Transpose Chords & Melody? Check Out The New Book Transposition Feature.

 Take a look at this video the showcases the book transposition feature of iGigBook which works similar to the transposable chord charts but will transpose both chords and melody in special PDF files.  This video illustrates the transposition feature in action using a transposing version of "The New Bob Book".  We cannot for legal reasons provide this special transposing PDF to you but we can provide you with a link to where you can obtain it for free.  This PDF will only work in iGigBook and the link to the transposing PDF is available in the "Latest News" section of the Content  Manager.  This feature is available in IGigBook version 9 and greater for an extra charge.

You can test drive this feature by selecting the item at the top of the Book List View titled: "Transpose Book Demo"  

iGigBook Now Available For Android

It's finally here, the long awaited version of iGigBook Sheet Music Manager for Android. iGigBook requires Android Lollipop which means it's only available currently for a small number of tables, such as the Nexus 10, Nexus 9, Nexus 7, LG G Pad 8.3, Nvidia SHIELD, Intel SurfTab, however this will change quickly. Essentially all of the features currently available in the iPad version are there including the ability to turn pages hands free with an iPhone/iPod.
Click To See It In The Google Play Store

iGigBook in action!

When you're headlining and selling out stadiums you need to be sure that the gear you're using is going to work as expected, you also use redundancy "just in case". Take a listen to Bill St. Amour the Keyboard Tech for the tour discuss the strategy in play for Charlie Giorodano's rig during the Bruce Springsteen 2012 tour. Pay attention to the use of iPads and pay particular attention to the use of the app iGigBook.

Charlie Giordano's Bruce Springsteen 2012 Tour Rig

iGigBook Android Sightings!

ASUS Nexus 7 with iGigBook displaying the goodies has been sighted!

Adventures in technical support

Sometimes you encounter users that no matter what you do to try to help them they are just mad, angry, pissed off. Here's an actual email exchange:

User writes:

Hello.


I am utterly BAFFLED by the lack of ease of use to register your program I just downloaded for my iPad. Why make it easy when you can make it complicated seems to be your motto! I certainly hope that your app will be better than your website. So far, I am VERY underwhelmed. Thank you I advance for your prompt reply in resolving this.

My reply:

Okay, let me help you with this...

The first item in the Book List View is titled "** TAP HERE FOR HELP" and when you select that item you will see another item titled "* How To Register" that explains exactly what you need to do in order to register.

User replies:

Are you serious????
why do you think i reached out to support in the first place??? I was already there and besides the fact that your web address actually does NOT send you to your website (!), i see NOTHING about registering. Did you EVER have to struggle so much to register ANY app from the APP store, not to mention that your APP is the MOST expensive I have EVER downloaded! It’s a JOKE! Please send me a link or detailed information about how to register.

My reply:

Launch the iGigBook app and navigate to the Book List view which is the first tab on the bottom left.

The first item in the Book List View is titled "** TAP HERE FOR HELP" and when you select that item you will see another item titled "* How To Register" that explains exactly what you need to do in order to register.

If you're still having trouble accessing the ** TAP HERE FOR HELP item in the Book List view this link has the same information:

http://forum.igigbook.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=381

User replies:

IT DOES THE SAME THING!!!!!


ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? NO ONE SHOULD BE WASTING SO MUCH TIME TO REGISTER ANY APPLICATION. YOURS IS EXPENSIVE, SO FAR LOOKS VERY UGLY DESIGN WISE, YOUR SUPPORT LAME AND I AM STILL NOT ANY CLOSER TO BEING REGISTERED. YOU ARE JUST GIVING ME THE RUN AROUND OF YOUR LOUSY APP. IT’S KAFKA-ESQUE!!!!!

My reply:

Describe what it does so that I can better assist you.

User replies:

on the iPad application it says go to help register. Then it says go on the website to register. When I go on your website in Safari on my computer, there is not one single button that clearly and plainly says register. This website is the most confusing and frustrating website I have ever seen. Where do you register on www.igigbook.com???

My reply:

We specifically say that you register from the app, that's the only way you can register. You can't register from www.igigbook, you can't register from forum.igigbook.com.

The instructions I've been trying to give involve registering using the app. I've attached screen capture of what I was trying to get you to navigate to in the app, I've also sent this screen capture to you via facebook. The screen capture is the page you would view if you selected the item "** TAP HERE FOR HELP" and then selected "* How To Register".

Here's the screen capture:

User successfully registers and then replies:

You program is so cumbersome, and so not user friendly starting from the register step with the lame directions that I have asked for a refund. Now I find out that in order to actually get the PDF you still need to synchronize with iTunes!!! Really???? That is so 20th century. I have wasted so much time on this already. I will certainly right a review and share it to all my followers. Back to using the real analog fake book! What a joke!

