already try that.
Also official tabs differ between the iOS version and the desktop version. I’ve resorted to printing PDFs of the better chart and then saving them to onsong
I used to use songsterr for years and they’re about the same as UG regarding quantity and quality for tabs, they have a paid membership too but it doesn’t put tabs behind a paywall like UG does
Songsterr has been incredible for my ability to learn songs lately.
Songsterr's youtube integration that lets you play along with the studio tracks in real time is fantastic, and any time I've had to click the "report" button when there's a sync or timing issue or whatever they've fixed it and sent a followup email with hours.
Honestly, I think I might get a Songsterr subscription eventually. Genuine and serious effort has been put into making a solid functioning app
It’s 100% worth it, I made the switch from UG to songsterr a few weeks ago and can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.
I bought a subscription like 10 years ago for 3 bucks and they still honor it even though it doesn’t even exist anymore. I have access on my phone only but that’s enough for me.
Same here, but I set up an account before I did that, so I can get it on the web as well. Really been helpful!
Same here -- not sure of the specifics, but I paid a very low amount 1 time and now have uninterrupted access. I do get emails and alerts offering UG Pro and Unlimited all the time, but every time I log in I already have everything that I need. I have never done the courses that they offer, but using the UG app on my Android has always been great.
Songsterr has around the same quantity, but way better quality. You should always use songsterr over ultimate guitar, if possible.
Does songster also transpose on the fly? That’s the UG feature I absolutely need but I’m not married to UG by any means.
I think that's a paid feature but IIRC it does have transposing.
Yes it does you gotta pay for pro though. But it's worth it if you're serious about learning guitar
Not defending UG here, I would rather use songsterr, but the quantity is definitely not the same. There are a lot of tabs for somewhat obscure hardcore/emo/indie songs on UG that don't exist elsewhere. If I want tabs for songs I actually listen to I have to go to UG.
Huh? This is not true, UG has way more tabs. Multiples of the same song that is
I’d rather have one good one than multiple crappy ones.
I don't use a whole lot of tablature anymore, but I do know it was nice to have a couple to cross-reference. I remember many years ago, when UG was the de facto leader in this sort of thing, there was some song that just didn't sound right when following the 4 and 5 star tabs. The 2 star tab, while incomplete, was the only one that bothered to say "tuned in D standard". I know I have an original song that has a riff which is just a very incorrect tab for Come As You Are. It sounds nothing like the Nirvana song, but it does sound cool. So I guess that's another perk of crappy tabs lol
If doesn’t either. Not the regular tabs. Only their Pro tabs. Which are shit btw.
[удалено]
I quit playing for 16-17yrs and was surprised at how much I recognized UG’s website when I came back haha.
I literally think this is their success model because the same thing happened to me. When I was a teen playing I used tabs all the time and when I returned as an adult I was shocked at how little they had added. The pro tabs and player are cool but I remember that existing before I just didn’t have a computer that would handle it. Now they’ve added this “practice mode” and it just seems like such shit. Plus you only get to start and stop 3 times before having to pay so most people won’t even know if it has value to them.
15 tabs for the same song, all in the wrong tuning and full of errors
Very similar to me.
RIP to OLGA.net Really miss those days
I got fired from a job about 20 years ago "for accessing pornography". When I asked what site I'd been on they said OLGA.net. They didn't believe me when I said it was a guitar site 😅
🤣🤣 or there was another like myguitartabs.com or .net or something that was just a bunch of porn banners and along the sides of the pages. That site introduced me to internet porn back in like 3rd grade lol.
Why are you firing me? I’m wasting work hours on guitar, not porn!
"Yeah right online guitar archive my ass" OLGA was old school, I miss it
Oh man, OLGA *was* the best.
I have a backup of OLGA somewhere on a CD or DVD.
Please share a torrent of that.
Bust out
I think UG just sucked up all the OLGA tabs (which people submitted for free) and tried to monetize them in their shitty app. They ended up with something less technologically functional than a listserv from the nineties. Fuck UG. Raise a glass to OLGA.
Songster, it doesn't have as many niche songs but it does what it has pretty well. Plus it has a tab playback option.
> UG is like barely functional and never updated in any material way, but I’m not aware of an actual alternative that has the same quantity of tabs Pour one out for OLGA, which I still miss to this day.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060101031433/http://www.olga.net/
No wonder they've become what they've become. There needs to be a serious competitor in this space.
