Is that a...?

Why yes, that is 13.3" of e-ink. (And an unfortunately blurry image, I'm using a spare phone for reasons.)

It's the Good e-Reader 13.3, from the Indiegogo campaign (well, actually from craigslist from a person who actually backed the campaign some time ago).

It's......interesting. I'll be working on the set up, but for now, here are some quick impressions:

Pros: amazingly thin and light, active digitizer and capacitive touch, runs android, super clear giant e-ink display

Meh: build quality is so-so, built in PDF reader (ezPDF Reader) is okay but not great, specs are just barely enough to run things

Cons: Android version is old (4.0.4, really old), previous owner reset it which wiped the google play store, goodereader recently took down the support forums so I have no way to restore, goodereader app store is down so I have no other way to load things, sideloading has failed so far, there are some questionable business practices going on and it looks like support may be non-existent for this device

So, it looks like I'll be spending quite a bit of time trying to get this thing up and running again. I can get by with the built in PDF reader for now, but I'd rather try others. I'd really like to get the google play store back, or at least get the built in app store running again. I'm making progress on the Google Play Store, but the current version I have loaded crashes as soon as I attempt to install anything.

But I knew most of this going in. I knew at the very worst, I'd get a giant e-ink screen with a built in PDF reader and stylus. And I got that. It works. I put my entire music library on an SD card and it all loads just fine. And I can write on it. So, maybe I'll just use the built in stuff for a while and see how it goes.

Side note: this will never be a performance solution for me, this is purely for fun and practicing at home. There is no bluetooth, and no USB OTG support, so there is no way to connect a foot pedal.

Why I traded my Surface Book for a Surface Pro and other happenings

Postings have been sparse this year. It's not that nothing has been happening, it's just that the main happening was the addition of our third child. That means I've spent the majority of the year in survival mode - pregnant, sick, tired, then newborning. The newest addition is 2 months old now and things are starting to settle down again. That means I can finally catch up on all the fun stuff I got to do over the summer.

Once my classroom teaching job ended for the summer and I no longer needed the insane all-day battery of the Surface Book, I started to reconsider my options. It was a wonderful machine, well suited to my needs at the time, but there were always some drawbacks and it never quite lived up to my hopes as a performance machine. 

On the pro side, I could bring it to school, drive the projector to display SmartMusic and Youtube videos of performances to go along with my history lessons, and manage all of the background administrative stuff that comes with a classroom job on the side (which is part of why I don't last long in classroom jobs, but that could be a whole post of its own. There are many great classroom music teachers in the world and I admire them very much, but I am a studio teacher.)

But the cons are why the Surface Book eventually lost out to a great opportunity on a Surface Pro. The main problem was with the separation of the base and "clipboard". I actually did separate them often to work with just the clipboard portion. The problem with that is that you then leave behind the majority of the battery, all the ports, and the SD card. 

My Surface Book was the entry level model with just 128GB built in. I'm a digital hoarder. I thought I would be fine leaving the bulk of my stuff on the SD card and just installing applications on the main hard drive. Nope. I kept running into situations where I wanted all my stuff, but only wanted to deal with the clipboard. Also, the experience of using it for sheet music in performance left a lot to be desired. 

So, when a top end Pro 4 with the i7, 512GB hard drive, and 16GB RAM showed up for a good price on craiglist, how could I say no? The Surface Book went the way of ebay and I now have some breathing room on my hard drive again. 

The Surface Pro went with me to the Suzuki Institute in Santa Rosa for my book 6 training this summer and was a dream to use for managing my music, managing handouts, managing handwritten notes and observations, and standing up on the desk thanks to the fantastic built in kick stand. Oh how I missed the kickstand. It could stand up tall when I needed to read music, and lay down at a much lower angle for writing by simply pushing it back. No picking up and flipping required. But more about that soon. I actually used the Chromebook half the time and the Surface Pro the rest of the time and have a good comparison coming up.

But the real fun is coming tonight. Because craigslist in the Bay Area is full of some amazing gems, I found my next toy and will be picking it up tonight. This one is really exciting. And because I've started lessons again with a handful of students, I can kind of justify it. 

MobileSheets on Windows 10: growing pains

I've been relying on MobileSheets on various devices for several years now, first on Android and more recently on Windows 10. The Android version was mature and stable when the developer (all by himself, it's a one man show) undertook the huge task of porting the app to Windows. I had tried it under emulation with the DuOS Android system, but never really used it that way much as I had an Android tablet that I really liked.

The native Windows release combined with Microsoft's Surface Book starting to turn up used on craigslist for increasingly temping prices was enough to push me over the edge. For most of this past year, an entry level Surface Book has been both my primary computer and my primary music reader. For various reasons, I've just moved to a significantly upgraded Surface Pro 4. One of those reasons was my increasing frustration with the music reading experience.

Some of this is inherent to the design of the Surface Book - mostly battery life in the clipboard and pen performance, and also because I had an entry level model, the limited storage in the clipboard and the fact that the microSD card lives in the base, so I would lose access to it whenever I wanted to work with just the clipboard. Ultimately, pen performance was the number one factor that tipped me back over to the Android version on a Samsung Chromebook Plus as my primary music reader.

