Category: Technical

3 Ways to “Going Digital” with your music

By Gordon Cameron 25 Jul, 2023 2 Comments

Updated 25/7/2023

“Going Digital” has so many advantages over paper but one of the most common questions we are asked is “How do I get my music into a digital display system?” “I want to use Power Music on my iPad, tablet or laptop, so how do I get my music?” This article describes three ways to get your music into Power Music and start taking advantage of using electronic music display.

In the blog post, we will take a look at:

  • PDF files
  • Scanning paper music
  • Power Music virtual songbooks

As always we welcome your comments and feedback on articles.

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A Review of Page Turners – Not the Human Variety

By Gordon Cameron 18 Jul, 2023 5 Comments

page-turnerA 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.

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How small can a PC get?

By Gordon Cameron 30 Jun, 2023 Leave a comment

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.

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The New MusicOne 12-Pro

By Gordon Cameron 2 Mar, 2023 Leave a comment

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…

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New Mini-PC for Large Screen MusicOne

By Gordon Cameron 10 Jan, 2023 Leave a comment

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.

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Microsoft Windows – Updates

By Gordon Cameron 15 Oct, 2021 4 Comments

Upgrading to Windows 11

This ongoing blog has been running since the 1803 update in 2018. I have been giving some Hints and Tips for the various Microsoft Windows Feature updates since then. Now we have a new edition of Windows – Windows 11.

In this addition to the blog, I will say a little about my experience of Windows 11 so far.

So after Microsoft saying Windows 10 would be the “last” version of Windows we have – drum roll – Windows 11!

The elephant in the room is of course the dreaded “every second version of Windows was terrible” theory.

Some would say – this has been the pattern for over 20 years: 98 was good, ME was garbage, XP was great, Vista sucked, 7 was good, 8 was rubbish, 10 is great – so if the pattern works where does that put 11? Lets hope it breaks the rule!

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Using an ultra W – I – D – E Screen Monitor

By Gordon Cameron 10 Sep, 2021 Leave a comment

Recently a long-time user of Power Music (Ed from Texas) contacted us with an interesting problem. His set-up for creating and editing his music was a Windows PC running 2 x 24inch monitors. On one monitor he had Power Music in full screen mode so he could annotate his music and on the other he was running an audio player and some other apps he wanted to use at the same time.

Then he changed from 2 x 24inch screens to a single 48inch curved wide screen, and here was the issue – when going into Full Screen mode in Power Music it did just that – filled the whole screen. He could no longer see his other app at the same time as annotating the music!

He asked if we knew of any solution…

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Review: STOMP Bluetooth pedal from CODA MUSIC Technology

By Gordon Cameron 18 Feb, 2020 3 Comments

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.

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One Organist’s DIY Page Turning Solution – Gavin Bateman

By Gordon Cameron 15 Nov, 2019 6 Comments

About Gavin

Back in September 2018 Gavin contacted us about wanting a suitable page turner pedal for use at the organ. Unfortunately, there was really nothing available off-the-shelf. He was willing to do a bit of soldering and carpentry so I suggested the AirTurn BT200 was a suitable “donor” pedal for his project. Gavin has been busy and this post, written by him, explains the project. Gavin started working life as a BBC Sound Engineer then after 20yrs changed tack to be a music teacher. Now retired early. He has played the organ since he was 11 and got his ABRSM performance diploma in 2013.

25 Sept 2019 – An update to this post has been added at the end…
15th November – Update and new photos – The Mk III pedal added at end…

This is his story…

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Talking about Tablets (the new MusicOne 13)

By Gordon Cameron 20 Aug, 2019 2 Comments

Here at Power Music Software (and previously as Cambron Software) we have been selling MusicOne digital music stands since December 2011 – almost 8 years! All of these music stands have run Power Music – initially Power Music 4 then Power Music Professional.

The basic features of a digital music stand are:

  • Touch screen display
  • Solid state hard drive
  • Fanless or silent
  • Adjustable floor stand
  • Foot pedal page turning
  • Power Music Professional

Our current range of MusicOnes have screen sizes from 10″ to 27″. This week we have launched a new 13.3″ MusicOne which I am very impressed with. This blog goes into some detail about the new MusicOne 13 – if you don’t want to read the details have a look at this short video – sorry about the quality! It’s down to the very bright screen on this tablet – more about that later.

 

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