Choosing a Tablet for Reading Charts

[fauxtoe]

No matter what you go with, get a page turner foot pedal. I suggest this one - https://www.codamusictech.com/produ...MIpL_qu4Hm8wIVcgytBh1kXQm6EAQYASABEgKhT_D_BwE It runs on battery or a standard Boss 9v power supply. If you can wait a few weeks they usually run a Black Friday sale.

 

[Holdsg]

When you're in 4 bands, a tablet is a must.

I use an I-Pad Air. When I upgrade it (hopefully Mr. Claus will provide) I'll be getting the bigger screen version (10.9 inch).

I use OnSong (for years). I'm surprised more here use other software. But OnSong has been great for me. I have close to 1500 songs in there, set lists, etc. I always have a backup version available in my Dropbox folder, that I can download to my phone in an emergency (such as leaving the tablet home, which I have done, unfortunately, but this saved my bacon).

I use the Air Turn Dual foot pedal, bluetooth, for turning pages, which is a must for keys players.

Very reliable, here's a pic for keys gig

 

[AgostoMortal]

The ipad has no rival. Processor or memory does not matter for the task. The pro is great but very expensive, a great alternative now is the ipad air with a 10.9 inch screen. It is a big upgrade from the old 9.7, very noticeable, and less bulky than the pro 12 inch. I don't need a bigger size screen for reading charts now, with the 9.7 I did.
For Score and or unrealBook are the solid choices for reading and editing charts. A page turner pedal is very convenient. With the ipad you can also use the airpods to turn the pages, move your head left, or right..truly insane, it works great, but off course you have to have the pods on your ear so what is the benefit? anyway.

 

[farace]

I don’t use my iPad for charts, but I wanted to second the suggestion of checking Apple’s website to see what refurbished units might be available. Stock turns over fairly quickly, so if you don’t see what you want, check back. Not only are the refurbs indistinguishable from a brand-new iPad, with all the accessories included, you also get the same Apple warranty as a new unit, which came in handy for me when my iPad got locked into a reboot loop that it couldn’t escape from despite the concerted effort of customer support staff. They made the replacement process easy, and I had a replacement within a week. You will not get that kind of warranty from a third-party refurbisher.

 

[thmsjordan]

I have owned and used both Jimmy and to be honest it depends on what you are doing.

If you're just reading Realbook pdf's then either is just fine (I used a Kindle Fire HD10 for this for about a year).

If you need to do more I would recommend using an ipad. I will add my +1 to those who have said that they are better supported than their Adroid cousins but both platforms have their charms. iPads are king on Broadway and musical theater and I have seen then used quite a lot in the classical world. You see them in pits more and more.

The Holiday season is upon us and there are always sales on these things so if you can wait a bit you might save some money.

 

[LBS-bass]

For a fully charged unit that is not years old, you should be able to expect to get through any gig.

I did a 3-set gig with mine about a month ago. Brought it home, put it away, forgot to charge it up. Pulled it out this morning for a rehearsal thinking I'd better put it on the charger and it still had 73% on the battery. Getting through a gig is never a worry unless the battery's getting worn out.

 

[James Collins]

https://www.gvidomusic.com/

Whatever you get won't be this nice and will be more reasonably priced. Good luck.

 

[Lesfunk]

Fwiw, I use a new model iPad Air and OnSong app. Works pretty well.
Also have an app called easy chart for making quick chord charts. It’s nor perfect but I can make a quick chord chart, save it to photos , then quickly add it to my OnSong library

 

[MichelD]

I am a boring old fart. No friggin' tablet for me. I was invited to a jam session which I attended a few times until I got tired of being the bass player playing with six guitar players who all strummed pretty much the same thing.

And they all had tablets! Somebody would call a song, then each one would take five minutes trying to find it on their tablet, then there would be a problem because they were in different keys. It would take 10 minutes to get a three minute song organized.

I quit.

The people I play with now use paper charts, and we each have a book of jazz tunes four-inches thick or several or we play blues or three chord wonders that everyone can pick up in a hurry.

 

[James Collins]

I would probably go with an wink option like boox if it was an easy choice, but i have too much music on books and don't know about rebuying it.

 

[droo46]

I don't know how often this will come into play for you, but the vast majority of mixing apps I've encountered are either only on Apple devices, or just work much better on an iPad.

 

[thmsjordan]

Huge!

Look at either the biggest I-pad you can get, or the biggest galaxy tab you can get.

Tablets for charts sucks so hard, but you can make it work. My church just switched to tablet with an app, and I hate it. But, it does work.

To me, nothing beats pieces of paper laid out in front of you. You place multiple sheet songs in order, and you can do it all without swiping and enlarging anything. Then shrinking it back down so you can swipe to the next page, while playing at the same time. It's terrible. But, I make it work regardless. And, I don't b*&$< about it.

One plus with pads is when there is wind on an outside gig. you don't have to worry about clothespins etc to pin the charts down.

 

[bassburner]

We just picked up a used, original iPad Air which is plenty good enough to control our XAir and use Songbook. A used iPad will cost you less than a full size Android tablet. You can go the Kindle Fire route but the screen is not as clear from a distant. It also is missing a few apps like the official XAir client.

 

[craigb]

I'll toss my 2c in:

I use MobileSheets Pro on a 13.3" convertible chromebook -- I'm generally playing at church, going off of chord charts. I use it in landscape mode showing 2 pages at a time and generally don't bring my Pageflip Cicada bluetooth page turn pedal as it's rare we don't have everything condensed down to 2 pages. The chromebook has stylus support so I can take notes on the charts using the stylus instead of my finger and that's been a nice improvement.

