Double Bass Scanning All My Music (For Future Switch to Ipad)

[blastoff]

TurboScan is on my phone, works superbly

 

[Adjectives]

Great information, everyone. Thanks very much. One last question - I tend to hang onto my iOS devices, e.g., I went from an iPhone 10 to an iPhone 16 Pro Max. I haven't owned an iPad in a decade or more. Is top-of-the-line still worth it? I imagine the largest screen size _is_ still worth it, but what about things like onboard storage, i.e., do most of you keep your music on a cloud somewhere or have it stored on your iPad, or both?

Thanks again.

-S-

I use my iPad for sheet music and annotation as well. I recommend the 12.9" M1 iPad pro. Don't be lured into an m3 or m4, not necessary at all. The M1 is blazing fast and has a great, readable screen. Looks like this model is around ~$500 on ebay new old stock.

I also use ultimate guitar for quick charts on songs I'm unfamiliar with. You can split the screen to take notes(with the apple pencil) while watching/listening to a video or backing track. It's the ideal solution!

 

[Neon Scribe]

On the Mac I use a program called PDFOutliner to add bookmarks to PDF files. It's a pretty simple program. Once you get comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts, you can go quickly page by page through your PDFs and add bookmarks where you need them. Those bookmarks can be imported into forScore or iGigBook so that you can search or pull down a menu list to select one. Most of the musicians I know use forScore, but a few of us use iGigBook, usually because we have PDFs with iGigBook's special quirky indexes. Hmm, where did those PDFs come from? Don't ask!

I've never used any of the phone-camera-based scanner apps, but if they work well that's going to be a lot cheaper than what I'm doing. I got a book scanner, a special flatbed scanner where the glass goes all the way to the edge so you can scan book pages most of the way in towards the binding.

 

[oren]

I was wondering the same. I found this on Youtube. It looks like someone already pre-created the indexes and when you upload your book it links the page number to the PDF you imported. At least that's what appears to be happening. If that's the case, it's gonna save hours of manual linking... which is a win IMO. That feature alone makes it worth $19.99 cause I don't have the appropriate hyperfixation chemicals in my brain for this particular task.

That’s exactly right, and those pre-built indexes are the value of the app @Phil Smith, the app’s creator, is an active member here and has always been responsive when I’ve had questions.

 

[Jefenator]

I got the cheapest / smallest iPad. 32 GB capacity, 8 GB still open. (forScore w/ 2800 charts only takes up 2.02 GB!) The battery still seems OK after 8 years of heavy use.
No regrets going cheap last time, but my next iPad will definitely be a 13". (Been making do with the small-ish screen but my eyesight isn't getting any better.) I might spring for the Apple Pencil, too. Used or refurb could be tempting, but I'll proabably just go with a new "Air". (The "Pro" would be nice but I probably have better uses for that extra $500.)

 

[Hasty]

That’s exactly right, and those pre-built indexes are the value of the app @Phil Smith, the app’s creator, is an active member here and has always been responsive when I’ve had questions.

He seems pretty responsive. I e-mailed him a question earlier today about Android vs. iPad and he was super quick to reply. I just purchased the app and I'm working on loading some of my RealBooks now. Even if that was the only thing it ever did it's totally worth the price.


Thanks again for the suggestion!

 

[Future Boy]

A Doxie will speed up the scans.

www.getdoxie.com

 

[oren]

I got the cheapest / smallest iPad. 32 GB capacity, 8 GB still open. (forScore w/ 2800 charts only takes up 2.02 GB!) The battery still seems OK after 8 years of heavy use.
No regrets going cheap last time, but my next iPad will definitely be a 13". (Been making do with the small-ish screen but my eyesight isn't getting any better.) I might spring for the Apple Pencil, too. Used or refurb could be tempting, but I'll proabably just go with a new "Air". (The "Pro" would be nice but I probably have better uses for that extra $500.)

I use the pencil for marking up PDFs in both ForScore and IGigBook.

 

[unbrokenchain]

This is a great feature that I'll be using from now on.
Who Knew? (...not me.)
Thanks, oren.
Edit: I print all my handwritten lead sheets on paper, reducing my 9 1/2"x 12 1/2" manuscript paper to (standard printer paper) 8 1/2" x 11".
Yeah. I'm old.

"Old" ain't the same as "old school." ;-) I much prefer paper to screens many times over in general, though I can't qualify exactly why.

 

[fdeck]

I've had reasonably good luck with larger charts, just carefully centering them on the scanner and letting the sheets hang off the edge. Some pieces of blue painters tape with marks help me get them centered. Only a rare fraction of charts won't fit this way.

