Posted by: Scottyee
MusicPad Pro: 'Music Reader' - What do you think? - 05/04/02 07:56 PM
I'm possibly considering purchasing the "Music Pad Pro" from Freehand Systems, based in Los Altos, California.
http://www.freehandsystems.com/musicpad_pro.html
http://www.freehandsystems.com/faq.html
It's an electronic sheet music reader (outside dimensions: 10” x 13.5”. 12.1” diagonal color LCD touch screen, weight 4.5 lbs) which will store & allow you to view up to 10,000 pages of music electronically. This sounds like an exciting concept to go completely paperless and have all music lead sheets & charts stored in ONE place. The unit also supports handwritten (colored) notations & marking (overlays) over the music: scanned sheet music or downloaded from music software via USB. There is even a feature which allows you to pre-program the music to come up in a pre-determined order for set lists, etc. This can be accomplished either from the built in 'touch screen' or an external foot controler.
I have a vast collection of music fakebooks and sheet music and have always dreamed of being able to integrate my huge collection of leadsheets (including customized chord substitions, notation markings, etc) into one place for instant retrieval and playing on the fly. As much as I wish I had the ability to keep everything memorized in my head, the ability to access my entire song repetoire (1000's of songs) in one place as well as easily take it along to gigs, seems like a dream come true. My only reservation is the price: $1,200 US dollars , and the risk, because this product is so new (release date still not till: June 2002) that there might be bugs in the initial OS release. Do you guys think the Music Pad Pro is worth the investment? Ok gang, I'm really interested in getting your feedback & opinions. Thanks, - Scott
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http://scottyee.com
[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 05-04-2002).]
http://www.freehandsystems.com/musicpad_pro.html
http://www.freehandsystems.com/faq.html
It's an electronic sheet music reader (outside dimensions: 10” x 13.5”. 12.1” diagonal color LCD touch screen, weight 4.5 lbs) which will store & allow you to view up to 10,000 pages of music electronically. This sounds like an exciting concept to go completely paperless and have all music lead sheets & charts stored in ONE place. The unit also supports handwritten (colored) notations & marking (overlays) over the music: scanned sheet music or downloaded from music software via USB. There is even a feature which allows you to pre-program the music to come up in a pre-determined order for set lists, etc. This can be accomplished either from the built in 'touch screen' or an external foot controler.
I have a vast collection of music fakebooks and sheet music and have always dreamed of being able to integrate my huge collection of leadsheets (including customized chord substitions, notation markings, etc) into one place for instant retrieval and playing on the fly. As much as I wish I had the ability to keep everything memorized in my head, the ability to access my entire song repetoire (1000's of songs) in one place as well as easily take it along to gigs, seems like a dream come true. My only reservation is the price: $1,200 US dollars , and the risk, because this product is so new (release date still not till: June 2002) that there might be bugs in the initial OS release. Do you guys think the Music Pad Pro is worth the investment? Ok gang, I'm really interested in getting your feedback & opinions. Thanks, - Scott
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http://scottyee.com
[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 05-04-2002).]