I honestly don't know if I should feel flattered or miffed!

Now you have made me curious, what realtracks are they so that we can do a comparison?



Musiclover

Well, off the top of my head there's the accordions (which I honestly should've seen coming after they got Cory on board), like the new Spanish Tango versus my Tango and their Tarantella certainly has clear similarities to my "Irish" accordion set. But then they went a step further that I certainly wasn't expecting and made that "SmoothBalladNeil" acoustic bass which is just too close to my "Bass, Acoustic-Guitar, Ballad Ev16" not to notice
Now, I'm not saying these are flat out identical to my stuff, and theirs are obviously infinitely better and more varied (with their proper RT scheme and technology never going to be outdone by anything that the very flawed UT function can/can't do), just that there's a pretty clear likeness...well, to me at least

Music is music ... there are too many songs, originally created by different bands and in even different eras, which will sound similar to each other. You can't patent a "style" of music. It's the creativity in the realm of music that makes a difference. There are only so many chords and notes you can use. The way you assemble them into music is your choice. There always will be similarities between certain song structures.

Well, it's not like I was about to go jump up and sue anyone here, you know

So let's all just chill, shall we. I just thought these were "eerily close", is all

Yep you can always sue the person who manages to get a huge hit with one of them in his/her song.



Musiclover

Eddie,

Personally, I believe you should feel flattered.

When PG Music introduced the UserTracks concept in 2014 they sponsored a contest to generate interest. I submitted an Autoharp UserTracks. At that time there were no Autoharp RealTracks so I was able to fill a gap in their product line. PG Music must have liked my UserTracks because they released some Autoharp RealTracks. So I'm flattered PG Music noticed.

I've listened to your demonstration recordings. It is obvious to me that you put a lot of work into your UserTracks and you rightfully should be proud of them.

Well, quite. I was (hopefully) obviously always going to lean that way than actually get offended, cmon!
That's certainly one way at looking at it. And I actually remember Master Gannon himself placing a favourable comment on one of my Tango UT posts, so I know for a fact that they noticed. That whole "filling the gap" was also what I've been aiming for with my UT's, sure, which, as I say, is why I wasn't really that surprised we'd get those proper tango accordions at some point (especially after Cory joined). If anything, I'm very pleased to see that added so soon, for the genre and the existing RT's were just begging for accordion to be thrown into the pot
But, having said that (and on a more somber note now), there is still that feeling of dissolution from my 'UT-creator' perspective when your work is pretty much rendered obsolete like that by something far better. I mean, I was never going to compete with any proper RT, with the UT function still being as flawed and limited as it remains, let alone when they get nothing short of an actual champion for the job!
But then, it's not like any of you fellow members were queuing up in line with that meagre buck in hand for my stuff anyway, heh. No, I've learned that this place has always had that strong "code of sharing", as it were, be it Usertracks, song files files, or basically anything else.
So I don't know. Maybe I'm steadily talking this thread into becoming just another nail in that UT coffin for me here, and maybe that's not all that bad either...or at least until the PG team shows a sudden renovated interest in the concept/feature and decides to actually bring it up to its true potential.

Thanks for that vote of confidence, I won't dispute any of that

Eddie,

I believe there are a few users that strongly believe in UserTracks. However some issues remain. Most likely one of the largest is many users don't have a good feel for what UserTracks are, can be or should be. That's one of the reasons why I started the +++ Band-in-a-Box UserTracks +++ discussion group on Yahoo.

I also believe many people don't realize how difficult it is to create a UserTracks that can be useful to many users.