MobileSheets has way more features than I use but I appreciate the ability to take notes on an overlay on top of the file -- I load everything in PDFs and arrange into setlists. I've played with its ability to load text files (and transpose those on the fly), to sync multiple smaller tablets with one page each (requires wifi), and the Windows version of the application but didn't want to deal with taking a larger, more expensive, heavier laptop places.

Power-wise now that I've upgraded to a new chromebook battery life is so good I don't need the power cord for gigs/rehearsals -- I used to use an older 13.3" cheap android tablet and as it aged the battery couldn't hold charge long enough to last through a session. So I just plugged it in everywhere - no big deal as I only play electric plugged in anyway.

So a chromebook is another option, albeit larger and more expensive than an android tablet but depending on what features you want and what your uses for it are outside of a chart notebook replacement it might work out.

I really like the look of the large e-ink tablets but they were beyond what I was willing to pay and a bit of a single-tasker from a tech standpoint for me.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

Don’t have time to read through all the great responses you’ll get yet, but…

- I use an iPad. Frankly, I view it as the more foolproof and stable solution. I actually have an iPad Pro that I do my day job from, so that just works fine.

- No such thing as too big for screen. When it comes to storage, keep in mind that you may have some charts as images.

- forScore seems to work pretty well. One feature that’s nice is that if I take photos of a chart, I can import it into the app and even export it as a PDF (it basically behaves as if you’ve scanned the photo).

- depends on how you use it, whether you turn it off, etc.

Get an AirTurn Manos, the AirTurn goStand and the AirTurn duo pedal and you’ll be all set.

Agreed on all points with the all but the Duo pedal. I’ve been through two of them, both failed. Both had a bad habit of advancing more than one page at a time, and eventually just stopped advancing pages all together. The stomp version, much like an on off effects pedal button, each click is one page only, is a much better and a lot more durable, pedal IMO.

Other than that, great post!

 

[juancaminos]

Most people I know use Ipad's. In fact our 2nd guitarist uses one but it's an odd size, like a 10" screen but tall.
Another local guitar player just uses his I phone mounted way up by his mic.

I use a Galaxy Tab A (Android) 10.1 only because we had an extra one laying around. I tried a Samsung 8" screen tablet but it was too small for me. Software is SongbookPro. It allows auto scrolling, and touch screen notes & highlighting along with a bunch of other things I don't use at this point. Also you can down load entire song chord charts on the spot via wifi, hot spot or 4G (if you have the service). The default live (internet) download is thru UltimateGuitar.com which lets you change keys or edit anything on the screen at any time down the road.

BTW I can use it for two gigs without charging...

 

[stretch80]

Interesting, so there IS an way to take notes in an overlay in Mobile Sheets, thanks @craigb I need to try to find that feature!

 

[dbsfgyd1]

Thank you all very much for the voices of experience. Here’s what I’ve figured out so far…

——iPad is a lot more universal on the pro scene and sending files back and forth is easier.

——I will be in trouble without a 12.9” screen.

—-I will also be in trouble without a page turning pedal. I assume they hook up to USB or does Apple force you to use their lightning ports? Probably either or these days, no?

Glad to know an older one that works would do the job… kinda sorta thinking about a cruise ship stint so I can put away some bank without spending much. Not entirely sold on it but I’ve always said they’re good for kids out of music school and divorced people. Who knows? A stint or two wouldn’t kill me and would go a long way to pile up a little savings.

The pedal I posted connected via Bluetooth. But, lots of great feedback on this thread and I’m sure after you sift through all of it, you should come up with a logical practical plan.

Good hunting.

 

[coyote1]

I am a boring old fart. No friggin' tablet for me. I was invited to a jam session which I attended a few times until I got tired of being the bass player playing with six guitar players who all strummed pretty much the same thing.

And they all had tablets! Somebody would call a song, then each one would take five minutes trying to find it on their tablet, then there would be a problem because they were in different keys. It would take 10 minutes to get a three minute song organized.

I quit.

The people I play with now use paper charts, and we each have a book of jazz tunes four-inches thick or several or we play blues or three chord wonders that everyone can pick up in a hurry.

The point of these is not to spend your time searching. The presumption is that you are playing an event, and that you would have your music stored in the correct order for the gig. The magic is this: you connect a switch pedal, and use that switch to page thru the chart. When that number is finished, you open the next number in the sequence of charts and do likewise. And if a piece needs to be transposed, you can do it on the spot… and if your tablets are connected, the conductor can make the change for you. Once you do this with likeminded professionals, it’s kinda hard to go back to paper.

 

[OldSchoolFlats]

I am a boring old fart. No friggin' tablet for me. I was invited to a jam session which I attended a few times until I got tired of being the bass player playing with six guitar players who all strummed pretty much the same thing.

And they all had tablets! Somebody would call a song, then each one would take five minutes trying to find it on their tablet, then there would be a problem because they were in different keys. It would take 10 minutes to get a three minute song organized.

I quit.

The people I play with now use paper charts, and we each have a book of jazz tunes four-inches thick or several or we play blues or three chord wonders that everyone can pick up in a hurry.

While I am not actively playing with others, I am curious about seeing what I can do with my iPad. The apps would have to be pretty awesome, though, to compete with paper. I purchased a Brother laser-printer several weeks back for printing sheet music. $150, double-sided printing.