When things go wrong!

Power Music Help Centre to the rescue.

Recently we received this email:

Hi there.
Just wanted to send you a huge Thankyou. We had a database issue this morning but it was so easy to find the backups and fix it thanks to the instructions that were incredibly easy to find and follow.
Great product and fantastically well organised help centre!
Huge thanks

The email was from Ewan who is the worship leader at Chipping Sodbury Baptist Church. Ewan has been a Power Music users since 2011 – over 12 years! We first met at Mission Worship where we were exhibiting in the amazing Floral Hall in Eastbourne.

I thanked him for the comment and he replied with the full story of what went wrong that Sunday morning.

So here Ewan’s full story…

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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.

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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.

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Featured Musician – Jim McLaren

Accordion and piano player Jim tells us about Power Music and MusicOne

Jim has been a long time user of Power Music. He runs a large farm in Fife and has a fascinating blog about farming http://cultsfarm.co.uk/

We asked Jim to tell us about how he uses Power Music and MusicOne digital music stands – so grab your self a cup or glass of something and have a read of what Jim told us…

Firstly, as a musician I play the accordion and the piano. The accordion is mostly Scottish Traditional Music and second accordion to accompany others – I play occasionally in a dance band. I also play the accordion at my local church, either helping out the organist, or occasionally doing all the music myself if he is not available.
Piano playing is mostly classical piano, and as I am working towards my Grade 8 exam I have lessons every week. I also do a bit of vamping for a small accordion workshop group that I play for.

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So what’s so great about Power Music?

With an increasing number of music display apps coming onto the market, we thought it was time to talk about why our users think Power Music is great! All the points below are taken from comments we have received from our users over the years by email, phone and face-to-face at exhibitions.

We always welcome feedback about Power Music so feel free to send us your comments and suggestions, especially ones like this recent comment from Jeroen Jacobs – a German pianist…

Your software is best in the world. I have not seen better, more stable, more versatile, more easy to use software. It’s just great. Never need anything else.
I use it together with a Microsoft Surface Pro.
It’s super stable.

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Interview with Jim Diack – Worship leader

For the last 6 years, East Mains Baptist Church in East Kilbride has been using Power Music with their worship band at every service.

We asked the worship leader at East Mains – Jim Diack – for an interview about his experiences with using Power Music over the years.

We hope you find a “real world” user’s comments helpful.

Here’s the interview…

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What Screens Size for Displaying Music?

We are often asked about what “size” of screen on tablets or all-in-one PCs is best for displaying music. When talking about screens there are really 4 things to consider:

  • Size
  • Aspect Ratio
  • Resolution
  • Pixels per inch

In this short article I am going to look at each of these, particularly in relation to displaying sheet music. So to get us started here is a diagram showing the relative sizes of the screen on a number of common devices.

 

Size

For some historical reason screen sizes are still measured in inches – possibly because of the influence of the USA in technology and it’s use of imperial units.

I am reminded of my visits to a timber supplier where I asked for “two meters of two by inch white pine” – we really need Read more...

Chord Sheets for Worship Songs from WeAreWorship.com

One of the most common questions we get asked on our support desk and at exhibitions is “What is a good source of worship song chord sheets?”

There are many websites out there that let you download chord sheets, but people tell us that quite often there are errors in the lyrics and the chords used are not the original ones. Also it is important that the websites pay royalties to the copyright holders of the songs you download – not all websites do!!

Recently we worked with Integrity Music Ltd, AKA WeAreWorship to create a free songbook of chord sheets that we were giving away at Mission Worship 2016. Integrity Music let you download chord sheets from their website WeAreWorship.com. All you need to do is open a free account with them. I have created a short tutorial video on importing chord sheets from WeAreWorship.

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A user’s perspective: Working in the background

Today’s guest blog comes from long-time user of Power Music Alun McCarthy. Alun leads worship at St Peter’s Shared Church in Guildford and has been previously featured in this blog as a featured musician. Here, Alun shares some tips and tricks he’s learned using Power Music:

As a musician and worship leader, what I’m doing is far more important than how I’m doing it. If a congregation is distracted by the machinery of the music group this can defeat the purpose of a service. I’ve found several ways of using technology and software (Power Music) that help me to achieve a flow of worship without being noticeable to a congregation.

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Farewell to CDs

Power Music: No longer supplied on CD

cd-proSince the launch of Power Music many years ago (actually way back in 2007) Cambron have always offered users who purchase the software the option of download or buying it as a physical copy on CD.

As from  Friday 23rd September, we will no longer be supplying CD copies of Power Music Professional or Power Music Mac.

Of course, the important thing is not the CD but the Product Key which is used to register and activate Power Music.

There are several reasons why we are doing this:

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