Tablets for music?

[TubaDude]

Good Day All;

I picked up a 17 inch Dell 2 in 1 with the reading of sheet music as one of the purposes to justify the purchase. It has a wicked fast processor, killer graphics, mega disk space and ram, and to boot you can fold the keyboard back behind the screen and turn the device into a portrait mode tablet touch enabled to flip between the pages of the piece you're playing. The computer was about 1200 last year, but they've come down a bit since then. I also use the machine for software development and other stuff so it's a worthwhile investment for me.

[tclements]

I been using the large iPad. Once you learn the tricks, it's pretty cool, ESPECIALLY in low light conditions. I bought a pedal, but haven't worked with it, yet. A friend of mine (who is an iPad MONSTER), is going to put out a series of YouTubes with 'tips & tricks.'

[Three Valves]

When I play for more than an hour my wife's tablet of choice is Excedrin!!

[Rick F]

Once I have the pdf pages saved to desktop, I use the free program "PDFTK Builder" (pdf task builder). Just add the pages, sort, then 'save as'.

Link: http://download.cnet.com/PDFTK-Builder/ ... 98814.html

[gwwilk]

Thanks for the great information in this thread, especially you, Schlepporello. I decided to go the whole nine yards and get a Galaxy View from Amazon. It arrived yesterday along with my PageFlip Butterfly and an FYY case.

The View is huge! I wasn't aware that there's no way to rotate the screen into Portrait mode--if there is I haven't discovered it yet. This just means that the View sits horizontally on the stand. BUT with MobileSheets Pro I eventually learned how to display two pages simultaneously.

MobileSheets Pro is an amazing program that automatically crops the scanned images, PDF's in my case, to maximize the size of the sheets. It's incredibly fast and has a multitude of options I haven't begun to explore. I did set the sheets to 'sepia' rather than 'white'. It took me a while to understand that 'Overlay' meant the music display menu and I had to use the MobileSheets Setting to set a double tap on the View as the Overlay display mode before I could get it to come up so that I could use the two-page display feature.

I used a Canon Pixma MX920 Series all-in-one to scan in the music. Only after loading the images onto the View did I discover that a couple of the pieces had the bottom line cut off in scanning. Setting the Canon scan-size to 'Auto' rather than 'Letter' solved that problem.

I just need to place the stand about a foot or so closer to me when using the View and the music is very visible with my old eyes. Now I need to get a bearer to help lug all my stuff to-and-fro.

[gwwilk]

Oh yeah!
By the way, the View only displays in the portrait position. I've experimented with a couple of apps that promised auto-rotate possibilities, but they failed miserably. Maybe an app with a forced rotate would work if there is such an animal.

I think you mean 'Landscape', not 'Portrait', Schlepp. Landscape is longest horizontally and Portrait is longest vertically. I've found no way to rotate the View's display either. I'll bet we've tried the same apps.

[gwwilk]

my wife had a partial knee replacement this past wednesday and i have to stay within shouting distance the next several days, so i have a LOT of time on my hands in between my nursing duties...

i was hacking around with files and have maybe discovered a work around to the portrait/horizontal display quirk of the view...
i haven't worked out all the bugs yet, but i have found that when i place the pdf file into dropbox and then EXPORT to mobilesheets FROM drop box, i can set the horizontal/portrait mode by using the rotation arrow at the bottom. point the rotation arrow to the left and when you click the OK, the file is imported and the display will be portrait and you'll have to turn the view on the end to see it correctly. there are some adjustments to deal with in the single/double/half page, etc...

in scaling mode, mine shows landscape/ fit height.
in select display mode, i show landscape, single page, half page turns

this is giving me a HUGE page of music... looking at the display with the view sitting on the end, the display has a margin of about 2" at top and bottom and goes from side to side.

simply tapping the margins above or below will move the page count forward or backwards...

i have a concern though about setting the view on the end while using a music stand. the handle thingie on the back. i may have to find out how to take that off.

it is time for another therapy (exercise) session, so i'll have to leave this for the time being.

Neat workaround! I think I'll go back to the drawing board and re-import my sheets.

BTW the stand removal process just involves placing a jeweler's screwdriver in the hole and moving it to retract the pin. Voila, the stand is removed.

[gwwilk]

I think that the trick to 'importing' PDF's in portrait position with MobileSheets is to NOT 'Import' the PDF but to select 'New'. Only in this dialog have I been able to get the rotation buttons to appear. You can't import or batch import, but you can manually crop in addition to rotating the image.

I don't think it matters where the PDF is located. Mine are on my microSD on the View.

[gwwilk]

...

Forgive me, I'm a truck driver.

semi? holy cow... the biggest things i've ever driven are a school bus 3 or 4 times, and a 30' motorhome... to think about driving a semi scares the pants off me!

i worked on the loading dock at a warehouse for a while, when i was in school and i was always amazed how those guys could back into slots between other trucks and there not be enough room for a person to walk between them when they got parked. the reason i got a motorhome was i was never able to back a tag-along, i even tried a 5th wheel.

