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

#41
Although I wanted a 13 for the realistic sheet music view - I saw a few in the wild but imagined it would be a little too inconvenient to schlepp around.

Settled on a new iPad Pro 11. It's a nice balance.

As for scanning, I spent several months during a slow gig period and got most of my PDFs as singles with minimal metadata in order.

Forescore and iReal Pro are my go to programs. I do default to iBooks (whatever it's called) for a couple of the actual song books I've got.

Following this thread with interest. Carry on!
 
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#42
Jim Dombrowski said:
Biggest problem with iGigBook is finding the PDF files for all those books. Can anyone point to sources for the files?
Click to expand...
I scanned mine. It was pretty easy to remove the ring spine thingy, scan them, then put the ring thingy back on the books. Some of the older ones like the classic real books are in PDF form on the internet, but I'm cautious about downloading files from free websites I'm not familiar with. I somehow made it through the wild west days of fileshare back in the 90's and early 2000's unscathed (I think) but probably wouldn't be so free and easy with it these days. I don't think any of the Hal Leonard books are available as an easily transferrable PDF form as a purchase item.
 
#43
I realize this is a thread about scanning music, but... does anyone use an Android or Windows-based tablet?

As a longtime user of Unix/Linux and Windows operating systems, I have trouble wrapping my head around the Apple/Mac paradigms. My wife is a member of the Apple universe; whenever I try to do anything with her devices, I become frustrated quickly.

If there are non-Mac users, can you recommend software? Thanks!
 
#44
AGCurry said:
I realize this is a thread about scanning music, but... does anyone use an Android or Windows-based tablet?

As a longtime user of Unix/Linux and Windows operating systems, I have trouble wrapping my head around the Apple/Mac paradigms. My wife is a member of the Apple universe; whenever I try to do anything with her devices, I become frustrated quickly.

If there are non-Mac users, can you recommend software? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have a few Android powered tablets. They're all e-paper displays. The first one was made by Boox and I used it for several years until the screen cracked and I couldn't update it anymore. The other two are called Meebooks (one is 7" and the other is 10ish"). All are fairly inexpensive Chinese imports that I picked up on Amazon and all work very well. My program of choice is Mobile Sheets Pro (e-paper version) and it's a great app. The screens are super easy to see, even in sunlight. They have a backlight that doesn't make you look like a ghoul on a dark stage, and the time between battery charges is measured in weeks not hours. I can also use a bluetooth foot pedal to turn pages. I prefer the Coda Stomp, but at this stage in the game they're all pretty close to each other in usability.

All that said, they have their quirks. The refresh rate is slow so sometimes when you tap on the screen it's not as responsive as a fancy high definition android or iphone screen. Also, the wi-fi doesn't always start up when the device is powered on.

Another con(?) to the android devices is the AirDrop functionality. I used my ipad on a gig last night because I'm still testing out the iGigbook and the piano player also uses that app on his ipad. I walked in, he airdropped me his playlist and it went straight into my app and created an identical setlist with all his tunes and tags. Made for a pretty seamless gig. I think you can also pair the devices together so any tune he pulls up also pulls up on my device (I'm pretty sure forScore does this too) and that could have it's benefits as well.
 
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#47
AGCurry said:
I realize this is a thread about scanning music, but... does anyone use an Android or Windows-based tablet?

As a longtime user of Unix/Linux and Windows operating systems, I have trouble wrapping my head around the Apple/Mac paradigms. My wife is a member of the Apple universe; whenever I try to do anything with her devices, I become frustrated quickly.

If there are non-Mac users, can you recommend software? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I used to use forscore on an Ipad years ago, switched to mobile sheets on Android and never looked back. Way more flexible and easier to use, in my opinion.

Regarding the tablet, I bought a TLC nextpaper 14 a few months ago to use exclusively for gigs, and can't be happier, is just the perfect tablet for that, at a fraction of the cost of any apple product.
 
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#48
Jmilitsc said:
They used to be on scribd - like lots of editions in lots of clefs. Not sure if they're still there however.

There's a bunch of index offset maneuvering you have to do in iGigBook but it generally works.
Click to expand...

There isn't a lot of index maneuvering when you start with a PDF that has all of the pages present and in the correct order. If you select a song from a PDF and some other song appears you only have indicate the page number the you visibly see on the music which corrects that, but you must start with a PDF that has all the pages present and in the correct order.
 
#49
Phil Smith said:
There isn't a lot of index maneuvering when you start with a PDF that has all of the pages present and in the correct order. If you select a song from a PDF and some other song appears you only have indicate the page number the you visibly see on the music which corrects that, but you must start with a PDF that has all the pages present and in the correct order.
Click to expand...
I discovered that in one of my books I scanned. There were a couple of pages missing, so I just inserted blank pages with the title and page number and a comment that tune wasn't available in XX clef. Worked great.
 
#50
AGCurry said:
I realize this is a thread about scanning music, but... does anyone use an Android or Windows-based tablet?

As a longtime user of Unix/Linux and Windows operating systems, I have trouble wrapping my head around the Apple/Mac paradigms. My wife is a member of the Apple universe; whenever I try to do anything with her devices, I become frustrated quickly.

If there are non-Mac users, can you recommend software? Thanks!
Click to expand...
When I joined the community orchestra last spring I realized that I needed to go electric so I picked up a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8 and loaded Mobile Sheets Pro. So far this has been a great combination and I'm using it for both orchestra and praise band gigs. I tried using my iPad mini with ForScore and it worked ok for reading chord charts but was too small to see the notes. The Galaxy lets me read orchestra parts in portrait mode and I can flip it to landscape and see two pages at a time for charts.

