[frachel]

I just downloaded and started playing with the program the other day and wanted to get some tips and opinions on song/group organization before I get too far in.

I play in 3 bands, and that can be a mix of different instruments and parts. I was a little surprised when importing a song there wasn't a metadat field for "part" or "instrument", but I assume I will just need to use the custom field for that? If so, I take it things like "Trumpet 1", "Trumpet 2", "Flugelhorn" would be sufficient.. or would you recommend some other way? I may have 3 versions of a single song, 1 for each instrument - should I be using different filenames for them (perhaps signifying the instrument, like "SongTitle - Trumpet1.pdf"?

next - speaking of the Custom field - i used the "+" to add a value, but I had a typo. I couldn't find any type of "list editor" to edit the values.. the "X" deleted everything in the list, and the "+" added a new value, but didn't see anything to edit existing ones - is it somewhere that I just haven't found?

Back to organization - 2 of the bands are pretty simple - each month we get a set of new songs that we'll play for the next concert so I assume I'll just import them and then make a setlist? The 3rd band we have different types of music (jazz, dixieland, concert) which I'd want to group by (he may say 'next rehearsal we'll work on the dixieland stuff', so I'd want a quick way to just bring up all those pieces) and then for performances we'll pick a subset to play which I assume is where a setlist will come in?

Thanks for any tips and tricks! Like I said I just started playing with the program yesterday, and I won't have a bunch of music to import until later this week when I will get a more "real" feel for it, but figured I'd ask up-front based on my quick usage.

[Skip]

Since you're just starting, and each tune/pdf contains different content but with the same title, I recommend you identify each with a discrete title name song 'XXX-t1, XXX-t2, and XXX-fh, for example. It will help in the future when you're doing searches. Check out the 'genre' and 'collection' tabs and the search function on the custom fields for managing the types.

[BRX]

It depends on taste and how your workflow is.

I probably simply would make collections of the instruments in the collection tab. You can create as many collections as you want. And each song can belong to many collections.

Actually the key and album tabs work exactly like the collection tab so you could create any “collection“ you want in these, too.

Of course you can change the song names, too (changing of file names is not necessary IMO). Also you might want to look into title formatting in the manual if you want some of the metadata to show up along the song tittle in the library or setlists.

[dallaskruse]

I just downloaded and started playing with the program the other day and wanted to get some tips and opinions on song/group organization before I get too far in.

I play in 3 bands, and that can be a mix of different instruments and parts. I was a little surprised when importing a song there wasn't a metadat field for "part" or "instrument", but I assume I will just need to use the custom field for that? If so, I take it things like "Trumpet 1", "Trumpet 2", "Flugelhorn" would be sufficient.. or would you recommend some other way? I may have 3 versions of a single song, 1 for each instrument - should I be using different filenames for them (perhaps signifying the instrument, like "SongTitle - Trumpet1.pdf"?

next - speaking of the Custom field - i used the "+" to add a value, but I had a typo. I couldn't find any type of "list editor" to edit the values.. the "X" deleted everything in the list, and the "+" added a new value, but didn't see anything to edit existing ones - is it somewhere that I just haven't found?

Back to organization - 2 of the bands are pretty simple - each month we get a set of new songs that we'll play for the next concert so I assume I'll just import them and then make a setlist? The 3rd band we have different types of music (jazz, dixieland, concert) which I'd want to group by (he may say 'next rehearsal we'll work on the dixieland stuff', so I'd want a quick way to just bring up all those pieces) and then for performances we'll pick a subset to play which I assume is where a setlist will come in?

Thanks for any tips and tricks! Like I said I just started playing with the program yesterday, and I won't have a bunch of music to import until later this week when I will get a more "real" feel for it, but figured I'd ask up-front based on my quick usage.

I'm in the same position as you.

When I write my charts in Finale, I print them with the part name ... so it would be "Blackbird (G) - Trumpet 1"

That helps me organize my tablets. We have 6 tablets...1 for each musicians and only keep the specific part on each tablet.