One of the main areas the performance of the Windows app is not on par with the Android app is accuracy in annotation. The pen lags in a way that makes small figures difficult to draw accurately and quickly, which is basically what string players need in rehearsal. Now, I'm not sure how much of it is the pen technology itself (Microsoft Pen Protocol vs Wacom EMR in the Chromebook) and how much is MobileSheets inking engine, but the end result was that rehearsals with the Surface Book were frustrating in a way that working with the Chromebook is not.

Inking is significantly smoother using Xodo (a PDF reader, without specific music tools) on Windows, so I'm going to go ahead and blame the software. Using Xodo in rehearsal was perfectly acceptable, but without setlist tools and half page turns, it's not nearly as nice to use in performance. I do wish I had access to one of the new Samsung Galaxy Books to see if the Wacom EMR based spen technology is enough to make the Windows version of MobileSheets as easy to use as it is on the Chromebook.

The Windows version has seen some more significant bugs along the way as well. Two of which bit me in performance. Now, I have to give major credit to the developer, since he's working alone and fixed these bugs very quickly, but they hit me at just the wrong time to cause some major annoyance in performance.

The first bug involved annotations not acting properly over half page turns, causing the bottom half to display annotations for the next page once the top half was turned. This was only a problem for a few days, but those few days happened to hit right over a Pops concert, so I played that concert without half page turns.

The second, more significant bug, involved the complete loss of annotations between an Android backup and a Windows restore. While this is a rather specific scenario that not many people are going to have a problem with, it bit me right as I was headed into the studio to record for Resonance. I had been using the Chromebook in rehearsal as we were making lots of changes and I wrote a ton on the music.

But, I love the giant screen of the Surface Book so much, I thought I'd use that for the actual studio days. I didn't think there'd be anymore writing, just playing. I did a backup from the Chromebook the night before and restored it to the Surface Book the next morning. Of course, I didn't thoroughly check the restore before leaving for the studio. When I showed up and opened the parts, I had zero annotations. Remember that part where we had been making lots of changes and writing a lot in the parts? Yeah, it was all gone. Well, not gone, just not on the Surface Book. It was all safely in the music on the Chromebook still, thankfully. Which is a large part of why the Chromebook came with me on the second day.

That bug was fixed the next day.

It also took several attempts to restore the backup on the smaller Surface 3 to be able to use it as an auxiliary display for background parts. It kept failing (probably due to the bug with the way annotations are stored) taking over 2 hours of fiddling in between things to finally get it loaded properly.

So, of course, this brings me to my real problem, which is my inability to leave well enough alone. This all started because I was tired of dealing with the quirks of the Qualcomm pen on the HP Pro Slate 12; mainly that I had to hit the button on the pen to wake it up then wave it over the screen to make sure it had synced with all the mics before writing to avoid huge jumps in the cursor position.

I'm sure at some point, I'll get tired of the (relatively) smaller screen of the Chromebook, or of the fact that I have to flip it around leaving the keyboard face down on the stand, and I'll pine for a larger screened slate again.

So what's the point of all this rambling? For the time being, if you want to use not an iPad for sheet music, your best bet is a large Android tablet, which means your options are very limited right now. There are tons of 12" Windows slates on the market, if you're adventurous enough to put up with MobileSheet's occasional growing pains, but the last few have been significant enough and the timing unfortunate enough for me to step away from the Windows platform as a performance reader for a while longer.

Studio tablets: Samsung edition

After a frustrating experience trying to write on my Surface book the day before, I decided to go with a tablet that I know allows for much smoother writing. In the interest of pen compatibility, I chose the Galaxy Note 8.0 as my secondary screen. Each of these machines has an spen stored in a silo on the machine, but I also have a Bamboo smart pen, which is a full sized stylus compatible with the latest generation of Samsung Wacom EMR based tablets. That means I can leave the little toothpicks safely in their silos and use one full sized pen on both machines.

The 12.3" Chromebook is noticeably smaller than the 13.5" Surface book, but after being so frustrated with the Surface book, I found that to be an acceptable trade off given the vastly better inking. It's also way slimmer and lighter than the Surface book with its keyboard base.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 is only an 8" screen, which is really very small for music. It was acceptable for the simple background lines, but I would not want to read anything more complex off such a tiny screen. I mostly brought it for fun and to see if it would work at all. I had the Surface in my bag in case I wanted something bigger.

I ended up just turning it sideways a lot of the time since the background parts were only a few lines each and fit without needing to scroll.

I may or may not switch to the Chromebook plus for music full time. It's hard to say no to the giant Surface book screen when I know I won't need to write much on it.

However, I'm typing all these posts from the Chromebook right now. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed by this little thing. The form factor is amazing. The spen is still miles ahead of the Surface pen. I can do almost everything I need between Chrome and a few Android apps, which run quite well on the Chromebook.

Studio tablets: Surface edition

Resonance, the jazz group I play with, headed out to the studio this weekend to record our 2nd CD. I've been using the Surface book for performance recently for the big screen, even though I've been using the Chromebook plus more often for rehearsals.

