Back in 2015 (Wow! that’s nine years ago!) we did a Featured Musician blog on Alun McCarthy.
Alun was an early adopter of Power Music and has been using it ever since! Recently he purchased one of our MusicOne 12 Green systems – based on a refurbished HP Windows tablet. He suggested he could do a follow-up blog about his experience with the MusicOne.
Here it is…
I’m a big Power Music fan. I’ve been using Power Music right from the time it started, I still have a V1 CD knocking about somewhere.
I’d mainly used Power Music on a laptop, although more recently I installed it on an old and clunky iPad so I could be more mobile with it. I’ve been looking for an alternative option, so when I saw the Green Option for the MusicOne 12 I decided to take the plunge and place an order.
The order process and support from Gordon was second to none, I really can’t fault this lovely family business. From what I’ve seen on their Community Blog entries I know I’m not alone in my experience.
The unit arrived in perfect condition, thanks to superb packaging. The very comprehensive user guide was a nice touch, and had a wealth of useful advice on setting up.
Power Music was pre-installed and had already been registered with my product key, which meant all I had to do was import my database and I was set.
The software runs on the HP Pro exactly as it does on my laptop, so my first few tweaks were to check the default settings (in Tools > Settings), ensuring my default display was set to chords and Colours/fonts were set to my favourites (Chord line yellow / Text line white / Background black). These are just my preferences – other favourite settings are available and it’s well worth exploring the wide variety of settings that are available in Power Music.
I would also recommend taking the advice found in Tools > Appearance and set Power Music to override high DPI scaling. This makes the display nicely crisp and a lot clearer.
The music stand itself is compact and impressively sturdy. Readers of my previous blog post will know that my church is blessed with an enthusiastic flag-waving contingent, which means I’m always sure to tie down expensive pieces of equipment where they might be in direct flag-line. The music stand is ideal and rock solid on the floor and I’m confident there won’t be any issues with stability in this respect.
I’m using the HP Pro as my main device in church and for other gigs. I control it with a Bluetooth page-turner, which was easy to connect and works perfectly.
I do most of my Power Music database maintenance on my laptop, but it’s a doddle to upload new or updated songs to My Box so I can download them to the HP Pro to keep everything in sync.
As a side project, I’m working to link mp3 files to songs in Power Music and I’m looking to link them via OneDrive. For general database maintenance My Box is way more efficient and remains my go-to application for that.
All in all, the MusicOne 12 is a lovely piece of equipment and is far less obtrusive than the laptop-on-a-stand option that I’d used before. The familiarity of a machine running the software in Windows meant there was absolutely no new learning curve for me to climb. I’d thoroughly recommend this to anyone looking for a reasonably priced portable option for church services or regular gigs.
Alun McCarthy June 2024
Find out more…
If you want to read Alun’s previous Featured Musician article: Click here
If you would like to know more about Power Music and our range of MusicOne Digital Music Stands, why not give us a phone on 01355 246832 and have a chat. Unlike some other companies we are always happy to talk to customers on the phone!
