01-25-2023, 09:26 AM
I've been using MobileSheets for my string quartet for a few years now. We mainly use it for gigs where we're playing background music but we have occasionally used it for performances (and later this year we're planning a performance of the Brahms Piano Quintet).
I bought four tablets and bought four MS licences under the same account. The tablets are Boox e-Ink tablets so the licences were for the e-Ink Android version of the app.
To use the tablets at a gig we connect them using the app's leader/follower function via bluetooth. That allows me to choose a song or a setlist on my tablet so that it automatically loads on the other tablets. With Mike's help I worked out a way of setting the libraries up so that when I load the cello part on my tablet the appropriate part comes up on the other tablets. It was a bit of a workaround method but it works well. The workaround should become unnecessary when Mike finishes the versioning update but it was essential for us - there are quite a few violinists and violists who could be using the other tablets and I needed to set them up so that they could use them without needing to know anything about the app. With new players I show them how to turn on the tablet, how to open the app, and how to connect their tablet to mine, and I connect their pedal if they have one. Once that's all done the players just have to turn their own pages. Everything else is controlled from my app.
If your group always has the same 4/5 members and does concert performances (i.e. only needs a small number of pieces at a time) and the members aren't too tech-naive then it's probably easiest to let them each control their own tablet - control the settings, backup their libraries, create the setlists, decide how they want to handle page turns/repeats etc for themselves. It is certainly possible for you to control all of that yourself though.
The thread where Mike helped me set up the tablets for quartet use is here I think but let me know if I can help with that at all. Setting the libraries up so that you can control the other tablets from yours takes a little bit more work for you but is much easier if you set it up that way from the start.
Guy
I bought four tablets and bought four MS licences under the same account. The tablets are Boox e-Ink tablets so the licences were for the e-Ink Android version of the app.
To use the tablets at a gig we connect them using the app's leader/follower function via bluetooth. That allows me to choose a song or a setlist on my tablet so that it automatically loads on the other tablets. With Mike's help I worked out a way of setting the libraries up so that when I load the cello part on my tablet the appropriate part comes up on the other tablets. It was a bit of a workaround method but it works well. The workaround should become unnecessary when Mike finishes the versioning update but it was essential for us - there are quite a few violinists and violists who could be using the other tablets and I needed to set them up so that they could use them without needing to know anything about the app. With new players I show them how to turn on the tablet, how to open the app, and how to connect their tablet to mine, and I connect their pedal if they have one. Once that's all done the players just have to turn their own pages. Everything else is controlled from my app.
If your group always has the same 4/5 members and does concert performances (i.e. only needs a small number of pieces at a time) and the members aren't too tech-naive then it's probably easiest to let them each control their own tablet - control the settings, backup their libraries, create the setlists, decide how they want to handle page turns/repeats etc for themselves. It is certainly possible for you to control all of that yourself though.
The thread where Mike helped me set up the tablets for quartet use is here I think but let me know if I can help with that at all. Setting the libraries up so that you can control the other tablets from yours takes a little bit more work for you but is much easier if you set it up that way from the start.
Guy