Charts on iPad

Craig Bumgarner · July 2012

Any recommendations on using an iPad for charts? What is the best app to organize hundreds of PDF charts and a chart book or three for quick access. I've gigged with people who have iPads and they are GREAT to view w/ sharp resolution and back light, but navigation to a specific chart, especially if the chart is in a PDF chart book was slow and seemed to involve a lot of page flicking. I'm usually able to come up with a paper chart faster. Anyhow, any ideas would be welcome.

I've also used iReal Book, now known as iReal b, on my iPhone since it first came out. Love it, but the iPhone size format is too small, so looking forward to using it on the iPad as well.

Craig

Jazzaferri · July 2012

I use iReal b for chord charts. Cheap and lots of charts available. Doesnt transpose keys very much just for Bb Eb and F instruments.

Best way i have found is to organize is make a playlist and then troll through song list adding songs to playlist. A each song tap chart so icons come up at bottom. Lower right is to add to songlist

Jim Kaznosky · July 2012

Try looking at what igigbook offers. It sounds very close to what you want. I have it loaded with charts and it's pretty great. Unrealbook is very similar with some extra options.

klaatu · July 2012

igigbook is very good for this purpose. You can load your individual PDFs, and they will be indexed for you, and you can organize them into set lists. There is also a set of indexes available to a large number of published PDF files, such as the Django Fakebook, which will index the individual songs. Figuring out the mechanics may take a while, but it's worth the effort.

HotTinRoof · July 2012

You can use Dropbox too. On the iPad the dropbox app allows you to see all of your dropbox files and pull over only the ones you want to be saved locally for offline access by making them a favorite. Being it reads PDF files, just save your gypsy jazz pdfs in a folder within dropbox. The downside is for larger PDFs like the Django Book it will not index the individual songs.

iRealB is excellent, transposes, has very garage band rhythm play along features and a decent user supported forum to get new songs. It allows the user to make quick changes to any chord sheet too. Downside? No lead sheets.

iGigBook, haven't cracked this one yet. Not the friendliest interface, haven't spent enough time to figure it out. It failed my initial noodling around first impression. Ben, I think I'll go back to it and mess with it some more. It gives my pdfs whacky names, not the actual files names.

klaatu · July 2012

Yeah, igigbook isn't always intuitive, and the instructions can be quite confusing. The "my.igigbook.com" page is a total mess. I'm not sure I can even explain it, but I've somehow managed to index the Django Fakebook, which is a huge time saver, and all my band's individual PDF lead sheets are indexed and can be put into set lists easily. I didn't encounter the problem of files being renamed, so I can't help you there.

irealb does a much better job of integrating host and mobile device, but as you noted, it's not designed for lead sheets, which some of my band members need.

Jim Kaznosky · July 2012

Sorry for my short recommendation for igigbook.

I agree that the method for indexing the popular fakebook charts is rather clunky and can take a little time setting up. However, once it is setup, it works quite well. I'm able to send charts from at a gig to a sub in minutes. I can also scan charts that we've made and incorporate them into our setlist. It is a nice option.

I'd personally love to here some feedback from folks who've used unrealbook. If it had the ability to share annotated charts, it would be a winner.

Also, Django Fakebook is now one of the standard indexes form their webpage.

BassPlaya · July 2012

Greetings! I'm the developer of iGigBook. There are two methods in which one can add an index to iGigBook, entry by entry or if you have 50 or more song entries you can use the bulk upload feature. If you're creating an index from scratch and that index has hundreds of entries, creating it takes work no matter what tool you use because you need to enter the data and then proof it for errors. We try to make things easier by having over 60 indexes available of most of the popular books. This way you can just add your book, rename it and you're ready to go. We have a fairly comprehensive How To section at forum.igigbook.com that can help you overcome most issues and if that doesn't help, you can always ask questions which are promptly answered though unfortunately some people do not ask for help and give up on the app out of frustration.