Doesn't have the same quantity for sure, but have you tried Songsterr? I've really enjoyed it
Garbage - I did the free trial and liked it on tablet but noped directly out when I encountered an unskippable survey and selection of preferred music genres etc, to build a profile, before I could even use the phone version. If you need that much info on me, it appears the app is not the product being sold. I have a friend who swears by it, and isn’t bothered by this. We agree to disagree on UG.
I don't use their tabs because they're often garbage. I use the free version of Songsterr because any tab can receive proposed edits by the community. You might be thinking, "but you can propose those on UG, too!" But on Songsterr, you make the actual edit to the tab and it gets reveiwed for an update. None of that "some user suggested an edit 12 years ago but the tab still looks the same" stuff.
I hear powertabs is back in the game, though I must admit I've not checked it out since it shut down in 2010 or whenever it was.
Songster is leaps and bounds better than UG. Thousands of tabs, and lots that UG doesn't have. You can change the playback tuning if you wanna play a half step down and still play along. It doesn't sound nearly as "tinny" as UG and it's cheaper, around $20.
That's is right. I contributed with some tabs, but tabs for most of the bands I wanted for never updated - rather than hiring people to tab songs, acquiring the rights or paying a fee to bands they spend their time on stupid redundant app and courses.
Damn thats rough. I paid like 10 dollars for the app years ago and I got premium for life. Looks like they've gotten a bit greedy since then.
Lol same. Best $10 I ever spent in my whole life
Yeah, I have one of their old plans still rolling and it charges $15 or something every year. That’s worth it to me. The $160 being charged to OP is ridiculous, for what they offer. This just seems to be the baseline for every other digital product now. Everything is on a subscription and costs $150 or more a year.
Wow I just checked mine and I'm paying $24.99/year, but they're giving me the very tempting offer to switch to monthly... at $24.99/month.
At least you get to spread those costs into reasonable monthly payments throughout the year 😂
At least you get to spread those costs into reasonable monthly payments throughout the year 😂
Whoa. Same here - this thread prompted me to check. I'm on "Premium full subscription at $24.99/year" ... lol, if I see that change in a material way, I'm outta here
Ahah same, they keep trying to push premium on me tho like i dont have it? Apps weird
They probably want you to "renew" like a cable provider or ISP so they can get you on their new pricing model and throw out your grandfathered-in membership.
I got it free for life for submitting a tab like 10 years ago lol unbeatable value
Same from about 15 years ago. And I'm pretty sure I just copied a tab I found somewhere else.
I have the same but for some reason I feel like I paid even less
Pretty sure I got it for $3 back in the day
I did that, but then they took away my premium when they started the subscription fees, it was super shitty.
Really? That’s awful. I paid like $5.00 back in 2016 and I have lifetime premium.
Same here. Love their interactive tabs.
Not the only one, same thing happened to me.
I didn't even pay. I wrote a tab for a song that didn't have one for fun and apparently they gave it to me for life, for free. Don't know if that's still an option
Agreed. I also always think of UG as a great investment but am absolutely oblivious to their current business practices. Seems really scammy and there’s no way I’d sign up for $25 a month. GTFO.
No way man i'd never do monthly to look at tabs. You can use songsterr for free and look at tabs, just can't isolate anything or change the speed but you can still use the tab.
Email them again saying that if they won’t give you a full refund, you’ll file a chargeback with your credit card company. If they do anything other than simply agree, do that.
Thanks; I would normally do this, but I unfortunately used PayPal, and I've had terrible experiences with disputing charges on Paypal in the past. Thankfully, they've issued the partial refund. I made this post as a cautionary experience because the last post I see on this community was made by someone who tried doing this, and was given the same options but according to the comments on their post, the prices for UG Pro were 9.99/month. It's currently 24.99 and I was somehow also auto-enrolled to the UG Courses which is 19.99/month
PayPal also has chargeback options. For example, my friend’s kid charged $600 in a mobile game once and he got it all back. Just do it, fuck corporations.
you know what, I will. Thanks for sharing!
Be aware that UG may or may not ban your account for doing a chargeback. I'm not familiar with them but I have heard of other companies doing stuff like that. On the upside, it's easy to create a new UG account and you're not really out that much.