The Surface book on the right is flipped back on the keyboard base for battery life since we were in the studio for 8 hours each day. There's no way the clipboard portion on its own would have lasted.

On the left is the smaller Surface 3 (non pro). At 10.5 inches, I wouldn't use it full time, but in this scenario, having a second tablet to display the background lines for solos was helpful. The main chart and background lines are currently in separate files and I never got around to combining them. I could have put them in a single file and used my footpedal to switch between pages, or created set lists for each tune with all the needed pages, but I figured since I have a million tablets floating around, I'd just use a secondary screen for those parts.

Yes it's overkill. Yes it was fun.

Except for the pen experience. That was terrible. I normally grab the Surface book for performances because of the bigger screen without worrying about the pen performance because there's not much writing to do in performance.

However, due to a bug in MobileSheets (which has already been fixed) my annotations didn't transfer between the backup I made on my Chromebook plus and when I restored it to the Surface book. Of course, I also didn't take the time to verify my restore before heading out the door. I mean, I made sure all the tunes restored, but I didn't check closely enough apparently. Luckily, we've been practicing enough that I didn't really need the annotations, but I rewrote a few things from memory and wanted to write in some new ideas for a solo I have in one of the tunes.

The accuracy just isn't there for writing in new stuff on the Surface book. It's a combination of hardware and software issues. I know MobileSheets can handle smooth inking, because it's amazing on the Chromebook plus, hence my using that machine for rehearsal. Inking on the Surface book is acceptable in Xodo and OneNote, so I know the hardware can do it, even if it's not as smooth as Wacom EMR spen on the Chromebook. But the combination of the MPP pen on the Surface book and the Windows version of MobileSheets is just not good.

By the end of the session, I was so frustrated with the Surface book that I decided to just bring the Chromebook the next day.

The gadget itch strikes again - Samsung Chromebook Plus!

I couldn't help myself. Actually, what happened is that I've been using an older Thinkpad Tablet 2 as my studio tablet for a few months and I'm always impressed with how buttery smooth the inking is. Not even my fancy Surface Book is so smooth. Why? Because the Thinkpad uses Wacom's older, batteryless EMR technology. The Surface Book is using N-trig's latest and greatest (which they now own), but it's just not the same. Even Wacom's newer AES solution, which is similar in that the pen requires a battery, is not quite up to the smoothness of the older EMR setup.

It looked like EMR was basically dead though with Microsoft invested in N-trig's technology and most other tablets using Wacom's AES pens (or the less idea Synaptics active pen). But then Samsung announced the Galaxy Book line with S-pens. Samsung's S-pen (the little toothpick stylus that comes in the Galaxy Note phone line) is basically a Wacom EMR digitizer!

That got me all interested again and I remembered I had an older Galaxy Note 8 hiding under a pile of stuff on a desk. I had been using that as my studio tablet, but the digitizer was going bad and had a dead spot right where I most needed to write stuff. It hadn't been charged in months. Whatever was going on with the digitizer seems to have magically fixed itself while the tablet was dead, but now the battery is shot and runs down normally to about half then just jumps quickly down to empty. I might replace it if I'm feeling project-y in the future.

Then I remembered I don't even have to wait for the Galaxy Book to come out. Samsung's Chromebook Plus also has an S-pen, access to the Google Play store on Chrome OS, and a beautiful 12.3" 2400x1600 screen. I had forgotten about it as it's been so long since it was announced.

Here it is next to the similarly sized Chuwi Hi12 and the slightly larger Surface Book:

It looks bigger than the Chuwi because it has a much larger chin (the bezel under the screen) which makes it sit up higher.

I just finished the set up and installed a few Android apps and set it aside to charge while I get this typed out, but so far I'm very impressed. It's thin and light with a great screen. The pen is fluid in everything I've tried so far and my comfy older Thinkpad stylus works and feels much better than the toothpick that comes in the machine. But the fact that the S-pen is in the machine at all is huge. If I forget the bigger pen, I've always got one built in. Both One Note and Mobile Sheets Pro work smoothly, which means this machine has potential in the studio and at gigs, although a fold around convertible is less ideal on a music stand versus a slate tablet.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this platform can do also. I haven't really used a chromebook in a long time. I was lucky enough to get a Cr-48 from Google back in the day, but that was years and years ago. I think I started it up a year (or more?) ago to see what ChromeOS was up to, and while it updated to the latest build, it was not a pleasant experience. But I remember being so much more productive when using the Chromebook back in the day. There's something to be said about the simplicity of the set up. I wonder if it will still feel that way with access to the Google play store making it as much of a potential distraction factory as my phone.

I finally got a Surface Book

Thanks to the magic of craigslist, I found a well loved base model at a price I was willing to pay. I've been so tempted by these for so long I'm very happy to finally have one. It's a fantastic laptop, but the real fun is using the 13.5" screen for music. It made its Pops debut this weekend:

Bonus! The magnetic surface pen sticks to the stand. The extra height vs a 4:3 screen doesn't look super useful on this page as it's cropped short, but many pages come out taller than 4:3 and are rendered narrower on the screen to fit height. At 3:2, you get room for tools and information bars at the top and bottom and all pages take full advantage of the width of the screen.

