New ventures, new software
A blog about Colin Cameron and Kids Club software. KidsClub.me enables easy registration for parents, and simple check-in for attendees.
Category: Announcements
A Review of Page Turners – Not the Human Variety
A review of page turners including the new flic 2 Bluetooth button.
The art of being an efficient (human) page turner is a highly sought after skill for performing musicians, particularly those whose hands are occupied on a keyboard or keyboards. But not all musicians have a page turner.
I remember well the time a few years ago I attended a Christmas concert in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries in Glasgow, where Kevin Bowyer was manfully struggling with a large book of music on the piano, as he accompanied the choir singing carols. Watching the pages of the book slowly flipping over, as if in slow motion and then Kevin’s antics at getting back to the page he was wanting to play was most amusing. I have to say that today Kevin is now a total convert to electronic music display and no longer has this nightmare.
So if you are thinking of moving to electronic music display or are already a user, I thought a short review of the current crop of (non-human) page turners might be helpful. I am only reviewing ones I have personal experience of and the opinions expressed in this blog are mine. These pedals all work really well with Power Music. If you have other experiences with page turners please feel free to post a comment on this post.
How small can a PC get?
MusicOne mini-PCs
When we launched the Large Screen MusicOne we looked for a small PC to run Power Music. The Large Screen MusicOne uses a touchscreen display from 22 to 27 inch. The last thing a musician needed was a large desktop PC or even a laptop connected to the touch screen.
In this blog I am going to look at the options for the mini-PCs available for MusicOne.
The New MusicOne 12-Pro
Including guest contribution from Don Dickson
Going Green
Here at Power Music we like to do our bit to help save the planet. The new MusicOne 12-Pro uses a refurbished Microsoft Surface Pro 5. These have powerful 7th Gen i5 processors, 8GB RAM and a 128 or 256GB SSD. With the disposal of waste computer devices becoming a major problem we are using these Microsoft officially refurbished devices in an attempt to help reduce waste. They have many years of life left in them and are easily powerful enough to run Power Music Professional and store 10s of thousands of pages of music.
One of our happy customers for the MusicOne 12-Pro is Don Dickson – a long time user of Power Music. Don send us an email about his experience with the MusicOne 12-Pro and he is happy to share it with you.
Read Don’s comments…
New Mini-PC for Large Screen MusicOne
For many years now we have been selling MusicOne Digital Music Stands. These have touchscreens from 16 inch to 27 inch and can either be mounted directly on a music rack of a keyboard/organ or on a tripod floor stand.
The smaller MusicOne, 16 and 20 inch, are all-in-one Windows PCs but the Large Screen MusicOne have a separate mini-PC to run Power Music Professional or AF.
We have been supplying either Intel NUC mini PCs or Stick PCs but with technology moving on, we can now supply a new format of mini-PC which is somewhere in size between the NUC and the Stick PC. This is an exciting new format for MusicOne, so this blog is a review of this new format mini-PC.
Review: STOMP Bluetooth pedal from CODA MUSIC Technology
As the developers of Power Music we keep a keen eye on what page turners are currently available. The page turner market has been fairy static for the last couple of years with the main offerings coming from AirTurn, PageFlip and various “budget” Chinese pedals.
Then recently I was made aware of the STOMP from CODA MUSIC. This got my interests because it looked like a quality product, so I got my hands on one and here are my thoughts on the STOMP.
Going freemium with Power Music App – discontinuing Power Music Reader
Update 11th Feb 10:00 GMT: the update to Power Music App should now be available.
Note 7th Feb 18:00 GMT: unfortunately the update to Power Music Reader was released early before the Power Music App update was approved by Apple. Please keep checking and we will update as soon as the updated Power Music App becomes available.
If you are a user of Power Music Reader you may have seen the notice that the app is now discontinued, and we are asking all users to move over to Power Music App, which is now free to download.
So what does this mean for existing and new users of Power Music on iPad and iPhone?
Music Designed for iPads and Tablets
Special arrangements of music for single page display.
We pride ourselves in the quality of chord sheets and sheet music scores we offer in the Power Music Store. But we realise that with many worship musicians now using iPads or Windows tablets, it is normal to display one page of music on the screen. This can be a big issue with music engraved for printed books, and this is where most music PDF files come from. Here’s a classic example…
Music Scanning – How to get the best results.
Article Updated February 2018
Recently Cambron launched a new USB portable document scanner called the MusicOne scanner. This short article (based on a previous blog post) gives users of this and similar scanners some hints and tips on getting the best results in Power Music.
Camera technology has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years and the results you can achieve from this scanner are quite amazing. The MusicOne scanner can be used with the built-in software in Power Music Professional or simply as a stand-alone scanner using either the free software that comes with the scanner or the supplied TWAIN driver along with your favourite image editing software. I will cover all this in the blog.
Updated Blog Post – Review of Page Turners
Back in December last year I wrote “A Review of Page Turners – Not the Human Variety“. Since then there have been a couple of new pedals launched and one is no longer being manufactured. This is an update to that article.
So if you are thinking of moving to electronic music display or are already a user, I thought a review of the current crop of (non-human) page turners might be helpful. I am only reviewing ones I have personal experience of and the opinions expressed in this blog post are mine. These pedals all work really well with Power Music and most other music display apps. If you have other experiences with page turners please feel free to post a comment.
