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Staffpad is on sale for $40… but you need to have an Apple Pencil.
Staffpad goes on sale periodically. It’s $40 and all the extra libraries which are NOT required are also on sale.
The main additional cost however is the requirement to use an Apple Pencil to write notes into the score.
Comments
Exactly. I'm a bit surprised but the is nothing about trying another pen. I'd have thought someone would give it a go. I'm tempted. Hard to bite the bullet when there is a point blank no it won't work from the developer though. Have you ever seen anything of anyone trying other pens?
People have tried but they can’t get bug fixes. Seriously, no other device has the accuracy of the apple devices and each new version is better and better. The latest version that powers from the iPad when connected via magnets is the best… always powered up and ready to get to work. The older pen that need a frickin’ dongle to connect to a lightning cable or inserted right into the iPad was a nightmare.
The dongle got tossed out or thrown into some “junk drawer”.
The new pencil writes music with very few errors and my productivity went way up. It tool me back to my music school days when all my music needed to be written with a pencil or copied using ink. Mistakes could require starting all over again.
StaffPad has gotten good at import/export using MusicXML with Notion or Dorico so you could work without anything pencil and just use StaffPad to render audio.
It’s a tool for studio composers. Parts cab be changed and passed out to iPads via networking. Music Teachers and budget composers are all over this app. It’s better/faster than most desktop solutions at a fraction of the price.
It still needs a Jazz library for more articulations for a brass section. The drums are good but the brass is like a classical player with gentle tongue technique and no sweeps into or out of a note.
The recent addition of smart audio imports that adapt to the Staffpad metronome allows inports from the usual IOS tools and vocals, etc. So Staffpad can add string arrangements just like in the standard pop studio workflow.
The forums for Staffpad get new posts 2-3 times a week that complain about bugs and the slow delivery of new libraries.
When the potential update that converts audio into notation arrives then a pencil might be less important. When you ask? That’s asked event week since they demo’ed the feature at Apple’s M1 iPad launch. Still waiting. When it drops it will do what no other app has been able to do.
@McD does Apple Pencil 1 work well enough with Staffpad or is Pencil 2 that much better I may as well wait until an upgrade to a new iPad?
Also any idea how long this sale might go?
Thanks
Apple Pencil 2 is more accurate as @McD will tell you but my iPad 6th gen only works with Apple Pencil 1, and I have no problems with it in StaffPad
@mjcouche
Thanks for the info.
I made dozens of pieces with a 2017 iPad (the cheaper model) and a Pencil 1.
But I decided the lack of storage was ruining the experience since most of my purchases were pushed back to the store (figuratively).
So, I invested for a good 5 year run with the best in each configuration choice including Cellular support which has come in handy pretty often. And the new pencil is more efficient and writes with less drag too. But the bill was insane. I tried the best of everything on a M1 MacBook and well… it’s and 50% more than the iPad Pro M1 as you might expect. I might go for a Mac Mini and a actual piece of studio furniture but I like my couch too much. It suits me contours.
So, are you saying a non iPad pencil won't work at all, or will be inaccurate?
I haven’t tested it and the developer hasn’t tested it or coded for another product. I haven’t seen anyone claim they use another product but you can check the user forum via Google. I know the question has been asked and the answer is never obvious.
I’ve tested the Logitech crayon. It can select menu items but does not work when writing on the score itself (the whole point). I’d bite the bullet and get the Pencil
Something tells me you told me this before my short term memory fell off that cliff.
Thanks for talking the long route to making Staffpad work.
I keep looking for ways to sneak notes into my projects without the pencil and as a result my handwriting is not very good.
Last time I checked it also runs on M1 Macs. I was able to restore all of my instrument purchases and using a cheap Wacom gfx tablet worked well enough to do minimal editing. You also benefit from the iCloud support meaning you can switch between devices.
Assuming the M1 Mac compatibility continues (could be a big assumption, given the new StaffPad owners) then this is a steal for desktop owners, even using just the standard instruments and importing your own MIDI for rendering if you are not fond of scoring.
Edit: the other big advantage of desktop compatibility for me was having somewhere else to have my ‘investment’ installed. If the iPad version is disappeared one day then my desktop install should still be around for some time to come.
@McD @mjcouche Thanks for that. Pretty much answers all my questions.
No shirt! That does it. M1 Mac is on my shopping list. I’ll then investigate potential touch solutions. I just picked up a free IOS control surface for Macs App: “Remote Touchpad and Keyboard”. Maybe the Apple touch pad would be good. My new iPad has a Smart Keyboard with touch and keys which makes it a MacBook Lite with “Mac OS Lite” = IOS.
For those that might care: StaffPad has a Windows Surface product that is probably also on sale that might not need an expensive pencil add-on. UPDATE: Windows version is NOT on sale.
Did it ever get the update with recording via audio or midi that they promised over a year ago?
The handwriting recognition was terrible the last time I tried. Always wanted to play in parts.
It got an update that supports recording and importing audio.
They playing in MIDI to be rendered in Notation is still pending… I suspect (since it was a demonstration of the capability on an M1 iPad) that they are struggling to work on older iPads.
I have yet to investigate playing MIDI into Dorico and transferring the results via Music XML into Staffpad. Notion also has pretty decent Music XML import/export. I was converting complex MIDI files to Music XML when Staffpad would usually crash on MIDI imports. The MIDI import got a lot better with the recent update.
They also added an Adaptive audio that time stretches the audio with changes in BPM settings.
You can also align the “time” track “beats” with points in an Adaptive Audio track and solve the clock drift problem that makes so much MIDI recorded without a click like @Linearlineman tends to do.
Then he adds a drum app and it’s just crazy making for a old drummer like me. He just never drilled playing with live musicians or a metronome because it takes him out of the now.
Wow, thank you @McD for pointing out the sale. I just got it yesterday and baught the Berlin Strings library, which is splendid. I spent some time on it today, and I am blown away. I can really see it becoming my go to app for creating complex arrangements specially if the MIDI export works well which I didn't try yet. If it does, I could create the arrangement inside staffpad, and then if needed, export the MIDI in my DAW and use the SWAM apps. Once again, thank you letting us know!
On sale until September 9th.