My biggest reservations about using the Surface Book's clipboard (the detachable screen/tablet part) were about having something so pricey on my stand and the potential battery life issues since most reviews pegged the clipboard at only about 4 hours. The price issue was mitigated by the craigslist deal as I'm into this Surface Book for less than an iPad Pro and Pencil and there are two of those at the Pops too. Also, I realize I've never actually had anything bad happen to any of my machines at any gig in the many years I've been doing this now. I mean, it only takes once, but so far, I've never even had a close call.

The battery life issue is a bit more of an actual issue. In addition to looking for a cheap deal, I really did not want an i7 due to the fact that it scored about 30 minutes less in most battery drain tests. The difference between 4 hours on the i5 and 3.5 hours for an i7 is kind of a big deal in a 3 hour rehearsal. Sure enough, my range anxiety ramped up to 11 when battery bar turned red in the last 10 minutes of rehearsal. It says 50 minutes remaining, but turning red is not reassuring.

Luckily it made it through a 45 minute sound check and then a 2 hour concert only barely going yellow. I know I can always throw it on the base, but that's a less ideal solution compared to how beautifully thin the clipboard is on its own.

I did have to use it in draw mode (turned backwards and folded down over the base) when I used it to take notes at an all day bow workshop. It lasted through the morning session on its own and I added the base through the afternoon.

I'm also really enjoying it as my primary computer. I'm excited to see where Microsoft will go with this form factor and what other manufacturers might jump on this larger detachable size.

Web browser based New Smart Music is here, sort of

MakeMusic started trialing the new, browser-based, SmartMusic back in September and has now formally launched the new version.

I'm currently booted into Ubuntu (because, why not?) and thought "awesome, I should give this new one a try." I currently use classic SmartMusic extensively in my new classroom gig and love the idea of a browser-based version as the other school I teach at has chromebooks and iPads for the kids.

I was all excited to see if it would run in Chrome on Ubuntu, but all you can do right now is sign up for a free trial. After filling out the form, I get a friendly message that they'll get back to me in 3 business days. It's Saturday. So that'll take about forever.

If you want to read more about it or sign up for your own free trial and join the wait here's the blog post.

So, I inherited a Ukulele program...

Not on purpose, but here I am. During back to school night at my older son's new school, the music teacher kept saying things like "hopefully the new teacher will keep going with this." (I missed the beginning of her talk as the Pre-K classes are separate from the Elementary program and it overlapped a bit. I didn't technically need to attend the specials part, since the Pre-K don't participate in those classes, but I wanted to know what the music teacher was doing out of professional curiosity.) Of course, I went up to the principal to get more details immediately after. Turns out, the current music teacher's husband had gotten a job up in Oregon, so she had put in her two weeks notice the day before.

I promptly updated my resume and sent it on in. I like private teaching. A lot. But with two small children, the logistics of childcare is simply easier if I can work during the school day.

The previous teacher had already sold the school on the idea that the middle school group should play ukulele, and the school had just invested in a classroom set. So, it was pretty much expected that the new teacher would actually use them. The younger grades play recorder and have access to glockenspiels as well.

I finished Music Mind Games training literally the day before I interviewed, which significantly beefed up my tool box for general music teaching. I played recorder in the early music lab in my undergrad, so not only do I not mind teaching recorder, I actually like it. But the ukulele was one I'd never touched aside from occasionally trying to tune this fun little toy a neighbor had given us when she moved out and didn't want to take it with her.

Luckily, a favorite blogger of mine is well down this path of using the ukulele in a middle school music program. He's spun off a new blog to chronicle that journey, and share resources, called Ukestuff.

I upgraded myself to a nice tenor thanks to Amazon, and I have another on the way. Because.

Oh Yeah, the Chuwi....

I've been sitting on this for a while meaning to write more. First, it took me a while to get a pen. My eBay order was cancelled when it didn't make the delivery and the seller assumed it got lost in the mail. At least I didn't have to mess with getting a refund on my own, but I lost three weeks. The pen I ordered from Amazon did make it despite also shipping as an epacket from China. But we've had a crazy summer and I haven't had a chance to really figure out how to make this thing do all the things I keep hoping it can do.

It has so much potential to be amazing, but so far my experience with the pen has been frustrating, which is basically a deal breaker for this little guy. But I haven't had the time I'd like to mess with things and really see if I can get it working or if it's just not a good pen. It's looking like it might be the latter, in which case I'll be headed off to eBay with it, but I'm not ready to give up just yet. This thing has so much potential to be the perfect music box for both the studio and gigs.

There are plenty of general reviews already floating around the internet, so I'll just go with an overview of why it's so almost perfect for my studio uses.

Loves:

Form Factor - The 12" 3:2 screen size is nearly perfect. Yes, my HP PS12 offers wider music since it's 4:3, but not significantly enough that the 12" chuwi is too small. People are still using 10" iPads at gigs. I feel like the HP is so big as to be unweildy in other scenarios and it's pretty much limited to just a reader because of it. The Chuwi is good both as a tablet in the hand, on the stand, and on the keyboard dock being a laptop.