No way I could maneuver a semi either. Backing a trailer whenever I've tried has been a total disaster. I also worked a loading dock during summer vacations in college. It was at a local flour mill where our two-wheel hand trucks sometimes carried upwards of 400 lbs. Running one off the dock while pushing it up a ramp into a boxcar was a real embarrassment!

[gwwilk]

In 'Settings/Display' I've set 'Overlay' to respond to a double tap. (There's a warning that a single tap always clears the Overlay, so the default single tap isn't very helpful.) With a double tap I now have access to the Overlay where number of sheets to display at once, crop, etc. are available.

For kicks I've set up two versions of my sheets, one in Portrait and another in Landscape. Aggressive manual cropping of my Landscape images makes them sized almost to the point where they're readable by my old eyes. (I've scanned in my Tuba Christmas book for practice, and maybe it will come in handy...Shhh-don't tell.)

[gwwilk]

...
I like having the two scans. Some of the places we play are awfully dim sometimes and a larger copy would be handy to have.

How are you coping with the hump in the center when the tablet is on the end?

I used the View at our Community Concert Band rehearsal last evening in Portrait mode, and I was very pleased with how it performed. The bluetooth Butterfly foot pedal was essential for quickly changing pages where the notes flowed continuously from page to page. Once paired, it and the View communicate almost instantaneously when the pedal is turned on.

In order to secure the View to my stand I used a short bungee cord across the bottom of the View where the black, blank space is. I also placed gaffer's tape across the lip of the stand to give better purchase to the bottom of the View. The View was very secure when anchored like this. The only worry I have is that someone will brush against it and topple the stand. It almost happened last evening when while exiting for our break a trombonist decided to cut through our row which is behind him.

[gwwilk]

Sounds great. Have you removed the back? What do you do to compensate for the leaning to one side or the other because of the hump?

The short but strong bungee cord made everything rock solid so the View couldn't move.

[Mark]

Will those of you using a Samsung Galaxy View please post a few picks showing it in action?

[gwwilk]

Will those of you using a Samsung Galaxy View please post a few picks showing it in action?

Here are a couple of shots. One in Portrait:
The back 'bump causes noticeable tilting in this view.

And one in Landscape:
I had to place the View on the floor in front of a patio door in order to get the lighting somewhat right. On my Manhasset the lighting was too dim in Portrait because the View is way taller than the stand and I had to remove my stand light.

[Dubby]

Just thought I’d share my experience using a tablet for music too. Like Wyvern, I also have the big 12.9” iPad Pro and use it exclusively for all of my music and work at this point. My tuba professor picked one up too based on our lessons and walking through the different apps. I’ve found ForScore to work best for all of the sheet music, and it allows you to upload files from multiple sources such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.

I also like ForScore because it allows me to keep my entire library in one place but also make playlists of music for different groups without deleting the “masterfile”. Thus, if I happen to be playing the same piece with multiple groups who interpret them differently, I can keep those copies separate. ForScore also works great for notating, cropping, split view of pages (so I can click and decide how much of a page turn I want), and I can even add music files to the pieces. For excerpts and such, this has been awesome. I have Gene Pokorny’s orchestral excerpt CD, so for each excerpt I added the music file to the sheet music.

To scan everything I use a scanner app that was free on the App Store. Nothing special, and it gets the job done. As to battery life, I can easily get 9/10 hours while working and haven’t had any concerns about it dying during a concert. As to keeping it on a stand, I use the Smart Keyboard as a case and it has a magnet in it that helps keep it on most Wenger metal stands.

Having a tablet has also been nifty for the times when someone else in the orchestra/band is missing a part because I can pull it up on IMSLP or something and then hand off the iPad to them.

[Rick F]

This may not be your problem, but sometimes when I try to view a PDF on box.com or Dropbox there is a weird box or boxes covering the area near the key signature. I found out it was a pdf that I 'exported' from Finale. To fix it I printed to PDF from Finale using Microsoft Print plugin rather than exporting it. I reported this to Make Music, but not heard back anything as yet.

[AndyCat]

That's the Windows Volume icon that usually appears when you alter volume level

[AndyCat]

Possibly, but doesn't that usually have a speaker picture at the top? Next time it pops up I'll check that.

Not on Windows 10 in tablet mode.

[Yane]

If you have a mysterious volume bar on your tablet, do you have volume buttons on the side that might be getting pressed when as the tablet sits on the music stand?

[tclements]

I am using my iPad pro ALL THE TIME! With the "ForScore" app, once you learn how to use its features, it is way superior to the old paper music. Having said THAT, I ALWAYS keep a hard copy at arm's length JUST IN CASE the technology fails.