Set List Software

[ossyrocks]

I play guitar in a community music group. All ages and abilities, and I do it just to help people out, people who otherwise wouldn’t get to play with other musicians and do gigs, or even get out of the house sometimes. The “set list” is about 60 tunes, with different people singing and playing on portions of it, although I generally help out on all of them. We’ve settled on Songbook Pro. It handles all kinds of formats, from Ultimate Guitar downloads to scanned PDFs of handwritten sheets. Set lists can be created, rearranged and shared with everyone to load on their own cheap android tablets, so we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. With so many tunes, it’s impossible to get everyone to learn everything by heart, so it really makes life easier to have all the chords and lyrics in order and just swipe left for the next tune. 
 

Rob

[BigRedX]

Hurtsfall have just done two decent paying gigs where be played 8 and 6 songs respectively (that's 40 and 30 minutes on stage).

 

We have 10 songs in total that we can currently play although the two weren't included in either set might be a bit rusty!

[Happy Jack]

Best set list software I ever found was an obscure product by a software house you'll never have heard of.

 

I think it was called 'Excel' or something equally silly.

 

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

I think it was called 'Excel' or something equally silly.

Think you are just getting confused with a wordle answer or something!

[rushbo]

I guess it depends on what you really want it to do...

 

If all you're after is a way to put songs in order from a list, then Word or Excel should work.

 

If you need cheat sheets as well, then I'd recommend forScore - easy to use on the fly, reliable and with loads of useful teatures. The only downside is, I think it's only available for Apple products. I've used it for years - it links seamlessly with DropBox, so importing files is a breeze. I use mine with this page turner. And this mic stand tablet holder - although that has been discontinued.

 

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, rushbo said:

I guess it depends on what you really want it to do...

 

If all you're after is a way to put songs in order from a list, then Word or Excel should work.

 

If you need cheat sheets as well, then I'd recommend forScore - easy to use on the fly, reliable and with loads of useful teatures. The only downside is, I think it's only available for Apple products. I've used it for years - it links seamlessly with DropBox, so importing files is a breeze. I use mine with this page turner. And this mic stand tablet holder - although that has been discontinued.

 

That is the tablet holder I use anyway. I will check it out.

 

[Chienmortbb]

I should have said that GuitarTapp has many features including Tab import, transpose, scroll and set lists as well as set list sharing. So to describe it as Set List Software was not good.

[Bassfinger]

On 23/12/2022 at 15:23, Happy Jack said:

Best set list software I ever found was an obscure product by a software house you'll never have heard of.

 

I think it was called 'Excel' or something equally silly.

 

That what we use. We have a band Google Drive account and it's stored centrally, and i print mine off. We're a bunch of old farts we try to keep it simple.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Bassfinger

[TrevorR]

Another happy OnSong user here… I think set list software” is misleading. The beauty is being able to organise a library of chord sheets into a set list. Have used this at church (where who knows what random blast from the past could suddenly show up…) for many years..

 

[Chienmortbb]

15 hours ago, TrevorR said:

Another happy OnSong user here… I think set list software” is misleading. The beauty is being able to organise a library of chord sheets into a set list. Have used this at church (where who knows what random blast from the past could suddenly show up…) for many years..

 

Yes my fault for using the wrong title. I will look at OnSong and ForScore when my new tablet arrives on Wednesday. 

[Woodinblack]

Although I have forscore, which I use for piano sheet music (and it is great for it), I can't think how I would use it live, what do people do with that?

[casapete]

On 25/12/2022 at 14:01, Woodinblack said:

Although I have forscore, which I use for piano sheet music (and it is great for it), I can't think how I would use it live, what do people do with that?

In my acoustic duo we use it for all the parts, be it lyrics and / or chord sheets etc. 

As a lot of the gigs we do are based on audience requests - we have a lot of stuff

on there, I reckon in the 1000’s. We can usually remember the song’s formats, 

but the lyrics are usually where we need help so have an iPad each and use

a pedal to scroll through them both simultaneously. ( We keep the iPads fairly low down so

as not to be obtrusive, and nobody has ever complained.  Works really well!)

[SH73]

On 23/12/2022 at 11:32, Lozz196 said:

Same - only change has been the need to make the letters bigger over the last few years to compensate for middle aged eyesight.

