Nord User Forum

[Frantz]

Hi,

I was looking for an app to write my song sheets straight on the iPad.
I tried the one named "SongSheet", it works fine for me, so I decided to share here.
Here is what I do with it :

- Lyrics : write down or copy/paste them from another app (mail, web, doc, pdf)
- Structure : identify sections, verse, chorus, A, B ...
- Harmony : add the chords
- Play / Sing along : practice, rehearsal

It's a singer, writer and player's tool, not too expensive, does its job.

I think SongSheet is different from the other apps I looked at : Setlist maker, yamaha setlist organizer, onSong, iOpenSongs, mainly because of its editor.

It does not have the midi program change send funtionnlity, but my priority was on a simple, quick and clear tool to edit and display simple song sheets.

The app web site is here : http://songsheetapp.com/
I had a quick reply from its author to a question I asked via the "support" web page.
It's a one year old application and development is active, with a free upgrade to version 2.0 announced for january.

songsheet.jpeg (24.39 KiB) Viewed 5870 times

Cheers,
Frantz.

[analogika]

That looks very cool.

I'm looking for something similar, except built around the music, not around the lyrics.
I.e. four bars per line, I can add lyrics if I want to, but they follow the layout, not the other way round.

The problem with that layout up there (which is what you get on all those lyrics websites) is that unless somebody already knows what he's doing, he can't follow the music and just play along.

Bookmarked for v2. Let's see what they have in store.

[rb4u1]

You might want to take a look at iReal Pro. This app was formerly called iReal book.
I believe it's based on the current Hal Leonard version. It comes with a simplistic
drum machine with backing tracks. This allows you to play any of the songs that are currently available through the iReal balk or your own compositions. After the initial download of the application where they like to make their money is by selling you different drum machine packs. It's still pretty reasonably priced.
Also, it can be a good composition tool. It uses bar space as you described and typical music notation.

[anotherscott]

I think SongSheet is different from the other apps I looked at : Setlist maker, yamaha setlist organizer, onSong, iOpenSongs, mainly because of its editor.

Cool looking app. Does the editor let you draw on the chart (with finger or stylus)?

It does not have the midi program change send funtionnlity, but my priority was on a simple, quick and clear tool to edit and display simple song sheets.

I saw that it has a feature to save a doc as a PDF. Once you do that, you could bring it into Set List Maker if you wanted to use a SongSheet generated chart in conjunction with sending MIDI.

[analogika]

You might want to take a look at iReal Pro. This app was formerly called iReal book.
I believe it's based on the current Hal Leonard version. It comes with a simplistic
drum machine with backing tracks. This allows you to play any of the songs that are currently available through the iReal balk or your own compositions. After the initial download of the application where they like to make their money is by selling you different drum machine packs. It's still pretty reasonably priced.
Also, it can be a good composition tool. It uses bar space as you described and typical music notation.

I have iReal Pro.

That doesn't do lyrics at all, though it's the direction I'd like to go at it from.

My sheets are actually a mix of chords, notation for some lines, vocals for cues, and instructions for structure.

The closest to what I need that I've found is a piece of paper, scanned and added into SetList Maker. But that limits editing to the pre-scan paper phase (with limited addition afterwards), making duplication and rearrangement for new projects/different shows impossible.

[Frantz]

Hi, I'm one of the developers of the SongSheet app. Frantz kindly invited me to participate in this forum. And thanks for the nice review and positive comments

As Frantz mentioned, the editor is really the differentiating factor between our app and others on the market - it's the reason for its existence, actually, and we just built everything else around that.

Cool looking app. Does the editor let you draw on the chart (with finger or stylus)?

No, not yet (and not for 2.0, either). We've had a few requests for this though and have it on our to-do list.

I saw that it has a feature to save a doc as a PDF. Once you do that, you could bring it into Set List Maker if you wanted to use a SongSheet generated chart in conjunction with sending MIDI.

Yes, via print preview in SongSheet - choose paper size, orientation, etc, then you can create a PDF (or print to an AirPrint printer of course). Right now it would be slightly awkward to get the PDF into another app as only emailing the PDF is set up in SongSheet, but you could always email to yourself and then import the PDF from Mail into whatever other app you want to use.

That looks very cool.

I'm looking for something similar, except built around the music, not around the lyrics.
I.e. four bars per line, I can add lyrics if I want to, but they follow the layout, not the other way round.

The problem with that layout up there (which is what you get on all those lyrics websites) is that unless somebody already knows what he's doing, he can't follow the music and just play along.

Bookmarked for v2. Let's see what they have in store.

Would love to do what you're suggesting, but that's a lot more work and have a list of other things to get through first!!

Just a quick run-down of what's in 2.0:

• re-written for iOS 7 (apologies to 5.x and 6.x users! but version 1.3.4 will continue to work for them) with a cleaner better organised UI
• improved library organisation and filtering; can now view all songs by author as well as by title; set lists can be rearranged, etc
• sending a set list by email now includes the list of sets/songs in the text (no lyrics/chords) as well as a link to import into SongSheet on another iPad
• everything to do with song editing (lyrics, chords, metadata) is now on one screen rather than split into two screens
• completely redesigned the arrangement/song playback controls at the bottom of the screen and added auto-scrolling and variable-speed song playback
• added an option to show abbreviated stanza labels to make more room for lyric text
• use pinch gesture to change lyric/chord text size
• added basic hard-coded AirTurn bluetooth pedal support that will select next/prev stanza and next/prev song (this will be improved in future releases)
• added some basic keyboard shortcuts to the song editor for those with external/bluetooth keyboards
• created a new companion app, SongSheet Remote, to allow remote control of SongSheet from e.g. an iPhone or iPod touch mounted on the musician's guitar, etc
• lots of other minor tweaks and fixes

This update has been a while in coming (too long!) and I hope once it is released we can move to a more frequent update cycle where we don't try to do so much at one time

Regards,

Gabriel

[analogika]

Ah, that's very cool — thanks for the prompt and personal feedback (even registering an account to get back to us! Hat's off, Sir!).

Your app is not for me, then. But I will keep it in mind for future recommendation.

All the best!

-chris.

[SongSheet]

Just letting everyone know that version 2.0 is available now on the App Store.

Main website link is http://songsheetapp.com - we've also posted a user manual in both PDF and iBooks format, which should give anyone a good idea of all the things that SongSheet can do.

Here's a YouTube video giving a brief overview of many of the functions:

Watch on youtube.com

App store link is http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/songshee ... 94194?mt=8

Thanks,

Gabriel

[Frantz]

Hi,

Yes and it works fine and looks even better. Thx for the news. Database conversion went fine. I used it today :

songsheet2.png (316.2 KiB) Viewed 5457 times

F.

[elektromin]

I'm looking for something similar, except built around the music, not around the lyrics.
I.e. four bars per line, I can add lyrics if I want to, but they follow the layout, not the other way round.

Hi!
It sounds like you prefer your lead sheets the same way I do! Over the years I've tried many different setups, applications, file formats... Currently I prefer to do them in excel (on a computer). That way I get a very effective grid system for the chords, but not limited to that. I usually export the file to PDF so that my band mates can use the same file. If I want the file on the iPad, that works to.

If a song would have higher demands on rhythmical notation, or melody parts, I would use Sibelius instead. But it's a lot more work than the simple excel lead sheet, so it's rarely worth it for me.

/Anders

Ps. Actually the iReal Pro app do have the ability to add lyrics, but it's limited to one line per staff.