Ultimate Guitar Archive
Encyclopedia
Ultimate Guitar Archive, also known as Ultimate-Guitar.com or simply UG, is a large guitarist
community website
known for its large amount of guitar
and bass
tablature
, reviews of music and equipment, interviews with notable musicians, online written and video lessons, and forums
. It was started on October 9, 1998 by Eugeny Naidenov - a student of economic faculty of Kaliningrad State University, Russia
.
Like the tabs, the lessons and column are also rated by users, which attributes towards UG Points (or rather number of contributions), your UG score also increases, or decreases as the members rate your contribution.
Although UG encourages participation, they also have a strict guideline and set of rules that all UG users must follow. Members must be over the age of 13 to use the services offered by the site and only one account is allowed to be made per person. Strong media is also prohibited from use on the site.
Members of the community often collaborate with fellow users to develop musical projects via the website's forums. While many of these projects are created by users for leisure, some community projects have been released as compilation albums. One of the most notable of these recent projects was the "Blues & Jazz Album II", which featured fourteen original tracks submitted by a number of community members, released for digital download with all profits going to Tipitina's Foundation
. The project's community page can be found here, and the digital download is available on iTunes. There have been several other collaborative albums made by community members that are available for free download within the forums, including two electronic albums, a rock album and an acoustic album.
Although The Pit is a miscellaneous section, certain standards are upheld. Account suspensions, bans, and closed threads are quite common.
; unlike other networking sites, UG Profiles are focused on those who share the interest of guitar, or to a lesser extent, bass. Users are able to add profiles for each of their bands, upload pictures of themselves, as well as gear, display their "guitar skills", join groups of interest, and upload MP3's of that specific user's work.
began closing due to legal threats from the Music Publishers Association of America
, UG saw a surge of new users flock to the community. UG, which pays licensing fees to publishers, was unaffected by MPA legal actions. As stated in an article posted on the site, UG finds the MPA to be humorous (a satirical picture stating "When you download tabs from UG, you're downloading communism" was made in response to the MPA's warnings) and does not take their warning seriously, mainly because the site is based in Russia and is not affected by American laws. The site also pays royalties
to show the tabs on their website.
On April 10, 2010, Ultimate Guitar entered a licensing agreement with Harry Fox Agency
. The agreement included rights for lyrics display, title search and tablature display with download and print capabilities. HFA’s over 44,000 represented publishers have the opportunity to opt-in to the
licensing arrangement with UG.
Tabs can be voted from 1 star (the worst) to 5 (the best) stars, and comments can be made about the tab. Tabs of entire albums can also be submitted.
Many tabs are often added daily by the community.
There are many different types of tablature files that can be submitted to Ultimate-Guitar. Files such as basic guitar tabs and bass tabs can be read from an Internet browser in ASCII
format. Guitar Pro
and Power Tab files are run through programs that can play the tablature and often include multiple instrument tabs. These files can be saved and opened on the user's computer.
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
community website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
known for its large amount of guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
tablature
Tablature
Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....
, reviews of music and equipment, interviews with notable musicians, online written and video lessons, and forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
. It was started on October 9, 1998 by Eugeny Naidenov - a student of economic faculty of Kaliningrad State University, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
Community
UG is home of over 1,500,000 registered users. It is a strong community of forum users who frequent the site. Community members may also create guitar lessons, and have their approved works published on the website and read by its many users. Reviews of albums, DVDs, or gear and news articles can also be submitted by members.Like the tabs, the lessons and column are also rated by users, which attributes towards UG Points (or rather number of contributions), your UG score also increases, or decreases as the members rate your contribution.
Although UG encourages participation, they also have a strict guideline and set of rules that all UG users must follow. Members must be over the age of 13 to use the services offered by the site and only one account is allowed to be made per person. Strong media is also prohibited from use on the site.
Members of the community often collaborate with fellow users to develop musical projects via the website's forums. While many of these projects are created by users for leisure, some community projects have been released as compilation albums. One of the most notable of these recent projects was the "Blues & Jazz Album II", which featured fourteen original tracks submitted by a number of community members, released for digital download with all profits going to Tipitina's Foundation
Tipitina's Foundation
Tipitina's Foundation, is a not-for-profit charity organization in the United States in place to encourage the city of New Orleans to continue its musical heritage, in particular in the wake of the city's tragedy, Hurricane Katrina. Part of the foundation's purpose is to empower the youth of the...
. The project's community page can be found here, and the digital download is available on iTunes. There have been several other collaborative albums made by community members that are available for free download within the forums, including two electronic albums, a rock album and an acoustic album.
The Pit
The Pit is the most popular and most active section of the Ultimate-Guitar.com forums. It is the part of the site where the registered UGers can discuss multiple topics, including those that do not necessarily have to do with guitar or even music. Many political, religious and topical issues are debated here.Although The Pit is a miscellaneous section, certain standards are upheld. Account suspensions, bans, and closed threads are quite common.
Profiles
On August 12, 2007, the Ultimate Guitar site launched "UG Profiles". This added another feature to UG that other tablature sites do not feature. UG Profiles can be used for networking, advertising gear, bands, and users' own MP3 recordings, in a similar way to other sites such as MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
; unlike other networking sites, UG Profiles are focused on those who share the interest of guitar, or to a lesser extent, bass. Users are able to add profiles for each of their bands, upload pictures of themselves, as well as gear, display their "guitar skills", join groups of interest, and upload MP3's of that specific user's work.
MPA conflicts
In late 2004-2005, after taborama and mxtabs.netMxtabs
MXTabs.net is a music tablature website created in 1999, offering free guitar, bass, and drum tablature created by users of the site, in addition to music reviews and instrument lessons. Although the site shut down in June 2006 in response to claims made by the MPA about the supposed illegality of...
began closing due to legal threats from the Music Publishers Association of America
Music Publishers' Association
The Music Publishers Association of the United States is a music publishing organization based in New York City. Founded in 1895, the MPA is the oldest music trade organization in the United States...
, UG saw a surge of new users flock to the community. UG, which pays licensing fees to publishers, was unaffected by MPA legal actions. As stated in an article posted on the site, UG finds the MPA to be humorous (a satirical picture stating "When you download tabs from UG, you're downloading communism" was made in response to the MPA's warnings) and does not take their warning seriously, mainly because the site is based in Russia and is not affected by American laws. The site also pays royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
to show the tabs on their website.
On April 10, 2010, Ultimate Guitar entered a licensing agreement with Harry Fox Agency
Harry Fox Agency
The Harry Fox Agency is the United States of America's largest agency collecting and distributing mechanical license fees on behalf of music publishers.-External links:*...
. The agreement included rights for lyrics display, title search and tablature display with download and print capabilities. HFA’s over 44,000 represented publishers have the opportunity to opt-in to the
licensing arrangement with UG.
Tablature
Tabs may be requested in the Tab Talk forum.Tabs can be voted from 1 star (the worst) to 5 (the best) stars, and comments can be made about the tab. Tabs of entire albums can also be submitted.
Many tabs are often added daily by the community.
There are many different types of tablature files that can be submitted to Ultimate-Guitar. Files such as basic guitar tabs and bass tabs can be read from an Internet browser in ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
format. Guitar Pro
Guitar Pro
Guitar Pro is a multitrack editor of guitar and bass tablature and musical scores, possessing a built-in MIDI-editor, a plotter of chords, a player, a metronome and other tools for guitarists and musicians...
and Power Tab files are run through programs that can play the tablature and often include multiple instrument tabs. These files can be saved and opened on the user's computer.