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Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:19 pm
by TBow
I am kicking around the idea of scanning all my sheet music into PDFs (or similar) files so I can view them on a tablet. For several reasons I'm leaning toward an iPad vs an Android device and would like feedback about which apps folks are using. Some apps I'm looking at include Forscore, Unrealbook, Musicreader, Pia Score, Nextpage Sheetmusic Reader, etc.
If you comment could you indicate why you choose the app you're using and if you tried others before choosing? Also is there any "feature" you love/hate?
Thanks!

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:43 pm
by michael_glenn
I am in a similar situation. I have a Kindle Fire, and I would like to scan my music and view it. Any suggestions?

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 3:07 pm
by Rick F
I have 'forScore' for my iPad and it works very well. But at 68 it's almost like reading march-sized music again. The back-lighting of a tablet is great. There are some nice editing features in forScore to make notes, highlighting, etc. The notes on a tablet are a bit small for my aging eyes, so I pretty much went back to original paper music.

YMMV

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 4:39 pm
by tbn.al
I recently found what I thought was the answer, a tablet with a 24X11 screen. Then in reading the specs I realized it weighed 13 lbs.

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 4:48 pm
by Mark
Any app that will run on an 11 x 14 inch table that only weighs 24 ounces would be good for me.

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 4:58 pm
by Wyvern
I have used Forscore on iPad Air for most of my music playing for more than a year now. It works well and the backlight means the smaller size does not worry me too much. It is really great at the back of a poorly lit stage - I can read the music no problem. Only once have I had to revert to paper and that was playing outside in bright sun light.

I would not object to the screen being larger and hope the much rumoured iPad Pro with larger 12 inch screen comes out this year as predicted. I can then see music reading on tablet really taking off.

I do like the annotation facilities of Forescore and the fact that you can crop the music to fit screen. The setlist facility to arrange works in concert order is really nice. I sometimes use a desktop scanner to get music digitised, but mostly use Scanner Pro app on the iPad. When new music comes out at band, I generally have on my iPad within couple minutes and now have library on there of several hundred pieces from multiple bands and my orchestral part library.

It is great to always have all ones music and now be the first to get music up on stand instead of last as was too often the case before :)

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 6:39 pm
by Daryl Fletcher
I use piaScore.
http://piascore.com

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:49 pm
by Michael Bush
There used to be a tablet that would show an 8.5 x 11 PDF page full size. It was marketed almost exclusively to lawyers. It was expensive, but almost seemed worth it. A quick poke around Google didn't turn it up just now. But that's what we really need.

Re: Favorite tablet sheet music viewer app

Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:09 am
by ronr
I agree with much of what Neptune said. I also use and love Forscore. I find it bright enough to make up for the smaller size, and if I need it larger I just flip it horizontally. What I particularly like about Forscore is ease of use. I can load music through Dropbox. I can do some configuration of the pages in the app (wish I could cutting and pasting). I've also recently discovered that I can add my own icons; for example I recently added forward and backward repeats as .png files. It's a little putzy work to get them in there.

I've tried a number of different apps, including unreal book and musicreader, but keep coming back to Forscore.