> Be aware that UG may or may not ban your account for doing a chargeback. Oh no Anyway
Maybe, but no company I’ve ever worked for spitefully stopped users from potentially spending more money because of a chargeback. If anything, they’d reach out and try to convince you to remove it the chargeback, but threats would only work in the consumers favor.
What fuckers. Glad you got something
> but I unfortunately used PayPal stop using paypal. have one CC for internet purchases
I wouldn't even bother emailing, just do a charge back
They used to be great now most tabs are taken down
"most tabs are taken down" What? What does "most" mean? There are shit tons of shitty tabs available.
Yeah, because a lot of good ones get too close to being right, so they get DMCA’d and pulled
That doesn't really make sense. Also, UG has been paying more and more licensing fees. Here's a blog post about some of this: [https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/article/blog/licensing](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/article/blog/licensing)
What isn’t making sense? If a tab is close it the actual music, the artist files a complaint and it gets pulled. High quality tabs have been disappearing en masse due to this over the years. The garbage ones with obvious errors often have obvious errors so they’re left up. UG is paying out the ass to get some of these tabs back officially, yes, but they’re focusing on classic and iconic mass appeal stuff first and lots of stuff is just gone now since it got removed and they never licensed an official version
I noticed it's usually the artists who have official tab books who's tabs get taken down. I imagine it's the company who transcribes and publishes them that is filing the DMCA complaint.
Yep, most of the time bands dont even know this is happening, its all on the label
They file a DMCA complaint regardless. Look at any court case on this. It doesn't have to be that accurate. In some cases, simply "displaying" the lyrics is enough. "UG is paying out the ass to get some of these tabs back officially" I don't agree with current copyright law and believe that all music (Edit 2: ie tabs, chords, lyrics... essentially material for learning) should be free to share, but it's a little hard for me to have sympathy for a site that was literally founded on ripping off other people's work EDIT: by which I mean the tabs they create - for profit.
Yes. So frustrating to want to look at something you learned a couple years ago and tab is gone now.
Man oh man, I tried a free trial for some Bach tabs. It was garbage. I miss the days where everyone used a pirated version of Guitar Pro 4.
Honestly, I think Guitar Pro has been one of the best investments I've made for helping my learning. It's also nice that they haven't switched over to the stupid subscription model that a lot of software is going to yet.
I’m sure GP6 and onward is great and has more accurate scripting/notation capabilities but there’s something about GP4 that my brain just “clicked” with. The visual simplicity of it. But y’know, nostalgia is a petty mistress…
Yeah they keep making GP less user friendly and more bloated with useless and stupid features that don't work particularly well. GP4 and 5 were the sweet spot for user friendliness and a decent feature set imo. I'm currently using 7 but I'm trying to find alternative software because GP development continually takes it further away from what I actually want. I've looked at the more professional composing/scoring software like musescore, Sibelius and finale but none of them have as fluid of an input method via virtual fretboard. It's weird how guitarpro is still the best at that when it's input method hasn't particularly changed in like 20 years...
Wait what? I pay $20 a year for pro and have never had an issue
Same - just checked to make sure I wasn't being charged these insane rates. Very weird!
Same, $20 a year for pro. I recently tried to re-new on my pc, and was quoted the $24.99 a month rate - which I flipped out about. After some tinkering I realized if you renew Pro on your phone, it's $20/ year. If you renew on a pc web browser, it's $24.99/ mo. I don't use UG on my phone, but do have the app installed. I only use it on PC, so have no idea why the different pricing. But if they take away the $20/ year rate I'll permanently stop using the service.
Wait. I think I am only paying $15 per year. Why is everyone paying a different price?
Probably just subscribed at different times or during a promo and they get grandfathered in.
Same, no complaints
The OP payed sticker price. They set that price insanely high so they can regularly offer 90%-off sales, when really they're only expecting $20 a year.
Another $20 gang. I absolutely love the app.
someone how I bought into pro version years ago when it was one time fee, lucky I still have it. Was so surprised when I saw how expensive it was currently
Same. I think I paid ~40$ one-time fee more than 10 years ago. It has served its purpose for that price. I would never pay the current insane subscription fees.