Hal Leonard Real Book CD Support

We've added some sets that allows an owner of the Hal Leonard Real Book 6th Edition CD ROM, Real Book II 2nd Edition CD ROM and Real Book III 2nd Edition CD ROM, to create a single combined PDF to use with the corresponding iGigBook Index.

Click Here For Details

My Busking Rig

Here's a busking rig that I put together. Pictured above is a Dual Car Audio amp (< $50) that delivers 150 watts to a 4 ohm Acoustic Image cabinet. The battery (< $20) is 12V 7Ah, the same battery used to power a Crate Taxi/Limo. I can easily get 3 hours of use out of this setup which is great when you're playing a double bass and need sound support in the NYC Subway.

Using Your iPod/iPhone as a Hands Free Page Turner

A Reply To "Technology In Musical Education"

I had one disappointing/embarrassing experience in writing this blog over the past three years, which was a war of words with a developer regarding the feature of annotation in PDF music readers. The app in question was iGigBook, which has been a popular PDF music reader for gigging musicians. Regardless of my past interactions with the developer, I thought it would be important to mention that the latest version of iGigBook includes annotation. As I’ve stated repeatedly, my opinion is that annotation is an essential/required feature needed by a musician (whether a pro or a student). iGigBook has added that feature, and therefore joins the ranks of PDF Music Readers that have the core features that are needed by musicians (along with forScore, unrealBook, Deep Dish Designs GigBook, and the new Gig Easy app).

Original Post Here

I would have posted this comment to this blog but since comments aren't allowed, I'll post my comment here...

I don't think there was a war of words, just me disagreeing with you and setting the record straight about what you wrote so that people get an accurate picture.

I appreciate you mentioning that iGigBook has annotation, as they say, "any publicity is good publicity". I realize iGigBook isn't an app that you would find useful and also realize that no one app is going to be all things to all people. Having said that, there are features that are important to the musicians that use iGigBook on a daily basis, that are missing from all of the apps that you highly recommend. Contrary to what you say, iGigBook isn't joining the ranks of those apps, it stands alone in a class by itself, pushing the envelope of what a musician can do with an iPad and their PDF sheet music library.

I personally know a number of gigging pianists, that literally traveled with a suitcase full of sheet music books to their gigs, with no efficient way to locate 1 tune out of the thousands they may be requested to play at any given time. With iGigBook and an iPad a dream of theirs has been realized; instant access to their entire music library in seconds. I also know numerous sidemen, sax players, trumpet players, bassist, guitarist, etc, that also find iGigBook to be a dream come true because of the indexing, the transposing chord charts and the transposing books.

Keep in mind I'm not saying you should like iGigBook and use it, I just want readers to know that there are different realities and when they read your blog they should keep in mind that your view and recommendations are limited to what you use, what you know and how much gigging you do or do not do.

iGigBook now has annotation capability.

The ability to add notes and highlight sections of a score has been added to version 1.70 of iGigBook. We tried to make this feature both versatile and easy to use and judging by the feedback that we have received, we have achieved that goal. We still have more plans for this feature and others so stay tuned...

So Long 2011, Hello 2012

Ah, the end of the year and it's been a pretty good one. A lot of features have been added to iGigBook as well as a number of performance improvements. The capability to transpose chord charts really rounds out the app by providing quick access to melody along with quick access to the transposed harmony. Keep your eyes peeled and your ear to the ground during 2012 for more great features.

Happy New Year!

iGigBook Version 1.57 - How an update both works and doesn't work.

After spinning out version 1.57 of iGigBook an update that added the ability to make a copy of a set list and that we made performance enhancements to and fixed some iOS5 specific bugs something very interesting happened. It seems a large number of people but not everyone, had a problem with the update, meaning they performed the update and the app would crash when they tried to launch it. People that newly purchased the app didn't have this problem nor did a fellow that I'm playing "A Christmas Carol" with and the two iPads I have updated without a hitch. What was also odd is that some people could not access any part of the app i.e. it would never get beyond the splash screen, while others could access the top level views but couldn't view any sheet music.

The good news was that uninstalling the app and reinstalling the app corrected the issue with the update, that's good news because the user can get a resolution to their problem very quickly without having to wait days for an update. If you rely on iGigBook and have a gig that you need to use it on, being able to do something yourself to resolve a problem is the best possible scenario. If reinstalling didn't work, meaning there is a bug that's causing the app to not function, we would have to locate and fix that bug and get an update submitted to Apple and then we would have to wait for the update to be approved, which could take days even if an expedited review was requested.

We created an announcement on our forum over at http://forum.igigbook.com laying out out the steps required to correct the problem:

1. Backup the files
2. Uninstall
3. Reinstall
4. Restore the files

We also pushed messages out to users devices using the device notification system(for those users that have notifications turned on) directing users to go to the forum for information on how to resolve the problem and posted these steps on the iTunes page where it says "What's New in Version 1.57". Now that this post exists those instructions on how to resolve the problem are also here.

