Now look what I've done.....and Sue accused Bob and Scott of being bad influences.....All I did was say Sue is getting one.

If you can overcome John's 1st comment (the $$) it is more than a great gadget, especially if you are a 'reader' like Sue. It will free you of the books and paper. I've experimented trying to do the same thing with a laptop, but am convinced that special s/w would be required to make it load and turn pages as fast as the Music Pad. Besides the display hardware, it's the specialized s/w that makes it work.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Sue wasn't convinced either (even after seeing it at the East Coast Jam) until she used it once for playing at a local Memory Care facility. When we got home we ordered one.
But everyone must decide what's best for themselves.
I promise I'll be good and won't "stir the pot" any more.

Posted by mebob
I promise I'll be good and won't "stir the pot" any more. [/B][/QUOTE]

You had better not --ha ha ha ha ha

Love ya, John C.

Hiya Johnny B
Please let us know how you get on with Musicpad Pro here in the UK where there are no dealers or distributors - the pro's and the con's - what you do about your existing sheet music collection, either scanning it into the Musicpad Pro or purchasing ready scanned material from that company's subsidiary 'Sunhawk' that deals with that side of things...etc
Best wishes
Roger M

[This message has been edited by RMepstead (edited 05-06-2005).]

[This message has been edited by RMepstead (edited 05-06-2005).]

Thank you John from Colchester for your info. I'll check out the site you mention but when you get yours I would still like to know what your opinion of it is.

To the rest of you that tooke the time to answer my many questions, thank you for that. You are right in assuming that I spend hours sorting through music when setting up a programme for a 'gig' despite having it all catalogued on my PC. The difficulty is making up my mind what to play and then how many books etc. to take - it is all extra 'gear' to be transported to and from the venue. From what you all say, this could be the answer.

I look forward to hearing more about this.

Regards to all.

Aud (U.K.)

Hi All. Am new to this forum. I'm a pianist with many years experience playing jazz and standards. I bought a Musicpad Pro+ a few months ago and so far like it very much. Most players I know have a few thousand tunes commited to memory but there are hundred of thousands more to play. I have 12 fake books on a cd-rom and transferred 6 of the fake books into the MPP. I use my lap top to play midi files to accompany me and the MPP to read a chart if I need to. I could use only the lap top to do both functions but it takes up too much time between tunes. At this time there are over three thousand tunes in the MPP (really on a 512 MB flash drive). Check out the forum at www.freehandsystems.com There's a lot of info there about the nuts and bolts of the MPP. Later, Ray

[This message has been edited by raymb1 (edited 07-07-2005).]

Mmmmm - forum must be spelt differently on that site!!!!

On the FreehandSystems home page, click on support, then support forums. Later, Ray

I have for some time used a laptop computer to display my music having converted it all to pdf files. Using this method it is possible to search for music and go back and forward using the arrow keys. It seems to me that this means that you can do most of what the music pad pro does with an ordinary PC

I also have experimented with using a Laptop before getting the Music Pad for my wife (who is the player in my family).
But what what she couldn't tolerate was the loading time of each selection (especially if it had multiple pages).
The MPP solves this with the proprietary software/formats. SOFTWARE is the SOLUTION. Plus it fits very nicely on any music stand, which a laptop doesn't and it is a 'Touch Screen' device, plus has an external (foot peddle) page turning capability. Personally, I think it is a reasonable price for hardware and software that 'gets the job done'. But everyone should draw their own conclusions as to the benefit to them.
P.S I'm not on the payroll of Freehand, just an enthusiastic owner/user.

There is an alternative for the Music Pad Pro called MusicReader which can run on a Tablet PC, laptop or desktop computer. This digital music stand software can be downloaded from this download page .