Good God! Is this program ever easy and powerful!?!
I downloaded this program yesterday. After a small learning curve I am doing work so quickly that I can’t believe it. It is extremely easy to use. The organizational structure is extremely thorough. There are so many things in this program to make your life easy that you will not believe it. This is what every program should be like. Mike, the developer, is very quick to respond to questions. Forget any other program. This is the one.
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Faster than forScore
I was a user of this app when I had a surface, now I have an iPad and I have been using forScore for the past year but it has been so slow and buggy, messing up my annotations. This is much better
Fantastic for performers
MobileSheets is everything I could want in an app like this. I play in a bluegrass group where each person plays multiple instruments and sings, with a repertoire of hundreds of songs in all different keys and instrumentations. With capos and banjo tuning and instrument changes, if we’re in A and the instrumentation and somebody’s already got a banjo on, MobileSheets makes it really easy to filter by key and tag (like “banjo”). Similarly, I have things tagged for pickers or singers, genre, who sings lead, etc. You can edit all the tags/genres/etc so you can categorize however you’d like.
Could you figure stuff like that out on your own? Maybe. But in addition to the brilliant tagging, filtering, playlists, and more, MobileSheets also is a wonderful “show me the PDF” display for lyrics and charts.
I’ve used MobileSheets on a chromebook for years, but having it on an iPad is great, especially for the ability to draw on the screen to add notes to charts.
It’s not perfect. Some things I’d love to see would be the ability to add additional “templates” instead of blank pages, like a blank page with bar markers for quickly charting out a song. (Easy enough to make your own template then use that but it’s a lot more steps.) I’d also love an auto-sync option to always keep my Dropbox/Google Drive updated when I make changes locally.
But it’s hands down the best app for keeping track of lots of music in one place. The metadata (tags, genre, keys, etc.) really makes the app. Nothing else I’ve tried comes close to the flexibility MobileSheets allows.
Oh, and you can run it on macOS as well, which I haven’t used much but might make it faster to manage your library, do lots of adding new content, etc.
Could you figure stuff like that out on your own? Maybe. But in addition to the brilliant tagging, filtering, playlists, and more, MobileSheets also is a wonderful “show me the PDF” display for lyrics and charts.
I’ve used MobileSheets on a chromebook for years, but having it on an iPad is great, especially for the ability to draw on the screen to add notes to charts.
It’s not perfect. Some things I’d love to see would be the ability to add additional “templates” instead of blank pages, like a blank page with bar markers for quickly charting out a song. (Easy enough to make your own template then use that but it’s a lot more steps.) I’d also love an auto-sync option to always keep my Dropbox/Google Drive updated when I make changes locally.
But it’s hands down the best app for keeping track of lots of music in one place. The metadata (tags, genre, keys, etc.) really makes the app. Nothing else I’ve tried comes close to the flexibility MobileSheets allows.
Oh, and you can run it on macOS as well, which I haven’t used much but might make it faster to manage your library, do lots of adding new content, etc.
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Much better library organization than forScore
I’ve used forScore for years and loved the clean look but hated the library organization. If you have more than a few books or pieces of music in your library, forScore just doesn’t cut it. MobileSheets is organized much better and has a library management that is extremely versatile.
Most musicians have the usual mix of files:
- book/collection containing multiple songs saved as a single pdf
- book/collection of multiple songs saved across multiple pdf files
- multiple books/collections saved in a single pdf file
MobileSheets is capable of handling all of these situations by letting you create virtual books pieced together from one or more page ranges from one or more pdf files, all organized neatly allowing you to quickly find any book or song. The original pdf files stay untouched, but the “virtual” songs can be added independently to whatever books, collections, setlists, etc you want within the app. Sure you can kind of do this with forScore by creating bookmarks or setlists, but with forScore the pdf titles and the bookmarks all get jumbled together and the collections of multiple pdf files get displayed differently than collections within a single pdf file, and it becomes difficult to find the music you are looking for.
And with MobileSheets, you can use a spreadsheet to import page ranges to break up a pdf containing a bunch of songs into individual songs, which makes generating your library quick and easy. In the spreadsheet you can specify any or all of the fields for each song: book, collection, setlist, genre, composer, etc. plus a few custom fields you can change to whatever you want.
Other benefits of MobileSheets over forScore:
- Books and songs can be sorted by name, date, index, or manually, uniquely for each book. (in ForScore tags/labels (which can be renamed “books” or “collections”) and the songs that are associated with a particular tag/label are always displayed either alphabetically or by date, so to display the contents of a book in the right order you have to prepend a number to the title of each bookmark)
- The composer field (and all other fields) can contain commas (in forScore, “Bach, J.S.” Gets separated into two composers “Bach” and “J.S.”)
- Full titles are actually visible in the library! (in forScore, long titles get cut off)
- Library font is consistent making it much easier to visually scan through a list of songs/books/collections! (in forScore, the font size varies from line to line depending on how long the titles are, so the text doesn’t line up from one line to the next)
- Bookmarks can actually be used as bookmarks, and setlists can be used as setlists, since they aren’t tied up as table of contents management as in forScore.
- There is a MobileSheets app for Windows and also Android tablet, and you can sync your library and settings between different devices.
The only feature where MobileSheets falls short is the lack of tabs allowing you have multiple songs open at the same time and quickly switch between them without losing your place. That is the one feature in forScore that makes it very convenient for a weekly practice routine consisting of several pieces/etudes/scales/etc, or when comparing different renditions of the same piece.