Keyboard Dock - Since I brought it up, in spite of the terrible touchpad (which is fixed somewhat on the newer version of the keyboard dock) I really like the keyboard. I like that it makes the chuwi into a clamshell laptop. Others have complained about the key feel, but the travel is much better than something like the Surface type cover, and I like the stiffer feedback. I'm typing this on the Chuwi and my fingers are happy.

So Many Ports - There are two full size USB ports on the tablet itself and two more on the keyboard. Which is handy, since I almost always have a USB mouse plugged into the keyboard. But two full sized USB ports on the tablet! I keep meaning to pull out the old Footime pedal and try that, especially after my airturn decided to cut out during the recessional at a wedding recently. Good thing tapping the screen is still faster than page turning.

Micro USB charging - As if all those full sized ports wasn't enough, this thing charges via micro USB. The surface was fine and all, but required a separate charge. The Chuwi can use the same charge as my phone. In fact, after my phone barely lasted through some cross country travelling, I finally picked up a giant Anker battery pack. I can now charge both the Chuwi and my phone off the same charger.

Insane Battery Life - Not like I ever need to charge this thing anyway, the battery lasts nearly forever. Battery Bar in windows still says I have a 13 hour run time even though I've tried to run it all the way down several times to get a more accurate reading. I don't think I really have 13 hours, but I don't charge it daily, even when it's the only machine I use in a day.

Dual Boot - I need Windows for the studio, but I prefer Android for gigs. I like having the full versions of One Note and SmartMusic rather than just apps. But MobileSheets Pro is really best for gigs. I've tried running virtual Android machines over windows, but that's a clunky solution. Windows may not be a speed demon on an Atom processor, but native Android is really smooth. For day to day use, I tend to stay booted into Android. It's actually quite usable as a laptop OS on a screen this size. I'd be running things full screen no matter which OS.

Hate:

The Pen - womp womp. This is a deal breaker unless I can figure out how to make it not suck. Right now, the lag in initial activation is such that I lose the entire first letter of whatever I write. Accuracy is not super hot either and my letters come out all squished. I'm spoiled by the older generation of Wacom EMR screens and still have one in my Samsung note 8. It's really hard to use anything else.

The Qualcomm pen on the HP PS12 is close. My writing looks good, but it's got some quirky drift issues unless you wave it around over the screen to catch all the microphones every single time you bring it back to write. It got me through a few summer conferences, but it's annoying.

I'd use the Samsung for notes, but the screen is too small for some things and I'd prefer Windows for studio notes. Also, the battery life on the Samsung is getting poor. It's no spring chicken at nearly 4 years old now I think. It's possible to pop it open and replace the battery, but more trouble than I think I want to invest.

There's really nothing that compares to the Chuwi in terms of a dual boot machine with this screen size and an active pen. But if I can't figure out how to make the pen not suck, it may not matter.

About that giant dual screen eInk sheet music reader

So, this thing has shown up in my news feed from several of the sites I frequent. Now that I have some experience in the news room of a major tech news site, I understand the perspective many of these bigger tech blogs are covering this from. Someone who used to play an instrument back in high school (yes, many authors cited this as their experience) is handed a press release and told to put together a news item. They have 30 minutes and a "this looks neat" attitude. And it does look neat. Unless you've been doing this for, oh, say, the last 7 years.

What is this thing? This thing is two 13.3" Mobius eInk screens, running 1200x1600 (the same resolution and slightly larger than the HP PS12 I use now), on unkown internals, with unkown software. But hey, it's got a Wacom digitizer! You can totally write on your music! So revolutionary! And you can turn the page with a tap, so much faster than flipping a physical page!

A few things based on my years of experience:

1. We've moved beyond tapping to turn. If I have to take my bow off the string to turn, it's a step back from where I am now. Yes it has Bluetooth, but the press release only says "a variety of accessories can also be connected". It's probably not a big leap to assume that would include foot pedals for page turns, but it's still a leap.

2. Two screens != better. First off, just one of these screens currently translates to an $800 price tag, so two of them is going to be unreasonably expensive. If I'm not willing to put a $1000 iPad Pro on a stand, there's no way I'm going to put a $1600 reader out at a gig.

2a. Speaking of price, at least the $1000 iPad pro can do about a million other things. Likely paying more than that for a single purpose device? Nope. My current tablet was under $300 and runs full Android.

3. Okay, so back to the two screens thing, with foot pedals and half page turn options, it no longer matters that I'm looking at one page of music versus two. I don't have to stop playing to turn, that's one of the major benefits to going digital. Loosing half page turns is a huge step back.

4. eInk was cool some years ago, but we've moved past it. I'm using my HP PS12 in the pit right now. While there are arguments that I should still have my stand on, illuminating the space around the lit up tablet screen to make things easier on my eyes, I don't need the stand light. That's one less thing for me to carry and potentially forget at gigs. But eInk isn't backlit, you'll still need that stand light, just like paper.

4a. Also, eInk flashes when it refreshes. As eInk has improved, it no longer needs to flash each page turn, but it will inevitably be the one where you really need that next page RIGHT NOW. See why I don't want to give my half page turns? I can turn several lines before I actually need the next page.