Transposable Chord Charts

Over a thousand chord charts available here, can now be accessed directly from iGigBook as a Dynamic Book, which means iGigBook has an index that allows you to access any of the charts on the site and also allows you to transpose them to any key. This is a great addition to the app for those situations where you're working with a singer that needs to perform a tune in a particular key and just adds to the extensiveness of your own iPad music library. These charts can be added to set list, shared with other users via email just like any other piece of music you would use in iGigBook. Of course an internet connection is required to view a chart however the caching feature of iGigBook allows any chart viewed to be called up again without internet access.

Busy October

October has proven to be a busy month for development on iGigBook with a grand total of 5 versions, each adding some really cool functionality to the app.

Version 1.51 exchanged the not so useful dimmer feature for a more useful quick view jump feature on the PDF page view. The quick jump allows you to jump to any of the 6 different iGigBook views which means you can swtch between up to 5 different scores using this feature. Version 1.51 also introduced the page preview in the Set List Manager something that was needed since the search can turn up multiple versions of the same tune in different books.

Version 1.52 introduced the ability to set the page offset for a book directly from the device. This is a welcome addition to those user that like using the trial and error method to figure out what the offset to a book should be even though there's a method for computing eactly what it should be.

Version 1.53 didn't introduce anything new but fixed a bug with A4 sized charts that were getting cut off at the bottom and fixed a bug with the set list manager page preview under iOS 5.

Version 1.54 added a feature missing from the Set List Manager search function which was the ability to search indexed song and files contained in the My Scores View. A handy little toggle switch allows you to flip between results from indexed songs and from files contained in the My Scores View. The page preview was also enhanced making it a lot more useful. This particular update got approved by Apple in less than 48 hours!

Version 1.55 added a much needed refresh button to the My Scores View which replaced a nagging pop up that would ask you if you wanted to rescan the folder whenever there was a possibility that the contents of the folder had changed. One may not need to worry about re-scanning the documents folder when there a small number of files present but when you have 500 to 2,000 files in a folder, it takes a while to resolve the differences, open up each file to determine the number of pages, etc. This update bests 1.54 in being approved in less than 24 hours! Go Apple!

There's already a version 1.56 in the works and this tricks the Set List Manager out even further, stay tuned...

From Italy: No Love!

I'm not sure what's going on in Italy, but there are two, one star reviews in the Italian iTunes store and both claim that iGigBook doesn't work, one claims that it is a ripoff and the other says don't buy it.

Non funziona é un furto!!!!!

Mi Sembra un pacco, non funziona! Non compratelo!

I don't know who these folks are, but I do know that version 1.43 of iGigBook is pretty solid and works quite well for thousands of people. I'd love to help them if I could but my experience has been that the person that leaves one star reviews is just looking to rant and isn't looking for or open to getting help.

How accessible is your PDF music collection?

The iPad can be a great gig tool if you have the right app. The right app is one that can enable you to realize the full potential of all of the real books and fake books that you own in PDF format.  There are lots of apps that allow you to store your PDF library on an iPad but you still need to check each book to find the song that you want.  With these apps, your library, though portable, still has limited accessibility.  

Just having the books on your iPad without the ability to search through all of them at once is like using the internet without a search engine.  To be truly useful and for you to realize the full potential of your music library, you need an app that will allow you to search though all of the books by song title or composer to find the one that you want, need or is called on a gig, jam session or rehearsal.  The app that you need and the app that you want is called iGigBook and is available now on the iTunes App Store.

Bookmarks Phase II

Version 1.43 of iGigBook adds a "Purge" button to the bookmark menu enabling you to bulk remove bookmarks that were imported or created. We've also added an "Import" button so that you can decide if you want to pull in the bookmarks from the PDF file that you are viewing.

Sharper Now

Version 1.42 of iGigBook address the lack of sharpness when you pinch to zoom a PDF page. We've also added the capability to rename items in your set list so that you can potentially have multiple copies of the same song n a set under different names.

In future releases we will be enhancing the bookmark import from PDF feature to enable users to create a book index from the bookmarks associated with a PDF score/book. This effectively allows you to build a custom index using your iPad which should satisfy those that feel that the web content manager is not cutting it for them.

Bring in the Bookmarks

Keeping with the concept of quick and easy access to your sheet music, version 1.41 will add the ability to import bookmarks from any PDF that contains them. This feature gives you yet another option of creating bookmarks for quick access to songs within a book. The bookmark list will also have a search bar which we have found you will need if you have a copy of the real book with all 444 songs bookmarked!

New version of iGigBook on the way

I'm currently working on a new version of iGigBook which will make some tweaks to the UI. The My Scores section will be a separate view and tab interface will sport a set of new icons. iGigBook Pager will be able to control(turn pages) on multiple iPads at the same time, which gives rise to some very interesting performance scenarios. Expect to see this capability expanded to provide more control over the remote iPads.