Nord User Forum

Hi everyone, I want to have a sheet of music in my ipad. I want to play sheet of music from pdf and jpeg, or docx documents. I use the Set List Maker app. I want to have a bluetooth switch (for example iRig BlueTurn). I have an iPad 12.9. Do you have experience with some better app than Set List Maker or bluetooth switch? Thanks for your experience!

ForScore

DHBP

ForScore. With the MIDI function I select quickly the right preset!

Hervshahn wrote:Hi, I was using DeepDish Gigbook in combination with the iRig BlueTurn switcher for a couple of years, which did the job very good. I then switched over to Bandhelper since I need more Midi capabilities and the option to share and maintain set lists between all members of my band. If that wouldn’t have been necessary I would have stayed with GigBook

BandHelper is Set List Maker, basically.

Would you still prefer Gigbook over BandHelper, now that you’re used to BH?

If so, why?

Thanks for the feedback!

I ask because I’ve been on Set List Maker since I started using the iPad for Stage, and periodically look around to see if there are even more useful or practical alternatives.

I’ve been using GigBook for 5+years gigging typically twice a week so it can’t be too bad. I bought SetList Maker about 2 years ago with a plan to transfer all my pdfs over and use its midi integration to select keyboard presets. It hasn’t happen yet!!
This is despite Deepdish GigBook being pretty frustrating! My biggest beef with it is that you cannot simply copy one setlist to another and then modify it. So for example you can’t take a standard setlist in GigBook (basically a list of PDF’s in the library) and copy it to a new setlist and then make changes to it for a specific client or event. The only way to do this is to save the old one as a PDF book (which isn’t nearly so convenient to use live) and then modify your existing list. Or start again. It’s really rubbish. I’ve complained but they’ve done nothing. Other issues are that there is no simple way to have sub folders for a collection of stuff for each tune (like chord sheet and lyrics). Setlist is much better here. Similarly if you mark up a pdf with rehearsal notes, GigBook doesn’t seem to save these to the pdf, so if you copy the pdf you don’t keep the notes!
Finally GigBook is a walled garden. Meaning it doesn’t allow you to access the data base it uses in any easy way. This makes mass imports and export difficult and time consuming. Setlist Maker allows you to import and export in .csv format. This is much more useful.

So I’ve lived with it. That basically means my setlists are messy!! But I guess for all my complaining the time needed to start over with Setlist maker (despite paying for it) has just not happened. Lol

I'm pretty deep in the iPad world these days and use both ForScore and Set List Maker. They both excel at different things.

For rock band gigs, I like SLM. The display is highly customizable and not every song has to have a chart, so a song entry can be just a reference to key, tempo and maybe a note: "4 bar drum intro," "watch Dave for ending cue," etc. You can display a PDF chart or if all you need is words-and-chords, there's a quick utility to generate that (although it doesn't look great). The MIDI and patch change capabilities are extensive and on my rig, work perfectly, setting up multiple keyboards.

ForScore is great for reading open-score charts, classical, or multiple-page commercial sheet music. You can easily place navigation buttons to handle repeats, D.S. and Coda instructions, etc. You may find you don't need a foot switch page turner. Best of all, the newest versions have amazing editing capabilities, almost approaching a dedicated music notation app. This is very useful when you get a chart with a few wrong bars: you can white them out, place a new staff and put the correct notes up and you can barely tell it's been messed with! The only problem, as Hector pointed out re: GigBook, FS is too a bit of a walled garden. However, there is a way to extract your marked-up PDFS, although not with the navigation buttons that are proprietary to that app. I am actually working on developing a For Score tutorial now as there is little documentation or instruction and surprisingly, no user forum.

I cannot recommend the communication/gig tracking features in BandHelper BTW.