5. OMG a pen! You can write on your music! Okay.....so my TC1100 did that many years ago. This should be a standard feature of anything (including apps) purporting to replace paper sheet music. But given how many apps don't even support annotation, I suppose it is still a big deal.

Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. I mean, it's great to see companies trying new things and inveseting in this space. But we've long past the "let's emulate paper exactly, just digital" and into "how can we make the experience of carrying/reading/performing from so much sheet music better." Just slapping together two giant eInk screens is not better than the current digital solution, even if it's a step up from paper.

China cheapies - Chuwi Hi12

When first tier manufactures move on to new and better screens, or just pass the exclusive on the screens in the their latest and greatest, second tier Chinese manufacturers get the chance to use them. You can now get a dual-booting, Windows and Android, Intel Atom based tablet behind an iPad retina screen from the likes of Onda, Teclast, Chuwi and others you've probably never heard of, all in the $200-$300 range.

You won't see them at BestBuy and you'll pay a premium if you want to get them from a place like Amazon or eBay. Your best bet, if you're brave enough, is to order direct from China through a place like GeekBuying,  BangGood, or GearBest (see a theme?).

But, it's been a while since I've been willing to tolerate a 9.7" screen for sheet music, so while the idea of Windows/Android on that screen is interesting, it's not particularly useful to me, especially since none of them support pen. However, now that Microsoft has moved to a bigger, higher density screen for the Surface Pro 4, the Surface Pro 3 screen is now available to these Chinese manufacturers.

Chuwi has slapped one of these Surface Pro 3 screens on their Hi12, packed it with an Atom processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 64 GB SSD for a fantastic sub-$300 price. Of course you have to order direct from a Chinese deal site like banggood or gearbest and hope you get a good one, since things like warranty support and quality control will also be second tier. It might be worth it in the case of the Chuwi Hi12 to get a 12", 1440p screen with, get this - an active digitizer!

So of course when one showed up on my local craigslist, how could I not get it? I mean, I totally don't have the patience to wait for shipping from China, but if I can just email some random person and go buy it, that's totally going to happen. The guy suggested a dessert place near his local BART stop, so we loaded up the kids and headed out. The kids loved the restaurant and I'm typing this on my shiny new-to-me Chuwi Hi12.

You'll notice it came with a mouse. If you're reading this, you've probably got another tab open with reviews. (I highly recommend techtablets to learn more about these machines) and everything you'll read about how terrible the trackpad is is true. I actually like the springiness and stiff feedback of the keyboard itself, but the trackpad is really terrible.

If I were buying new, I'd skip the keyboard and grab the HiPen (yes, that's what it's called) instead. Stock comes and goes on those, so to get one in a reasonable amount of time, I went with one listed on Amazon. It's still shipping from China, but it was in stock and ready to go. It'll probably be another week before it shows up, and I'll have a more in depth look at the tablet then.

It's kinda quiet in here

But I've been a bit busy. Because someone thought it might be a good idea to take on a show with a tech week the same week as the last week of school, culminating in a run from the school concert to the opening night of the show. Since traffic is so beyond messed up here in the Bay Area, leaving the city to head south during evening commute was no big deal since everyone is going the other way - from jobs in the valley back to SF. I was just hugely bummed to miss  out on the after-concert chatting time with students and parents.

The other reason I haven't posted much is because I've got a set up that Just Works. I mostly have material for the blog when I'm testing stuff, or interested in the Next Big Thing. For now, my HP Pro Slate 12 is doing all I need it to do.

There are two other standard size iPads in the pit and they're just so tiny looking. Several musicians have expressed interest in my set up, especially because I'm using not-an-ipad. The cellist said he's wanted to find out more about the options, but everyone he's seen is just using an iPad and he doesn't want to go that route (either too little, or too pricey). He's now stalking the one HP PS12 on ebay. It seems I grabbed mine at just the right time, as they haven't come up much recently.

I should also mention that the two iPad players in the pit are also reading inserts off of paper. I scanned my inserts, used Xodo online to merge them into main show book, used thumbnail view in Xodo on the PS12 to move them into the correct place in the score, deleted everything I didn't need, then exported the completed book. I still like to perform out of MobileSheetsPro because of the half page turns, but I could have just as easily kept it in Xodo and performed it from there.

I do have a new tablet kicking around the house right now that I'll write more about soon. It's not quite as big as the PS12, so it's not going to replace my main reader, but it'll be fun to play with and should prove an interesting Surface alternative for those who don't want to be limited to Android.

Also, the latest post over at techinmusiced has me interested in learning more about XML again. I abandoned experiments in scanning years ago, but if it's so easy to convert from PDF to XML now, I need to look into it again. And it looks like there's an app that'll cover both.

Turn page loudly

I guess I'll just have to cough a lot.

13 e-ink reader with Wacom? Maybe...

Once upon a time I had a nook. I loved the e-ink screen. I dreamed of putting music on it. A parent in my studio had the big Kindle and I dreamed of putting music on that, but he lamented how clunky the annotation options were, and that was just text. E-readers have mostly fallen out of favor since light up screened tablets can do everything and books, so unless you read enough for the light up screen to bother you, an e-ink reader is just one more thing to have to carry.