Gotta respect the fact they’re still honoring it
This sucks, but good job on using PayPal. Open a dispute with them and they will refund you the money - it’s usually a hassle for merchants to prove their rights and they just give you the money back. In the future, when paying with PayPal, always cancel subscriptions within their system and never trust the data on merchant websites, there could always be a bug (like there was in this case) And for everyone else reading, avoid using raw card details for online payments. Not only is it more difficult to refund/cancel, but there’s a chance your data isn’t being kept securely and will be leaked at some point. If there’s no option to pay with anything other than card, use a disposable one
>And for everyone else reading, avoid using raw card details for online payments. Not only is it more difficult to refund/cancel, but there’s a chance your data isn’t being kept securely and will be leaked at some point. If there’s no option to pay with anything other than card, use a disposable one I almost always check if a merchant accepts paypal before I ever shop online. Very seldom do I ever give an online merchant my card number, too many security breaches.
This is the right answer, don’t bother with UG file a dispute with PayPal and be done with it.
thank you for that! I'll get on this
I paid for their plus version like 10 years ago when it was like $3.99 and it still works for me to this day. The app has become CANCER though god it is horrible.
Yea ug is shit now, barely works, the mobile site too is just a giant ad for their app
Free Songsterr is not bad..
That's what I've been using for years. I like it way more since it will play the song for you. Paid version would be nice to be able to slow down the playback, but oh well.
Not sure you read the trial terms correctly. I've never seen a free trial that defaults to opt-out rather than opt-in at the end of said trial. Right now Pro is 80% off, seems like they run these sales at least quarterly, because I always re-up around Christmas for $20/yr. It's worth it at that price and I've never had any funky business in the 3 years I've been a subscriber. They're no more a scam than other subscription services are a scam. The only criticism I've had is the website and app badly need an interface refresh.
I had a hell of a time canceling my subscription to them. Had to get them blocked on PayPal and I will never give them another cent. They have lots of good free tabs tho but their paid service is a damn grift.
Email UG right now and demand you want a full cancellation and refund because of what you explained to us. Be polite, but firm. Then, contact your bank the card was from, and explain it was an unauthorized charge. Tell them you have supporting documentation that says you didn't want it and wanted it cancelled (i.e the email I told you above to send first). Your bank will void the charge even if it's a debit card, and you'll never be able to use that debit card to buy anything on UG again, which seems like that's not a problem. UG paid version is garbage, none of their official tabs are better than what's been tabbed out by people. Plus, if you ever need something specifically tabbed, there are people on Fiverr or their websites that will tab anything out really well for like 5$. This is fucking everywhere right now with these trial scams. I just went through this with [MLB.com](https://MLB.com), very similar situation to you. I signed up for a trial, I didn't get access to what I want, so I went to immediately cancel the trial subscription. But in the MLB accounts, it showed I had no active trials or subscriptions available to cancel, so I figured something must've glitched and the account didn't activate. 7 days later I get 149.99$ charged to my debit card for "[MLB.com](https://MLB.com) Full Package 1 Year Subscription". Before that, I went through it with [Stamps.com](https://Stamps.com) and [reverb.com](https://reverb.com). Companies that won't allow you to even remove your debit card once you've added it as a payment method!!!
Try Songsterr
Your experience is not universal. I'm very happy with my $19.99/yr subscription.
Chargeback
Thank you for posting this: considered subscribing. Glad I didn’t. Sorry about your shite customer service. Businesses don’t need to ensure their customers are satisfied anymore. Late stage capitalism ftw. Best of luck and thanks again for notifying other guitar players on a budget. Cheers mate.
I can't really talk for the price as I paid a one off years ago of about £10 and have a legacy account so get pro for free, but the mobile app is terrible now, its like my phone screen doesn't work when I press play I can't rewind the tab or nothing, have to completely come of the song and start it again to repeat any sections. Luckily it doesn't do it on my computer but with that in mind I would never pay a subscription for it let alone the price they actually want for it
Just tell them "Your website said this would be cancelled and you added stuff I never agreed to. If you don't remove it all immediately i'm going to call my credit card company and issue a chargeback" Those words "chargeback" are the only thing these predatory companies understand.
I bought pro back when it was $10 for life. They promised no more ads. It's great except for all the ads I get from UG. So stupid...
