iPad Sheet Music Reader Apps?

gdgross

gdgross

Experienced
So I just got an iPad the other day, and I'm exploring the possibility of going paperless with the sheet music.

My wife already has an iPad and she uses mainly the goodreader app for this purpose, but I've discovered a few drawbacks with it. For one, it doesn't support the bluetooth page turners to my knowledge.

So, what apps do you guys use for sheet music? I need to be able to read pdfs at a minimum, but if the app interpreted a pdf file into some proprietary sheet music file, that'd be ok too, I suppose. (It would be better if it processed a batch of them at once, of course. :) I'd also like to be able to integrate a wireless page turner in the future like the airturn (possibly with some of those tiny mission engineering pedals instead of the ones airturn sells.)

I've also read that some apps are able to interpret things like codas and D.S. and automatically move to the proper location in the music. That'd be amazing! I cant count the number of times i drop out for a bar or two because I have to flip three pages back or forward.

This is mainly for live use in theater and church gigs.

Thanks guys :)
 
I love using Set list maker for my sheets. I mostly use it in Preform mode with pdf's and swiping once between songs.
 
My band are using Set List Maker, with a central database so we've always got the same details. I cannot recommend it highly enough. As a plus, whenever I've had a niggle or two the app's author has been extremely responsive and resolved them in a very timely fashion.
 
Thanks guys,

Bought forscore and used it this weekend at one of my church gigs. Definitely way better than Goodreader IMO. It seems some of the features are designed for larger scores, and I'm mostly reading lead sheets, but it works pretty well all the same.

Now, the biggest question: what's the best way to scan hundreds of pages of hard-printed music and get them into pdf form... I've got binders and binders of music that I'd love to have electronically, and doing it one page by one page will take me forever.
 
Right, I figured.

Are there anything like batch scanners out there? That'd be ideal...maybe I'll stop by Office Depot and see what there is...


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Hey Geoff - for apps - I use goodreader, and I have several thousand songs in mine - I like goodreader because it can read pdf, doc, xls, txt, htm, almost any format. I have them sorted by artist, in a folder for each letter of the alphabet, so if someone asks for a Supertramp song, I hit S and scroll....

for gigs, I use the wifi capabilities to very quickly make a setlist - i'll copy the songs I need into one folder called 'setlist' and then i can just access the 45 songs I need instantly.

for batch scanning - the best thing I ever did was buy a Fujitsu scansnap ScanSnap Portal Site : FUJITSU IX500 - I can put a stack of sheets in , and it will convert to JPG or PDF instantly. really great thing to have, and it's worked like a charm for me.
 
goodreader works well, but forscore and other sheet music reading programs have functions for rearranging and copying pages (so instead of turning back for a repeat, you just duplicate a page) "hotspots" for pressing a point on the page and it automatically jumps back (say for a Coda or something), metronome (both visual and audio) etc.

definitely worth it if you do more than just reading lyrics etc and use actual sheet music a lot.
 
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