I've still dreamed of a giant e-ink reader, but after the big Kindle died, that was kind of it. Then, years later, Sony did their giant thing. But it's seriously pricey for a single purpose device when you can get an iPad Pro for not much more that does soooooo much more.

Good e-Reader is one of those niche site with a good forum and community that built up during the e-reader boom. I hung out there some when I had a nook to play with, and again when I briefly had an Entourage eDGe. Actually, it was probably the mobileread forums. I forget, sorry.

They're still around and going strong and are actually about to pull off one of those things that internet communities like to talk about. They wanted a device that no one else was making, so they decided to make their own. And they're very nearly full funded on Indiegogo.

They've got a good set up, as it will only take 60 pre-orders to go to manufacturing. The Good e-Reader 13.3 is built off a reference prototype that Netronix was showing off at CES, so the hard work is nearly done. Their work has been more about tweaking the software.

Sadly, that software is stuck at Android 4.0.4. While it has the google play store, and can run apps like Mobilesheetspro, it can't run Microsoft Office apps, which means no OneNote. That's hugely disappointing on a 13.3" e-ink screen with a Wacom digitizer.

Another huge missing piece is Bluetooth. So, even if you put Mobilesheets on it, you'll still have to tap to turn. Admittedly, it's still faster than flipping a paper page, but you have to turn every single one of them, not just every other one.

The real attraction is the 13.3" Mobius e-ink screen. The 1200x1600 resolution is good, but not great in this post-retina-display era. Also, the 4GB of storage and 512MB (yup, not even a gig) of RAM and quite outdated at this point. Even though they plan on making the firmware available to the community as open source, it's unlikely that will result in more recent versions of Android running decently on such old hardware.

Just yesterday, they blogged about how great it would be for sheet music, but I'm left disappointed by the refresh during inking and seeming lack of accuracy. They don't try to write fingerings and music they try to hand write looks sloppy, like they can't draw small enough to even get notes into a staff space accurately. But watch and see what you think:

I was quite tempted to pre-order one to play with, but while the $699 asking price is better than the Sony Digital Paper, it's still no small chunk of change.

If you want to see more, check out the Indiegogo page and watch the intro video below.

All the Android music readers I'm not using

If you search the Google Play store for sheet music reader, you'll turn up lots of options. Unlike the multitude of readers for the iPad however, the selections for Android are mostly useless. Here are the ones I've tried and the deal breakers that resulted in prompt uninstalls. There are two main types of readers, ones that are connected to a digital publisher, and ones that let you read your own music. 

You'll also see lots of apps for music composition and notation as well as apps to teach music reading and improve sight reading. I'll look at some of those in another post.

In the BYOM (Bring Your Own Music ) category:

The simplest of the readers also has the simplest name - Sheet Music.
It can display music stored locally on your device or SD card and can also connect to Dropbox. And it can auto scroll the music at a set-able speed. That's it. No bookmarking, no set lists, no library management, no annotation, no editing, just scrolling display.

The slightly more feature full Orpheus does all of those things (minus auto scrolling) and includes set lists and basic annotation tools. There is no way to create a bookmark or otherwise define a location in a large PDF, so each tune has to be brought in as its own file. The real deal breaker here is that the annotation is limited to one very fat red pen. You cannot change the color, nor can you change the thickness. The developer has addressed this in the FAQ's - Orpheus is built on the muPDF tools and as such, is limited to those tools. So, unless there are plans to rewrite Orpheus from the ground up with a new PDF engine (highly unlikely), the annotation tools will always be limited to this unusably fat red pen.

And in the Read Only Music From Our Service category:

Music Notes
The app is an extension of the online store. They have some interesting music - most notably nice arrangements of pop music useful for gigging groups and student ensembles, but selection is otherwise limited and expensive. Even if I were to buy a few pieces from MusicNotes the publisher, I would most likely put those PDFs in my Dropbox and open them in the reader I'm using for everything else (MobileSheetsPro).

It should be noted that music from MusicNotes does have some neat tricks that uploaded PDFs can't do. You can change key and tempo and some music supports karaoke-style light up as you go notes.

VSheetMusic
This is an extension app of the virtualsheetmusic.com service. I did purchase an annual membership some time ago and downloaded lots of nice clean PDFs of solo and chamber music. Yes, I could have downloaded everything for free from IMSLP, but the clean formatted PDFs were worth the small annual fee to me. Sadly, larger collections are not free with the annual membership. But, now that my membership has expired, I can't use the app to sync songs I've downloaded in the past. So, once again, I'm going to just take PDFs I've downloaded from this service, drop them into my Dropbox, and open them MobileSheetsPro.

I should also mention that both of these publisher's apps simply open the website for many tasks, like purchasing more music, so they really offer nearly zero value over just opening the website in a browser and using another app to display the PDFs after you've downloaded them.

So, what am I using? MobileSheets. Go get it. It does everything and then some (I'm still poking around and finding new things even after performing with it a few times now.) There's even a free version that's only limited in library size so you can really poke at all the features to see if it will work for you. Seriously, if you have an Android tablet and even a passing interest in using it for music you need MobileSheets.

