Thanks Guys. Your input is much appreciated. No Iām not going to let this beat me! . Even if I end up doing none or minimal editing on the downloads from UG, itās good having the songs Iāve learned/am learning in the one place on my iPad.
My other songs are in Justinās songbooks (Iāve got them all) or in Beatles/Bob Dylan/etc songbooks which are of course indexed.
You may remember a while back I was looking for a spreadsheet solution to build an overall index for the Justin songbooks. Iāve now got this done using the Apple numbers app so I donāt have to look through the separate indexes to find songs.
As I mentioned earlier(possibly another thread), I use a āscan to pdfā app on my phone and convert the lessons I want out of Justinās (and other) songbooks. I then upload them to SongbookPro.
I donāt manipulate or edit anything. Sometimes I use the markup feature to annotate the score.
Mostly it is a really convenient tablet score notebook. I even have a pedal that scrolls it, although I use that rarely.
I use ScannerPro on my iPhone. I have the free version and havenāt needed any additional features of the paid versions (I hate subscriptions for this type of thing).
I also use it to scan all tax documents, legal documents, recipes and all sorts of things. Very useful app.
Iāve been experimenting with Adobe Scan and Iāve discovered it can scan in ābookā mode meaning it will scan both pages of an open book in one scan and then create a pdf of each page separately but within the one file. This is especially ideal for my Justin songbooks which have ring binders so lay flat and have the song on the left page and the hints and tips on the right hand page (or a longer song that covers two pages). This pdf can then be imported into SongbookPro. I canāt edit the PDF files. It appears I would need the Adobe Acrobat paid for version to do that
What I should be able to do now is scan and import the songs I want from these books (and of course other books too) into SongbookPro meaning I can have all the songs I want on my iPad.
Brilliant. I shouldnāt have been so quick to give up yesterday! Now all I need to do is practise taking decent scans so the pages donāt look all squint.
Just wanted to thank you for raising this topic, as its got me thinking about how I use Songbook Pro and how I can make greater use of its āfeaturesā especially with PDFs.
So I have just finished importing the 20 track PDFs for David Hamburgerās Fingerstyle Blues Handbook and will do likewise from some of my other Truefire courses, Blues Rock Soloing, and Justinās Solo Blues Course which also includes PDFs. Most of these also come with GuitarPro files but I find it easier to follow a PDF than using GP (old eyes!) to learn a song but having to scroll manually in Adobe is a real pita. Collating the lesson material in Songbook Pro makes it much easier and I just create a Set for each course.
And all portable should I decide to play in the courtyard for a change.
I have been watching this thread with some interest. At the moment I use Guitar Pro for learning and practice and printed song sheets for āperformingā. and trying to work out if Songbook Pro is worth it for me.
I can see it works for rhythm playing where you just play the chords, but what about the individual notes for solo or fingerstyle playing? Can it cope with that?
See my screen shots for both fingerstyle and lead a few post back. You could export your GP tab as a PDF and import that into Songbook as already discussed. Or copy and paste TAB entries from UG and the like, as I showed above, and build the song layer by later.
Or a combo of the two like White Rabbit.
I havenāt put effort into seeing if the tablet version of Guitar Pro can do the same as what SongbookPro does. Itās descriptions suggest it might, so you might look into that if you already have the tablet version.
I like that SongbookPro is really a pretty straightforward program and you can scan any pdf you want into it, lesson text, cord shears, tab and whatever.
I made a comment on this thread a long time ago that I used printed paper and plastic sleeve binders for songs.
Well that got unmanageable a few months ago, and I switched to Songbook Pro. It seems the best I could find, although its syncing didnāt work properly for me for a long time (now itās working properly finally via webdav).
I found it cumbersome for tabs, so I still use GP & save tabs to my computer or ultimate guitar. But itās great for chords & lyrics, which is really what I find I need once Iāve learned a song.
If you are into Apple environment and looking for a really good (bonus) free app to create a songbook, check out JustChords. It works on iPhone/iPad and Macās.
Regularly updated with new features, you can:
Write your own songs and tab, lyrics chords and strumming diagrams
Import and edit songs from web,
Transpose/Capo, change key on the fly,
Includes chord diagrams (Guitar, Ukalele, piano) but you can add and edit your own chords and choose versions to use in songs
Show chords with or without beats,
Tap chord in song sheet to play chord sound
Add backing tracks from multiple sources and play while screen auto scrolls song sheet
Record your audio
Create Setlists for live play
Project your lyrics via Airplay
Bluetooth and midi options
AUv3 compatible with DAWs, send your chords and beats to DAW
Tools include Tuner, metronome, chord library
lots moreā¦ā¦
Did I mention that it free!
I use patacrep. Unfortunately, itās no longer maintained, but I managed to get the latest version working to create my own songbook. More for PDF and paper version people.
So far SongBook Pro works for me. I struggle a bit with including strumming patterns, e.g. Wonderwall. Do you have a hint how to include strumming patterns? Unfortunately there is no directive in ChordPro. Cheers Nik
I very rarely add actual strumming patterns into any Songbook Pro entries, as I allow the song to dictate what I am strumming. I do add ātabā entries, where I may have to recall an intro or repeating riff.
. Even if I end up doing none or minimal editing on the downloads from UG, itās good having the songs Iāve learned/am learning in the one place on my iPad.
