And it was a huge success. While my colleagues were dealing with pages and pages of photocopies taped together and spilling off the sides of their stands, I had just my TC1100 with the Footime pedal on the floor near the base of the stand, and fast page turns that didn’t require my hands leaving the instrument. There is still some lag in the turn, probably due to the age of the tablet I’ve chosen for this performance, but it’s shorter than if you had a stand partner turning physical pages.
Yes, there is some glare on my screen, but there were windows directly behind me, something I won’t have to deal with in the concert. I was able to keep the screen at about 50% brightness, and still have good readability. My older, more worn battery will give me 3 hours under those conditions, and the newer one will give closer to 4.
Between the page turn lag, and the lag in starting new ink, I’m being tempted even more by the Asus slate. I could use the 2730p to get more speed and responsiveness, but I’m not sure I like the idea of added bulk, especially since it won’t make the readable page area bigger. I wish I had access to a Motion le1600 or 1700 to see if the 12” 4:3 screen would make much of a difference. But then, the battery life on those would require having the extended battery slice, and then we’re dealing with bulk again.
Or you could have just put it all on an iPad and not have to worry about the battery life.....
ReplyDeleteThere are a few shortcomings with the iPad that prevent it from being a viable alternative in my case. I do have one and have tested it for this purpose.
ReplyDelete1. The screen is even smaller than the TC1100. I find the size difference to be enough to cross the line into being too small for performance readability.
2. The inking tools are not nearly as strong as an active Wacom digitizer. Even with a good capacitive stylus, inking on the iPad is not accurate enough for me to be able to make the markings I need. This is really the deal breaker. The more limited the rehearsal time, the more I rely on notes written into the music to do what I need to do. Also, the marks required for bowings and fingerings are just too small for the iPad to handle, and I have tried several score reading and PDF display apps. Not to mention the fact that the capacitive screen will read my hand resting on it to write no different from the pen I'm trying to write with. The active digitizer on the TC1100 allows me to rest my hand on the device without interfering with the pen writing.
All the battery life in the world can't make up for not being able to properly mark up my music.
Very. Very. Cool.
ReplyDeleteYou should get an iPad with an App. like forScore 2 for markings: http://www.forscoreapp.com/
ReplyDeletethen get all your PDF sheet music optimized. That's what I do as a composer on my own scores.
infos here: http://partitions.izibookstore.com/
hardware: http://www.forscoreapp.com/extras/
@ Stephane. In case you missed the comment two above yours, I do have an iPad, and it's not good enough on a variety of levels:
ReplyDelete1. The screen is too small.
2. The inking tools are not nearly up to par. And I have tried Forescore, UnrealBook, and a number of other PDF markup apps, and nothing even remotely compares to a Wacom digitizer and Windows Journal.