 

[Jefenator]

I use the pencil for marking up PDFs in both ForScore and IGigBook.

One can certainly manage, just using the pointer finger, particularly if you zoom in.
I've been making entire charts from scratch that way.
I think I'm ready for an upgrade, though; those finger-written charts make it look like I use crystal meth.

 

[bassmanbrent]

If you have an iPhone you can use the Notes app to scan paper

I did this yesterday and found the results to be much better than using the scan function in forScore as far as quality goes. Unfortunately it adds step in the process which may or may not be worth it depending on the kind of charts you're scanning. Scanning lead sheets in forScore works fine for me but is less ideal for written parts and charts with lots of detail.

 

[Phil Smith]

Can you tell us more about how this works? I have a zillion fakebooks on a disc. If I import them to iGigBook do the indexes work, or do you have to scroll through the file to get to the chart you want? Thanks

We've created indexes for over 90 different Real Books and Fake Books, you can view the list here: Current PDF Book Index List - i Gig Book The issue some users have with the indexes is that they download PDF files from the internet which oftentimes do not have all the pages present and in the correct order. No scrolling through a PDF to find the song you need, just start typing in the name and results appear depending on which book the song appears in.

 

[Phil Smith]

Hmm... I not familiar with iGigBook. I'll have to check that one out. I built out RealBook 6 indexes on forScore, but only the ones I play enough to need but haven't memorized yet. It would be nice to have the entire index available for all my Fake books. Thanks!

We have an index for most of the Hal Leonard Real Book series...6th Edition, Vol II 2nd Edition, Vol III 2nd Edition, Vol IV, Vol V and Vol VI.

 

[Phil Smith]

I'd appreciate any advice about making the switch to using an iPad, specifically about how to handle all the printed music I have and get it scanned in a good manner without breaking the bank or taking years to do. E.g., I know I sometimes have trouble fitting 9" x 12" sheet music onto a page to make a photocopy - how does one handle that? I've seen ads for scanners where you can page through a book and it deal with the curvature of the page, but this whole process is a brave new world to me.

We're an Apple household if that matter - Apple laptops and iPhones, and currently an HP all-in-one printer that can scan to our computers.

Thanks in advance for your replies, links, hardware and software recommendations, etc.

-S-

For scanner options I would look for a used Fugitsu SnapScan iX500. This scanner is compact and fast, 25 ppm duplex and the sheet feeder works well. I've scanned a 488 unbound Real Book in less than 5 minutes. As for software, just ask me about iGigBook.

 

[Hasty]

We have an index for most of the Hal Leonard Real Book series...6th Edition, Vol II 2nd Edition, Vol III 2nd Edition, Vol IV, Vol V and Vol VI.

I got all my books loaded up on Friday and tested it out on a gig that night. We decided to make it an “all request” gig and tested the book for every tune to see how effective it was. It was cool searching the indexes and very effective. I’d say it was as simple as iReal Pro and more useful cause it has the dots for lead players. We usually don’t have any books or devices on this gig but it made it a fun gig.

The only weird thing is the transposition indexes don’t disappear like the C books do on the “My Scores” page, even though they appear in the book section as expected. However the ability to have them all together under a single title/book is pretty amazing.

 

[Cerio]

Can you tell us more about how this works? I have a zillion fakebooks on a disc. If I import them to iGigBook do the indexes work, or do you have to scroll through the file to get to the chart you want?

If you use mobilesheets (very similar to forscore, but, IMO much easier and powerful) you'll find lots on indexes in their forum, shared by users.

This way you can easily and quickly import dozens of realbooks on your collection.

 

[Phil Smith]

If you use mobilesheets (very similar to forscore, but, IMO much easier and powerful) you'll find lots on indexes in their forum, shared by users.

This way you can easily and quickly import dozens of realbooks on your collection.

Why do all of that work when you don't have to?

 

[J_Bass]

Great information, everyone. Thanks very much. One last question - I tend to hang onto my iOS devices, e.g., I went from an iPhone 10 to an iPhone 16 Pro Max. I haven't owned an iPad in a decade or more. Is top-of-the-line still worth it? I imagine the largest screen size _is_ still worth it, but what about things like onboard storage, i.e., do most of you keep your music on a cloud somewhere or have it stored on your iPad, or both?

Thanks again.

-S-

Hi!

I use an iPad Pro with a 13” screen. Here it is, compared to an A4 paper:

Notice that the sheet music for Moon River is bigger on the iPad than on paper. As said before in this thread, you can zoom and crop the pages. You can also do things like I did on bars 84 and 85.

Check out this video:

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

Biggest problem with iGigBook is finding the PDF files for all those books. Can anyone point to sources for the files?