This is when bifocals or verifocals come handy 

[Woodinblack]

10 hours ago, casapete said:

We can usually remember the song’s formats, 

but the lyrics are usually where we need help so have an iPad each and use

a pedal to scroll through them both simultaneously. ( We keep the iPads fairly low down so

as not to be obtrusive, and nobody has ever complained.  Works really well!)

well, that is how I use songbook, I just wondered how forscore is good for that

[dand666]

On 23/12/2022 at 10:47, Newfoundfreedom said:

I'm intrigued. Why does anyone need set list software? What does it do? 

 

I've always just written the set list down on a bit of paper and stuck it somewhere I can see it. 

 

As someone who deps/theatre gigs/cruise ship gigs, you need some sort of software ideally to keep track of scores and songs.

 

Any cruise ship band worth their salt should know 300/400 songs. Im not saying you have to know them off by heart, but that's where the iPad comes in and having the ability to pull up the score or chart in seconds is invaluable. 

 

Been a long time since I have seen people using paper sets or handwritten notes. But maybe that's just the area/gigs I do?

[SimBass]

Just to chime in for any android users (since the main apps for managing charts are apple only)

I use 2 app:

For chord charts I use "setlist helper" (equivalent to OnSong and uses the same chordpro format to allow sharing and has a nice screen scrapping feature). The main use for me is the ability to change key on the fly in a band where you play with a large set list and lots of different singers who can't sing in the same key (church!) but also useful for function band dep'ing if you haven't learnt the full set. Great app, keeps being developed and cheap one off payment (pro only required for transpose and a couple of other features.)

 

The other app I use is Orpheus, I play in a 'Big Band' and need to have 200+ fully notated music charts available (with lots of scribbled annotations) so this manages those PDFs for me and syncs directly with Dropbox. I would love to use ForScore but won't be paying for a 12" iPad just for the use of 1 app when I don't have any other apple products. It's a great app with a small annual fee (cheaper than ForScore), developed by 1 person in Australia who helped me quickly sort out the one bug I had. Also really useful if you dep for a band (e.g. Big Bands in my case) which have fully written charts, since you only need to dump the pdfs on Dropbox and they sync straight through. The only disadvantage to ForScore is it doesn't have the "Jump to" function for D.S. / D.C and other repeats but that's not big deal.

 

 

I hope that's useful, took me a while to settle on these apps for Android 

 

(I also use iReal Pro....great app for Jam sessions!)

[basstone]

I've used OnSong for a few years now with multiple libraries for different bands. E.g small jazz, soul/funk, worship. I have a mixture of lyric charts with chords and PDF manuscript. All libraries are backed up and shared via dropbox. For worship there are great online resources for such as worship ready and song select to download compatible charts from. There is a good editor that allows accurate positioning of chords and an instant change key and capo feature, which is handy for working with different singers. Export of PDF with or without chords is also handy for sharing with those who  still prefer to use paper! There are loads of other features such as backing tracks and MIDI that I have not ever had a need to use

 

For jazz I also use iRealPro with the extensive online library imported. Playlists can easily be shared by email or message and also key change is quick and easy. Also a great resource for playing along to and essential for jazz jams or scratch band gigs.

[Chienmortbb]

On 28/12/2022 at 00:42, SimBass said:

I would love to use ForScore but won't be paying for a 12" iPad just for the use of 1 app when I don't have any other apple product

I understand that, and I can remember when I used to get bored with people going on about their MACs. Then I was given one at work, as some of our products needed software not available on Windows.  After using it for about 4 weeks, I got it. I got an iPhone three with some of my redundancy money and have been an Apple fanboy ever since. I am writing this on my Windows PC as when that 2007 MacBook finally gave up late 2020, I could not afford a MAC.  I am saving my pennies for my next MacBook, though.😊

[JohnDaBass]

On 23/12/2022 at 10:03, Chienmortbb said:

I have been using GuitarTapp for some years, and it has served me well, but there have been no updates since 2018. Some features do not seem to work any more, so I was wondering what others use?

Tried to sync my GuitarTapp Pro today only to receive a message that Sync was not available due to the porting of files to the new App version and directing to a FaceBook page.

Has anyone Beta tested the new GuitarTapp Pro App.

Like @Chienmortbb I have been using it for years and it really works for me, I would prefer to stay with GuitarTapp but I'm interested to hear what others have experienced with the new App version.