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Old 02-01-2013, 05:34 PM
Cygnus49 Cygnus49 is offline
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Default UnReal Book on the iPad - hard to beat

A quick note for those interested. I trialed OnSong and UnReal. Very similar but UnReal has two advantages: uncluttered and Aron Nelson. I am not interested in the worship aspects that OnSong sports so UnReal seems less cluttered to me otherwise the conventions are similar in both (ability to use DropBox, method and language for describing set list set up, etc).

There are some quirks (to my mind) that one needs to get used to in both - finding stuff in drop downs for instance and figuring out what they do vs what I think I want them to do. The usual inescapable learning curve even with reading the manual!

However there is one distinct difference. The person behind it all - Aron Nelson - responds to my emails seemingly within minutes answering the dumbest questions I can come up with (OK I'm sure he has answered them many times before).
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Old 02-01-2013, 05:39 PM
JohnnyDes JohnnyDes is offline
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I just started using Unrealbook based on LJ's accolades on the AGF. I don't perform, but I keep all my pdfs on their for practice sessions. My favorite feature is that you can bookmark a page in a long pdf (say a whole book) and add that bookmarked page into a set list. Now I don't have to flip through dozens of pages to get to the small number of songs I'm working on.

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Old 02-01-2013, 06:52 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cygnus49 View Post
A quick note for those interested. I trialed OnSong and UnReal. Very similar but UnReal has two advantages: uncluttered and Aron Nelson. I am not interested in the worship aspects that OnSong sports so UnReal seems less cluttered to me otherwise the conventions are similar in both (ability to use DropBox, method and language for describing set list set up, etc).

There are some quirks (to my mind) that one needs to get used to in both - finding stuff in drop downs for instance and figuring out what they do vs what I think I want them to do. The usual inescapable learning curve even with reading the manual!

However there is one distinct difference. The person behind it all - Aron Nelson - responds to my emails seemingly within minutes answering the dumbest questions I can come up with (OK I'm sure he has answered them many times before).
Hi Cygnus...

Aron is a gem (he is the inventor/developer who wrote and updates the program). He's very responsive, and quick about his responding, and kind.

I don't have issues with the formating or layout, but do know that if you have the app open and then drop more files in (drag-n-drop via iTunes) you need to close the app out (in the task bar) so it refreshes next time you open it.

I own the big three (UnrealBook, forScore, and OnSong). For simple, straight forward building, modifying and accessing lists, and jumping around inside a list (to change song order) UnRealBook is still king.

On the user end, they all have similar functions. OnSong permits more types of files, but is unwieldy to work with from inside the app, so I just end up working with files within my word processor and exporting them as pdf files and pulling them into UnrealBook.

Also, the files are very small in UnrealBook compared to other apps. Aron has provided 26 updates in the 3 years of the app's existence...improvements in response to user suggestions.

I love being able to write in notes and mark passages (in several colors and shades) for a particular gig and then erasing them later.

Good app...

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Old 02-04-2013, 10:11 AM
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ELK ELK is offline
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Just started using Unrealbook. Still getting to know it, but definitely impressed with how easy it is to get started. Looking forward to scanning and loading all my paper lead sheets onto the ipad - when I can find the time.
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Old 02-04-2013, 11:43 AM
Cygnus49 Cygnus49 is offline
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Talking UnReal is well worth a little time

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Just started using Unrealbook. Still getting to know it, but definitely impressed with how easy it is to get started. Looking forward to scanning and loading all my paper lead sheets onto the ipad - when I can find the time.
ELK - I'm confident it won't take long to get up to speed. As I said there are some things I found odd about getting things accomplished - working my way through the 'couple of click' conventions used to get them done but nothing insurmountable.

The Help is pretty good - love the pen for work in progress notes. Ultimately I go from a Word doc to pdf when things settle but I have used the photo to pdf. Kind of low contrast but its intended purpose is quick and dirty.

Fine looking animal in your signature BTW ....
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Old 02-06-2013, 09:18 AM
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ELK ELK is offline
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Fine looking animal in your signature BTW ....[/QUOTE]

That's Rocky, sad to say we lost him to cancer last year. By far the best dog we ever had. We are raising another golden now. Once you've had a golden, you don't want anything else, even though they do have a high cancer rate.

Unrealbook is working nicely. lj helped me to resolve how to link tracks I created on irealb to the pdfs in unrealbook. Played along with one this morning before coming to work.
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Old 02-06-2013, 12:04 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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I'm using unRealBook and loving it, but to me the key difference between unRealBook and OnSong is the latter's use of the simple but effective ChordPro format to allow automated transposition.

Since the music I'm using isn't available in ChordPro format this isn't a bennie for me, but folks doing "mainland" music might find it worthwhile.

Fran
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Old 02-06-2013, 12:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fran Guidry View Post
I'm using unRealBook and loving it, but to me the key difference between unRealBook and OnSong is the latter's use of the simple but effective ChordPro format to allow automated transposition.

Since the music I'm using isn't available in ChordPro format this isn't a bennie for me, but folks doing "mainland" music might find it worthwhile.

Fran
Hi Fran...

I own both and have been dialoguing with OnSong's developers about some practical tools which would improve it for my 64 yr old eyes. They keep telling me "We hope to add that feature to version 2", so I hope they do.

The suck-a-chorus off the internet and convert it to OnSong format is not always a smooth one. I find that I spend as much time reformatting songs in OnSong on the iPad as I would in a word processor and exporting it as a pdf. It will convert pdf to text in program, but it requires minor surgery to make them useful.

The compelling features of OnSong for some players are the transpose feature, and the capo feature (set the fret and it transposes chords to that fret position)

The things for me which would make it useful are ability to Bold face lyrics while not doing bold on the chords, use of separate fonts for lyrics and chords, color choices for fonts, more font modification of lyrics, 2 column format (to fit an entire song on one page), and ability for it to convert the format to the ChordPro format (Chords embedded in text with brackets) from pdf (it will only do pdf to text conversion).

These are the things I've chatted with their developers about.

But the simplicity of UnRealBook is the best part. I can preload a list of 20 songs for an event in 2 minutes or less, set it on a music stand, and show the guy next to me how to run it and switch songs in any order in 20 seconds.


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  #9  
Old 11-09-2018, 09:04 AM
JackB1 JackB1 is offline
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My biggest issue with Unrealbook is that it has no scrolling feature, so if you want to use it for PDFs that are larger than 1 screen, you have to spend another $75-100 on a bluetooth page turner. Other than that, it's really just a PDF keeper that organizes your files and allows multiple setlists. You can do all of that with the default iBook app. I guess for the price it's not bad, but the no scrolling thing is a dealbreaker for me. I play a lot of open mikes and bringing a foot pedal all the time to these is a bit of a pain. If I was a professional musician playing by myself, I would probably invest in a bluetooth foot pedal page turner.
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