This is the S970 and an HP 22” Monitor. (Monitor cost $115.00

1- First picture Display from my Laptop.
2- How the Monitor s mounted. (Not on the music rack)
3- Display of Desk Top. (Laptop)
4- Music Finder.
5- Display of 124 song titles – some songs have more songs embedded.

Select a song --- The Music Finder in the S970 has a matching Generic/code for each song on the list.
Monitor connected to the S970 – used to set up the keyboard.
Monitor connected to the Laptop – used to display all music, Midi, and wave files.

A OMB does 60 to 70% of his work before he gets to the job. So I am
still 60 to 70% a OMB. (smile) It’s still fun.

John CI don't think all the pictures are here.

John,

Nice setup, you've always been an enterprising guy. I remember the first photos I ever saw that you posted, it was your setup with the Logitch z5500s , that too was a unique set up.

For me, I would struggle with having a monitor in front of me as it blocks my view of the audience.

I took it to mean he uses the monitor to set up the integration of the laptop and keyboard, and to set up the keyboard for performance without the monitor, but maybe I am wrong.

Sad to say but I am not playing out any longer. My reference to 60% is that I am doing everything a OMB does in my home; the performing part is no longer. So I am still involved with music and keyboards but for my own pleasure.

The monitor allows me to set aside my glasses. Most important I can use my laptop which has 15 years of my work. Most important is my note program, Encore. I have hundreds of songs written with music and staff. Unlike using the PDF format I can change the key in seconds -- change whatever; and the best part is when I open a song I have 3 to 4 songs of the same type on the same page.

I have 5 songs lists which edited over the years. Each list contains about 120 songs. Add the embedded song that brings it up to about 200 songs. I can pull up a list with just about any type of venue. Gary has always said that the laptop does the BEST JOB; I must agree.

Now if the good Lord helps me to feel better; the Pa4x and my IPad (small screen) are ready to go. (I have not given up yet)(smile)

John C.

For what it's worth, I seldom use a PDF. My lyrics with chord changes are all in the laptop, and also in the keyboard. I just use a word processor, and can quickly sort by name, artist, genre, date, etc. Sometimes I go all night without looking at any lyrics though.
I do have a number of PDF files, but rarely use one except to learn a song I don't know.
The disadvantages of not linking the LT and the KB include the fact that one button doesn't pull up both at the same time! It would take way too long to change everything to PDF format at this point.
At my age, I don't even buy green bananas.

I thought about integrating my songs with a midi link(as above), but don't see the time advantage to warrant the work of setting everything up. I use an ipad with UnrealBook set up in playlists, the same with the keyboard. One stroke on the keyboard and very short scrolling to my PDF. Like Don, I don't have the time to establish midi links to all my songs, but if I had started out that way, I can see 10 seconds shaved off my time. Like the old song says, if I have to run, I just don't go.

So whats the easiest, and quickest way, to convert multiple 3" binders of lyrics to pdf's, without removing pages from plastic sleeves, and scanning each one (often only possible as jpegs) to copy to a usb stick? I don't have a mac product to use the program Uncle Dave does to just snap a picture..Will fedex/kinkos or staples do it?

Sparky, at one time I had a half-dozen 3-inch binders filled to capacity. I carried them with me in one of those plastic milk crates and it weighed about 45 pounds. When I first saw Uncle Dave and Donny Pesce on stage using laptops for lyrics, the following day I went home and scanned those pages using optical character recognition (OCR) software and transferred them into Word Perfect, saved each song into the same folder under the song title and never looked back.

On top of my custom console I have an Acer 9-inch netbook PC, which holds all those lyrics. And when I need new ones, I merely download them into MS Word from the internet, save them as a .txt file and load and I'm ready to go using Wordpad in the PC. Several months ago, I posted a link to those files so others could benefit from my efforts over the years. That 9-inch netbook PC sure makes life easy for this old codger. Here's the link to my files https://app.box.com/s/8bwjhtworydlzehmynry06tut0wsfta9

Hope this helps,

Gary

This discussion is instructive to me, since I’m still creating notebooks with typed lyrics (in large fonts) and hand-written chord changes. And, yes, those books are getting heavy. Arranger screens are too small for what I need to do. Typing the lyrics is no problem. But, how do you type-in the chord changes for your own arrangements and get them to line up exactly above or below the appropriate lyrics throughout the song? For basic 3 or 4 chord songs, no chord notations are needed----such as blues tunes and some country songs. But, playing some of the standards requires (for me) seeing the chord changes. Is there a particular software program that is easy to use for creating both lyrics and chords-----that could, then, be displayed on a tablet or monitor? I don’t need or want the actual song notation-----only lyrics and chord changes.