A great resource is The best tablets for musicians

As far as scanning I use a Fugitsu SnapScan 1500 which has a sheet feeder and duplex scans. I did have to buy a fairly inexpensive program to get it to work with my Mac. I haven't scanned much music but I did scan all the family photos and the Fugitsu is a workhorse.
 
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#51
AGCurry said:
I realize this is a thread about scanning music, but... does anyone use an Android or Windows-based tablet?

As a longtime user of Unix/Linux and Windows operating systems, I have trouble wrapping my head around the Apple/Mac paradigms. My wife is a member of the Apple universe; whenever I try to do anything with her devices, I become frustrated quickly.

If there are non-Mac users, can you recommend software? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I got an 11 inch Lenovo Android tablet after the screen on my Windows tablet broke during a gig. We already had two 13" iPads in the family, and I wasn't going to shell out for a third one. Also, some things are noticeably better on Apple, but I'm not a professional musician or full time music student, so my needs are much less sophisticated. I have a homemade page turning pedal. I've been using it for all of my gigs (combo and big-band) for about a year.

My impression is that the Apple experience is smoother once you're trained in the things you're allowed to do. The Android experience is more klunky, but with no barriers. But whatever.

I manage charts by keeping everything on a Linux-based NAS at my house, and sync to my Android device using SyncThing. This seems a bit baroque, but I like to have a backup, and I can't rely on a cloud based service because it's rare to have Internet access at gigs. There's also a shell app for Android called Termux, and you can manage your backup that way, but I'm lazy and the app is easy. For reading charts I use MobileSheets

Here are the drawbacks:

1. When I say "11 inch", it doesn't have the same aspect ratio as a sheet of paper, like the iPad does. What I'm reading is smaller than the printed sheet. But I'm playing jazz, and am "just the bass player," so my charts tend to be less dense anyway. My kids are reading Classical music on their iPads, a whole different ballgame.

2. I use a stylus on my Android, but only a small number of apps support "palm rejection," which makes annotating charts awkward. On the iPad, palm rejection and integration with the stylus are part of the OS. You do get more for your money in some ways.

3. Likewise, not all apps support the page turning pedal, but MobileSheets does.
 
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#53
I am not OP but want to say thanks to everyone for their advice in this thread. After reading through it and checking out a few apps I now have all of my music in forScore. I am also now trying out CalypsoScore and I am really enjoying it too. I set up forScore to work with my M-Vave Chocolate foot controller and it it working out perfectly as my page turner. Hopefully I can get CalypsoScore to use the Chocolate as well.
 
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#54
I did a sub gig over the weekend and we were all lamenting the fact that this particular big band still has multiple large, unwieldy, 5 inch 3 ring binders that are difficult to flip pages on and are so heavy they make the music stand sink down every time.

On break we were all talking about our favorite score/chart apps and the piano player mentioned forScore does facial recognition for page turns and said that's a huge deal in the classical piano world right now. When I got home I checked it out and sure enough... it supports facial gestures for page turns. However you have to pay an additional subscription cost for that feature, which I don't have. I'm half tempted to pay the $2.99 for a 30 day preview of the "Pro" subscription to see if it's actually worth it.

Another side note... just got hired for a musical pit gig and they sent me the charts and recordings. For the first time I actually made an effort to load the MP3's in with the sheet music. Wow that's a cool feature and it will really be helpful working through all these charts.
 
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#55
forScore gig report with the facial gesture page turns. I opted for the mouth movement as it only seems to recognize one eye with the "wink" option, and it could care less about any sort of head turn I tried. Maybe it's because I'm bald with a melon head so any movement looks the same to the iPad camera.

I tested this out on a gig and it was amazing and terrible at the same time.

Pros- It actually works as advertised. I could easily turn pages (forward and back). On the first two tunes, which were big band arrangements of Recorda Me and I Thought About You, it was absolutely flawless. Forward, backwards, going from the DS back and from the sign to the Coda... perfection. I thought it was way better than my bluetooth pedal and I was convinced I'd chunk that pedal in the trash when I got home (just kidding!). Didn't seem to affect battery life any more than I usually experience when using the iPad on a gig (camera is active while the app is open so it can see your facial gestures).

Then we started playing some groovy stuff. This is where I found the flaw in the system.

Cons- If you make any sort of bass face (whether you're aware of it or not... which I was not aware of), you will start to get the most random page turns you've ever experienced. Pages were flipping so fast I thought I was having a psychedelic flashback on the merry go round from hell. It was almost a comedy of errors. Trying to NOT make a bass face when you didn't even know you had bass face is next to impossible.

I tried to adjust the sensitivity, but apparently with my cherubic face it's an all or nothing proposition. The drummer took great delight in watching the events transpire. Somehow we made it through that part of the set and I turned off the facial gesture option when we finally had a moment between tunes. Then I spent the rest of the gig manually turning pages by hand like all the other poor fools in the band because I left the foot pedal at home.
 
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#57
Cerio said:
Mobilesheets also supports facial gesture page turns, but I highly recommend a simple page turner pedal for both programs, it's cheap and it works great
Click to expand...
I agree. I've used a few different ones over the years but lately I've been using either the Stomp or the AirTurn. I just recently finished up a month long musical and the bluetooth page turner was invaluable. I've used one for concerts and such and it was a nice convenience. However for that musical it was pretty much a necessity. Definitely a lifesaver.
 

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