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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Our bass player was the first in our band to shift to an iPad in lieu of sheet music. Now the drummer has followed suit. They’ve both loaded up our library of pdfs and are using these tablets exclusively. Loading new pdfs is a piece of cake. Standing next to him, I’ve watched the bass player use his iPad for the past month and I’m impressed. He can mark the music with the touch screen and can set touch-sensitive links directly on the music to cover repeats/jumps to different pages, although I think I’d add the foot controller to turn pages. They both have the big storage models, not sure if it is 32 or 64 gig, but they’ll hold tens of thousands of songs. It seems to be a big jump in sheet music management for us pit musicians. Anybody using one of these who can provide more testimony first hand? They’re not cheap, and I probably wouldn’t need the bigger model unless I used it for other things, like class, but it sure looks like gear money well spent. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15665
Location: SoCal | There's been a tablet on the market for several years specifically for sheet music (it was discussed here when it came out -- Clifford, did you get one?).
Tablets are THE thing these days. It was announced yesterday that Borders, which is in bankruptcy, couldn't find a buyer and is closing all of it's stores. Damn.... |
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June 2003
Posts: 1792
Location: Rego Park, NY, | Cliff has one. He was using it during Temp's Acousticrat's Tour. |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | MusicPAdProPlus
This is what Cliff and I both have. Cliff might have also gotten an iPad....not sure.
Use to sell new for close to a grand but they had a recent price drop. Has wireless capabilities and footswitch allows both forward and back page turning plus allows Add or erase rehearsal marks and notations!
Here is a great deal on one........
http://cgi.ebay.com/Freehand-Systems-MusicPad-Pro-Plus-BOX-/3504772...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Music-Pad-Pro-Plus-/250855028964?pt=LH_DefaultD... |
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Joined:
June 2003
Posts: 1792
Location: Rego Park, NY, | Stephen, After seeing your post it looks like the one Cliff has. I can't post photos from work right now. I will post a photo of the set up when I get home. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | the music pad pro is the actual size of a normal piece of sheet music
the ipad is smaller for those with bad vision...... |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Stephen, approximately how many sheets will the music pad pro hold? |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Brad, I think mine has internal mem of 64Mb and I have an external USB memory stick of 128Mb but I am not sure how many sheets that will hold.
I guess I never really thought about it because with the external memory stick you could just have as many as you wanted (maybe based on genre or venue you were playing).
So I guess the ultimate answer would be LIMITLESS. |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | Man, sounds like a dream come true - paperless gigs.
Right now I use two different options. One is the old standby of a music stand and a binder. Everything is alphabetized and covered in plastic looseleaf cover sheets, and it's easy to find whatever you need. However (and not that I'm worried about being cool anymore at my age anymore), it looks dorky and it's cumbersome. There are a couple of hundred songs in there, and that binder must be 5" thick and weigh 20 lbs.
The other option is a lot more streamlined. I have a clamp-on music stand that bolts right onto my mic stand. The drawback is that I haven't found a small binder that would work with this, or plastic sleeves, so I have a couple of hundred loose sheets (landscape-oriented and trimmed to fit the stand) that I keep in place with those big black paper clips. It can still be a real adventure on an outdoor gig on a windy day - not to mention rain.
A lot of my stuff I still have memorized, but I like having sheets handy for off the wall requests or stuff I haven't played in a long time.
Anyway, like I said - a Musicpad would be a dream come true - but with an MSRP of $899.00, I'm afraid it'll have to remain a dream... |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | the iPad's a little puny for my taste ...
According to our IT staff in two years the form factor will be there for the tablets and the paper book will dead and the laptop will not be as important.
Eventually, you'll have your cell phone, which will be your wallet, and then there will be the tablet that you can dock or connect to a whole host of devices. So I'm going to hold out another two years, then take the plunge. |
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Joined:
December 2008
Posts: 252
Location: Seattle | Trying to make the IPad solution work for Tabs ....
I am a little overwhelmed by the variants of apps to do this.
http://appadvice.com/appguides/show/Sheet-Music-Readers-For-iPad
Would love to hear any user suggestions.
For now kind of settled on using the Ipad with Bento (Filemaker) Database . Putting in the tablature, the original audio, and details for each song I am trying to learn/remember.....(the 3 ring binder search was just not working for me.) |
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Joined:
January 2011
Posts: 24
Location: Minneapolis | I use my MacBook Pro. You can open PDFs in preview, turn on the internal mic and create a speakable command to jump pages. Just say "next" and you get the next page hands free.
I have the same command set up for Kindle for Mac. I can't be bothered to press the arrow button! |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by bpeder:
Just say "next" and you get the next page hands free.
I can't be bothered to press the arrow button! That doesn't work very well (having to say next) when you are in the middle of a song singing lyrics.
and yes, I am aware that most tunes can be compressed to a single page but when you have shitty vision and need larger print, a lot of tunes require 2 pages. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15665
Location: SoCal | Needs a foot switch to turn the page? |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | well the MusicPadPro allows for a footswitch.
If you get a 2-button switch you can go forward or backwards with the press of the proper buttom.
Of course, you can also touch the screen and scoll forward or backwards but for changing pages in the middle of a song, the footswitch is the way to go. |
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Joined:
December 2008
Posts: 1453
Location: Texas | Originally posted by bpeder:
I use my MacBook Pro. You can open PDFs in preview, turn on the internal mic and create a speakable command to jump pages. Just say "next" and you get the next page hands free. That must be confusing when you are singing "Can't Get Next To You" ;) |
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Anyone using an iPad in lieu of sheet music?