Most musicians have the usual mix of files:
- book/collection containing multiple songs saved as a single pdf
- book/collection of multiple songs saved across multiple pdf files
- multiple books/collections saved in a single pdf file
MobileSheets is capable of handling all of these situations by letting you create virtual books pieced together from one or more page ranges from one or more pdf files, all organized neatly allowing you to quickly find any book or song. The original pdf files stay untouched, but the “virtual” songs can be added independently to whatever books, collections, setlists, etc you want within the app. Sure you can kind of do this with forScore by creating bookmarks or setlists, but with forScore the pdf titles and the bookmarks all get jumbled together and the collections of multiple pdf files get displayed differently than collections within a single pdf file, and it becomes difficult to find the music you are looking for.
And with MobileSheets, you can use a spreadsheet to import page ranges to break up a pdf containing a bunch of songs into individual songs, which makes generating your library quick and easy. In the spreadsheet you can specify any or all of the fields for each song: book, collection, setlist, genre, composer, etc. plus a few custom fields you can change to whatever you want.
Other benefits of MobileSheets over forScore:
- Books and songs can be sorted by name, date, index, or manually, uniquely for each book. (in ForScore tags/labels (which can be renamed “books” or “collections”) and the songs that are associated with a particular tag/label are always displayed either alphabetically or by date, so to display the contents of a book in the right order you have to prepend a number to the title of each bookmark)
- The composer field (and all other fields) can contain commas (in forScore, “Bach, J.S.” Gets separated into two composers “Bach” and “J.S.”)
- Full titles are actually visible in the library! (in forScore, long titles get cut off)
- Library font is consistent making it much easier to visually scan through a list of songs/books/collections! (in forScore, the font size varies from line to line depending on how long the titles are, so the text doesn’t line up from one line to the next)
- Bookmarks can actually be used as bookmarks, and setlists can be used as setlists, since they aren’t tied up as table of contents management as in forScore.
- There is a MobileSheets app for Windows and also Android tablet, and you can sync your library and settings between different devices.
The only feature where MobileSheets falls short is the lack of tabs allowing you have multiple songs open at the same time and quickly switch between them without losing your place. That is the one feature in forScore that makes it very convenient for a weekly practice routine consisting of several pieces/etudes/scales/etc, or when comparing different renditions of the same piece.
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YAY! It’s now on iPad too!!!
I have been using this app extensively on windows PC and I am thrilled to find it now in the iOS App Store, which is why I just purchased a brand new iPad. Now I have the best of both worlds. Thank you, Mr. Zuber!
Cross platform and Sync this is what I’ve been looking for
My local guitar group has been looking for a way to organise our music and this app is perfect, it has versions available for both Apple and Google devices and most importantly has a sync function which works cross platform.
This is a game changer as we can manage our library using the app itself and import from various cloud platforms including google drive, drop box and sync the library to another folder on the same cloud or another. The sync has the concept of true 2 way (ideal for the main device) and then download only can be set on the other devices and did I mention that works, cross platform.
We’ve only just touched the surface of what’s in here, setlists, support for syncing over Wi-Fi so multiple devices all show the same song, same page, support for blue tooth devices to turn pages, midi, backing songs with a media player perfect for practice or if you sort some drum loops.
This app is complete and well worth the asking price, no adds, no subscription and has a pc companion app too to make library management also a bit easier if you so choose.
Did I mention it has cross platform and sync ?
Thanks Michael Zuber, this app is great.
Perhaps a trial / lite version like on the other platform to help people try it would be possible is the only recommendation I have at this time, if possible.
This is a game changer as we can manage our library using the app itself and import from various cloud platforms including google drive, drop box and sync the library to another folder on the same cloud or another. The sync has the concept of true 2 way (ideal for the main device) and then download only can be set on the other devices and did I mention that works, cross platform.
We’ve only just touched the surface of what’s in here, setlists, support for syncing over Wi-Fi so multiple devices all show the same song, same page, support for blue tooth devices to turn pages, midi, backing songs with a media player perfect for practice or if you sort some drum loops.
This app is complete and well worth the asking price, no adds, no subscription and has a pc companion app too to make library management also a bit easier if you so choose.
Did I mention it has cross platform and sync ?
Thanks Michael Zuber, this app is great.
Perhaps a trial / lite version like on the other platform to help people try it would be possible is the only recommendation I have at this time, if possible.
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Look no further
MobileSheets for iPad has been at the top of my “music tech” wish list for seven years. What a great Christmas present! OnSong, forScore, and several others are solid sheet music apps, but MobileSheets is far and away the best thing out there. Not only is it the most feature-rich app, it’s the most cross-platform app. Mike has consistently been one of the most responsive and helpful devs I’ve ever dealt with. The price is outrageously reasonable. Look no further, MobileSheets is the music display app you need!
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The Best
I’ve been using this app on Windows and Android for years. I recently bought an iPad and now am happy that Mobile Sheets is available for iOS. It’s useful for teaching, practicing, rehearsing and performing. This is the one to use.
Wonderful cross-platform sheet music viewer
I have been using musicsheets on my Windows PC and my android phone for years and have been looking out for an iPad version and finally it's here! It looks and works just the same on all three platforms and syncs between them through the cloud so I always have my music up to date.
Finally, scrolling on iPad
I used MobileSheets for a few years on Android and Chromebook devices and loved it. My eyesight and playing in bright light drove me to an iPad Pro 12.9, and I finally settled on forScore but really missed vertical scrolling. Finally, there is an iOS version of MobileSheets WITH vertical scrolling. It is brand new to iOS but beta has been thorough and bugs fixed rapidly [ditto for Android bugs!]. I highly recommend this app — it [currently] doesn’t support facial tics for paging, but it does support pedals very well!
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