Deep Dish Gig Book

Lango-Django

Are there any users of “Deep Dish Gig Book” out there?

It’s a nice liittle app that organizes your sheet music for you so you can keep all your lead sheets on your iPad instead of bringing a book to your gig.

It also has a feature that is frustrating me because I can’t make it work.

That is, it will supposedly link each of your sheet music pages to a matching iTunes track.

The good news is, I have already made dozens of iTunes backing tracks which are alphabetically stored on my iMac computer.

The bad news is, I can’t link any of them to the Deep Dish Gig Book on my iPad because “iTunes” has gone the way of the dodo.

My iPad only offers “Apple Music” which resolutely refuses to match up with my iTunes backing tracks.

Does any smart person out there have a good suggestion to make this work?

Or alternately, does anyone know of some other music software besides “Deep Dish Gig Book” which might be more user-friendly?

Thanks,

Will

Russell Letson

The Apple realm guys I sit in with all use iReal, which is probably more up-to-date than the Deep Dish app, since the version history on their website indicates October 2017 as the last update. I don't know about iReal linking to sound files, but my impression is that it's the first choice of iPad users.

FWIW, there's also iGigbook for Apple devices. I use the Android version, though I don't mess with the sound files function, and I can't mark up a chart the way iReal does. (The Apple version might include that function.)

Buco

Can you explain the benefit of linking the music sheet to a backing track? Maybe so when you practice you don't have to open each one separately?
Can't you do something like that with BIAB? iReal is great for charts but you mentioned lead sheets which makes me think you want the melody too which iReal doesn't do.

Lango-Django

Yeah Buco I am a longtime BIAB user but for my solo gigs i use BIAB along with GarageBand to record my own backing tracks, usually replacing the mechanical-sounding BIAB rhythm guitar with my own rhythm guitar.

For my solo gigs I play my guitar and banjo over these recordings and it’s often handy to have a lead sheet to fall back on instead of a chord chart.

So I’ve been using an iPod full of tunes plugged into the back of my Fishman Loudbox, along with a three ring binder of lead sheets.

But i would love to get into the twenty-first century and just bring a single iPad that does it all… which was what I was hoping that Deep Dish Gig Book could allow me to do.

So thanks for all the other suggestions, guys, I will check them out.

Will

PS Hey, Adrian H, I wonder if this kind of an app might be something that you might bring your programming genius to bear on?

geese_com

I think forScore can do what you are looking for.

https://forscore.co/kb/linking-audio/

Lango-Django

Wow, thanks, Geese. Looks great. I shall report back later.

Will

Buco

I knew you use BIAB. That's why I was thinking that with the endless list of features that software has, there could be a way to import your existing charts. It has an editor for standard notation and you already use it to create your own backing tracks. Seems like it has all the components you need. Did you try to dig deeper? Their customer service is very responsive and their forums are very active with several people who know ins and outs of the software.

Lango-Django

Thanks for the suggestion, Buco, but the thing with BIAB is that unfortunately their synthesized rhythm guitar still sounds pretty fake, even though they sampled Gonzalo's sound.

At least that's the case with my 2020 version of BIAB, though I would be glad to hear that they have improved it.

So when I make backing tracks, I usually replace fake-Gonzalo with my own rhythm guitar.

The other thing with BIAB is that entering chords is a breeze but entering melody lines to match those chords is a long laborious project which I'm much too lazy for...

So I'm going to give forScore a try.

Cheers,

Will

Buco

I found the trick is to keep the tempo of your backing track near the tempo the "real track" was recorded in. The tempo it's recorded in is listed when you open the window to pick a style. If you go much faster or slower than that, that's when it starts going sour.

Lango-Django

Hey Geese, I haven’t yet purchased forScore because I have a tech question that they haven’t answered yet.

I’m hoping maybe you know the answer.

My iPad doesn’t have much storage space; does forScore allow you to access files from a USB thumb drive?

Thanks,

Will

rgrice

As I recall forScore may link but with Apple Music. Otherwise it’s a great sheet music handler. As an aging singer still learning songs, I have so much trouble remembering lyrics. ForScore is perfect for that and uploading charts or lead sheets you have in PDF form only!