dapmdave said:
valleyguy said:
For Christmas I was given an iPad and discovered the
Onsong app. I now have my 220 songs in my iPad and it has completely replaced my 2 binders of songs. This app is amazing, makes transposing a breeze, finding any song is quick, and the songs are shareable. If you have an iPad, definetely try it. If not, it is well worth the investment.
I've been wondering if this would work. Is the screen large enough to see the material from, say a few feet away? Will it scroll?
Dave
I also had this concern with my aging eyes. At 3 feet I can easily read the songs, in fact more so than a sheet of paper, and that's in the portrait mode, but YMMV. You can also put it into landscape mode by rotating the iPad and the print becomes bigger, though there is less on the screen. In that case, you can set the screen to scroll the song, either using beats per minute, or setting the length of the song. It works pretty well. I'd say of the 200+ songs I have, I only scroll maybe 15%, however, I don't always put chords over the later verses in my songs if I know the song well and the song has easy chords.
In addition, you can adjust the font size, line spacing, and either highlight chords or display them in a different color. I use black for words, red for chords with a smaller font size. And yes, you can attach the iPad to a larger monitor or even link several iPads together via bluetooth so they all see the same music It's a pretty amazing app for only $5. Only downside is the price of the iPad itself.
I'll say the biggest hassle was rewriting all my songs to fit the format they use so that chords are displayed properly and you can transpose songs and change chords for use with a capo. For example, if I play a song in C with a capo on the 2nd fret, I display the chords in C, but my bass player needs it in D. Onsong will convert for that automatically if you choose. Proper formatting involves putting songs into the Chordpro format, where chords are surrounded by square brackets in the same line as the word to which it belongs. The app then puts the chord above that word. Some songs are already in that format, and Chordie will convert songs to that format, then only minor tweaks are necessary to correct mistakes, and to put in personal touches. Some songs, however, I had to totally rewrite.
The app will accept Word documents and PDFs, however, the first line is taken as the title of the song so you can search on that, but you cannot then search on the artist's name. These documents also do not give you the ability to transpose chords.
My other concern was using it outside, but on a sunny day, in the shade, the iPad can be turned up enough to read it. And of course, it's perfect in low light situations.