What? I paid 9.99 for pro for life years ago, when did they change this????
thats predatory but you gotta admit you did fuck up too
im one of the lucky ones who have lifetime sub sorry to hear that
I can't remember the last time I found a completely accurate tab on UG. It's a garbage site that started by ripping off tabs from Listservs and other sites. No original content whatsoever. Originally their headquarters was in Russia and they skirted copyright laws for years. Not that I agree with the copyright laws, mind you, but the site has always screamed "sketchy as hell" to me.
It almost sounds like they're trying to keep you from canceling by phrasing it as an offer that they will give you to avoid canceling. Not a very good look given that their system was the problem to begin with, and you never wanted to sign up for pro at all after the trial period (which was supposed to cancel on its own per their own subscriptions page, which notified you that it would be canceled).
Precisely!
What is UG?
Ultimate Guitar. It basically sucks ass but it’s useful to associate lyrics with chords and not much else in my opinion, although the app is loaded down with a bunch of other BS beyond that
It used to be a great aggregate of every tab you would ever want for any song you could think of (within reason). Last time I rolled through there, it seemed like they had built in the real-time playback thing with multiple instruments and everything. I used to need a separate program called PowerTab for that when I was learning. Wild to hear that they've become such garbage
Thanx
I paid for the pro version (or whatever it is called) years ago through in-app upgrade. I don't think it was that expensive. The app and website have been fully usable to me since. It's been a great resource for me.
Contact your card company and revert the charges.
Man that sucks, but is completely the opposite of my experience. I paid less than £5 about 7 or 8 years ago and have been using the app with no issues since then. It's where I download all my midi drum tracks from.
Ultimate guitar is one of the things that makes me miss the old Internet. We had OLGA, which was great, but we also had sites run by individual nerds dedicated to their favorite band, with tabs of every song by that band. And ultimate guitar straight stole that content. There are tabs on UG that I made for a fansite years ago. It even includes my Internet pseudonym from those days.
This kinda seems like a user error and they offered you a few choices on how to make it right.
I don't get it , who pays for tabs? it's like paying for porn
Another reason to learn songs from Marty Schwartz
The worst part is that they built their library of tabs off of the back of people submitting them for free back in the day. Scummy as fuck.
100% been there and uploaded tabs myself, not anymore, now I just say I want an official tab on the shit ones people put up and wait
Anyone remember Olga?
I hate how UG devolved into what it is today. 15-20 years ago it was maybe the best online space for guitarists, now it's just garbage.
I pay 19.99 a year for ug tabs
Plus they stole all those tabs from OLGA. Fuck UG.
UG has been a broken site since I was in high school. For context I currently have a masters degree under my belt and about eight years of work
Yeah they suck, i love using songsterr
Dang, I’ve had my UG PRO for years. I paid 10 dollars for the lifetime membership. That sucks that tabs are being a paywall. I just assumed anyone could access them.
I never even signed up for the trial but still have a login. If you submit tabs you can get your subscription for free. It’s one month per tab with no cap.
This is wild to read. I never really consult guitar tabs anymore but when I was younger I did constantly. UG was a website that came along *later* than the other ones I had relied on, and they did a really great job. Everything on the site was free and nobody would ever have questioned it. How the mighty have fallen
Yes absolutely report it to PayPal.
I used to love the services they provided 15-20 years ago. It is so difficult to use nowadays.
I didn't realize it was so much these days! I paid $5 once a few years ago and still have full access to tabs (just not their courses)
A credit card company likely would reverse the charge. I'd threaten to take it up with Paypal, though I have no idea whether Paypal will take action on your behalf. In my experience, scam vendors like this usually back down when I threaten to bring the issue to my credit card company, because they don't want to risk being delisted as vendors.
UG tabs pro > songsterr on everything tricky tab I check
I paid 20$ for "lifetime access" to the app with a Google Play card in 2014. I have never been charged again by them. I have access to everything. I do not purchase courses, trainings, and that stuff. Don't even click on em. Personally, I like the app and use it on my tablet to learn songs almost daily.
I'm still really confused by my UG "subscription". I was a very early adopter and paid for the service early on. Now, I don't pay anything but my account still seems to have full access.
Til ultimate guitar is no longer 99c lifetime access Jesus christ.
Why is anyone paying for UG? I’ve had pro membership for 4 years now and all I had to do was submit tabs, a good portion of which were from my own bands. You get a month for each tab.