Huawei Matebook - this looks promising

CES was full of new 2 in 1, 12" Windows tablets. Sadly, the budget-friendly Toshiba Dynabook makes way too many compromises to hit its low price while staying super thin and light.

Now it's Mobile World Congress time, and surprise! More 12" 2 in 1s. Huawei is more known for phones and the tablet looks like an overgrown phone in a good way. It's very thin and light with nice rounded edges, and it's the same thickness as an iPhone 6.

There are some questions as to what the pen technology is (Wacom AES? Synaptic?), but there's definitely an active pen available as an accessory. Oh, and the pen has a laser pointer. That should keep your conductor cat on his toes.

Even the lowest configuration comes with an Intel core m3, vs the atom in the DynaPad, so hopefully, performance will be more than adequate.

For more information and some amazing photos from hands on time at MWC, check out the Verge article.

HP Pro Slate 12 vs Samsung Galaxy note pro at the Pops

Okay, okay, last size comparison for a while. But one of the other violists at the pops was reading from a Samsung note pro (left), so I grabbed a photo. She's also using MobileSheets. The screen is actually taller than it looks in the photo (same height as the PS12, just narrower), but with the music fit to width on a 16:10 screen the bottom of the display is empty space. It means she has room to keep the toolbars open during rehearsal without it pushing the music out of the way. She's very happy with the setup.

HP Pro Slate 12 vs iPad Pro at the Pops

Our bass player uses an iPad Pro, so I grabbed my HP Pro Slate 12 (half a dozen blog posts later and I am getting so tired of typing that, so it's going to be the PS12 going forward) and took it back at the break for a photo op.

Yes, the iPad screen is that much brighter. I like keeping things a little less bright on our not so bright stage anyway, but even with the brightness up, the PS12 screen is yellower and not as strong as the iPad. And, either the iPad Pro backlight is that uneven, or it's a poor scan, but since none of my pages look like that, I'd be concerned about the backlight on that iPad.

I also take advantage of the highlighter tool to light up my repeats. The crazy extra markings around repeats are photocopied/scanned in.

The tablets are relatively close to the same size. The PS12 loses some screen space to the android nav bar at the bottom and it's a slightly smaller screen anyway. But the way MobileSheets auto-crops makes up for it and my music ends up displaying a bit bigger.

Using MobileSheets also made reminded me of how awesome half page turns are. I don't like having to enter edit mode, and a I really dislike the way the erase tool works, but grabbing bowings as needed (and highlighting up some repeats) didn't interfere with playing. I mark bowing changes in blue ink, making it really easy for the next stand to see what was changed.

Either way you go, this whole 12" 4:3 screen size is fantastic and I hope it starts showing up in more and more tablets.

MobileSheets on the HP Pro Slate 12

After many years reading my sheet music off an iPad, I had gotten pretty comfortable in Forscore. There is nothing like it in the Windows store and only one app that comes close in the Google Play store for Android. Yes, there are several other apps designed for sheet music, but only one with proper annotation tools - MobileSheets.

In the interim, I used Xodo docs on the Surface Pro 3, and luckily that app is cross platform. I can use Xodo on the Pro Slate and it functions more or less the same as it does on the Surface. This makes for an easy transition and a nice back up plan. The biggest pro - pick up the pen and write. 

But I wanted to give MobileSheets a proper look. I've messed with it on various devices here and there, trying to keep tabs on things, but I've never been able to really follow through with it. But I'm using it tonight, so I can finally get an idea of how it works beyond the surface level poking around I've done so far.

Why am I willing to dive into unfamiliar software like this at a rehearsal? Two reasons mainly:
1. I have Xodo as a backup. I've performed from Xodo on the Surface before and can switch over at any point to something I know how to make work. Also, it's rehearsal. There will be paper binders if there's a catastrophic failure and I really need something to fall back on.
2. I've managed a few practice sessions with it, so I have a basic handle on the two things that matter - navigation and annotation.

I'm bummed that annotation requires entering a specific mode. I've got it set up for a two finger tap and for better or worse, MobileSheets has a pretty cluttered interface, which at least than means edit mode is only a single tap away. It comes up quickly enough (much more quickly than my aging 3rd gen iPad could enter edit mode in Forscore), so I think it'll be enough.

Why am I trying MobileSheets when I know Xodo works? MobileSheets is an app with a dedicated music reading focus, so unlike a general PDF reader, it supports setlists and other organizational tools that will prove very helpful when it comes time to turn an alphabetical binder into a show order set. It also has tools like a metronome and media playback.

But the best thing about MobileSheets? It can crop PDFs on import. And it does a pretty decent job of it. I adjusted a few of the crops, but in general, you can let it do its thing and have a file that's an even better fit for your screen that just opening it in a PDF reader. Unfortunately, that's the only PDF manipulation it handles well. I used Xodo to create a version with all the blank pages removed as MobileSheets has a quirky work around to the fact that it can't delete pages that I'm not a fan of.

I've paired my AirTurn and verified that it'll turn in both Xodo and MobileSheets.

I'm not worried about file organization too much right now because I can chop up the part and reorder the turns later with annotations intact.

So, I'll give it a go tonight. I'll be reading on the HP Pro Slate 12 using MobileSheets and my AirTurn BT-105.