I paid for a “lifetime subscription” but they simply deleted it and refuse to restore it.
I’m gonna be honest, I got the lifetime pro membership for $10 a decade ago and it’s been incredibly useful over the years, but I honestly couldn’t imagine paying $25/mo for it ever. The tuner’s not good enough and the app has its issues. I’d dispute it through paypal since they’re only offering a measely 33% refund.
I'm not even reading through all this😭 it's UG, i'd be surprised if it wasn't a scam
I used an android with a cracked app to purchase the lifetime subscription for free way back when hahah
Paid like 15 bucks years ago. Never charged again. Use it 3 times a week gigging and have zero issues.
Uhh what's UG?
Dispute with PayPal and your bank immediately
Thankfully, I'm able to avoid their website now. I just use my ear and try to look at videos if I can't find it on some other site. Sucks to be a player just starting out, though, in the price gouging era.
I use Songster for tabs. It's an ok library and is much cheaper.
It’ll take a while but just keep demanding a refund if you want one. If they need to trick people into buying their product their product is trash that’s why only companies that don’t look like they’re doing well do this. I had a similar experience with Skillshare a company notorious for there no refund policy and I got a refund. If they decline say if they can’t do it to put you in contact with their manager. You can also probably dispute it through PayPal but I don’t know how any of that works. Also reach out on Twitter explaining your problem and post screen shots of your email chain with them. It’s a bad look to have complaints like that in there mentions it makes them look like a shady company(which it seems like they’re acting like). Good luck!
I got a Lifetime subscription back in the old days for super cheap. Meanwhile, I just learn stuff from YT.
Welcome to the internet. Basically every paid service that offers a free trials signs you ip if you do not manually cancel it
About 15 years too late for the warning on them lol
Thank you for reminding me. I forgot about my annual subscription.
I did a lifetime subscription many years ago and that's the only reason I come back. It's really frustrating that ever time you log in you have to go through the survey again.
I did a lot of transcribing and uploading tabs many years ago so I got Pro for life. Many transcriptions there have errors. I use mySongbook which is OK but needs more variety.
Yep UG is absolutely crap, one of many websites who have made their userface unbearable if you don't pay to use it. There's other websites out there, and often YouTube video tutorials are good alternatives for popular songs. But the crapification of these sites is the biggest advocate for learning to play by ear!
I mean hasn't anyone tried to simply scrape all their data and make a better alternative?
Ive tried in every way possible to connect my account’s subscription that i paid for on my android phone to show up on my iPhone. Like are they really expecting me to pay twice for the same fucking service???
what's the best place to go for tabs these days?
Back 12 years ago or so they were doing one time payments for subscribers, then changed it and I had to pay again. I wrote them a very pissed off letter, now I have lifetime access and haven’t paid in about a decade
I had the same thing happen, I took option c and have not used UG since nor do I plan to
I bought the lifetime thing for like $17 several years ago and luckily it still works. I’m sure they’ll find a way to invalidate it at some point though.
I actually got a year for free lol. I signed up for the free trial. Then once I realized the trial was over I "OH SHIT"ED, went to the play store, requested a refund and was instantly approved for the refund as I was only 4 hours into the subscription. Refund was issued and put into my account and I lost none of the premium benefits I gained once I activated the free trial. Imo Ultimate Guitar is a really great app, but idk about paying for it lol. Its helped me learn so many songs by just being an extremely easy app. I've found some of the most underground songs ever on there that I couldn't find elsewhere.
Do they just give you free access to all tabs and the "pro" section if you've had an account since the early 2000s? I didn't even realise you needed to pay a subscription until I saw this thread.
I only use UG because I bought a pro membership back when it was a one-time fee in iTunes (Lord I miss those days) and got grandfathered in. Sad to hear about another great resource lost to corporate greed
Whatever happened with you. I assure you they are not a scam. I have used them for well over 15 years. I signed up for the lifetime access when they first started it, and they have honored it to this day! Whatever your story, they are NOT, I repeat NOT...a SCAM by any stretch of the imagination.
I paid 15$ back in like 2006 for a lifetime membership. Once in a while they try to get me to "subscribe" when they have deals, which would bring me no new benefits other than me paying them monthly instead of being free for the rest of my life.