Hello,
1. Is there any advice for setting up the library and sharing songs and set lists between tablets that will be playing different parts for the same piece? I was thinking about having each part for each piece as a separate song with the same title but the instrument in the custom field
This is a little bit tricky to get everything set up initially, but then it should be smooth after that. What you will need to do is have multiple copies of the same song on each device (one for each part), but the way you will connect these songs when using the "Connect Tablets" feature is another field such as the Custom field. This is controlled on the slave devices if they tap the Settings button on the "Connect Tablets" dialog. If you match on Custom, then you need to insert values on each device to match up the parts you want displayed. So if the master loads one version of the song, the other tablets will load different versions of that song based on which version they insert the matching custom value in. Hopefully this makes sense. While you can use Song ID for this, if you also use the library synchronization feature, this can cause issues as the library sync will match up and sync songs with matching song IDs.
As a side note, I'm going to be adding a feature in the future for instruments/roles. I've talked about this in other posts, but you'll be able to assign instruments to different versions of a song (although you can use whatever identifier you want in this "instrument" field), and then there will be an instrument selection on the main library screen. After picking an instrument, MobileSheetsPro will always choose the version of a song that matches the instrument if one is available. So you could then use the "Connect Tablets" feature and the correct version of the songs will be loaded on each device. This also simplifies the library synchronization as you can then just have the same library on each device.
2. Is it better to use wifi or bluetooth for connecting the tablets?
It depends on your device and requirements, but I personally find WiFi to be more reliable with my standard Android tablets. This does not take into consideration power draw though. WiFi also supports any number of tablets connected at once, where as bluetooth can allow anywhere from 3-7 devices. The limit depends on the hardware in the device and/or the bluetooth stack in the OS.
3. Is it possible to connect a bluetooth pedal while also connecting to other tablets using bluetooth/wifi?
Yes, you can maintain multiple simultaneous bluetooth connections, but you still have the same limit I described above. So the pedal eats up one of the possible bluetooth connections.
4. Is there a benefit to having the piano parts in a separate library to the quartet parts or should I just have them as different collections?
This is a complicated question as it depends on how you want to manage things and how many songs you'll have in the library. In general, having a separate library isn't really necessary and you wouldn't gain much from that. If you had 10000+ songs in each library, then it might be easier to have separate libraries just when it comes to navigating and managing the library.
Hope that helps a little,
Mike
1. Is there any advice for setting up the library and sharing songs and set lists between tablets that will be playing different parts for the same piece? I was thinking about having each part for each piece as a separate song with the same title but the instrument in the custom field
This is a little bit tricky to get everything set up initially, but then it should be smooth after that. What you will need to do is have multiple copies of the same song on each device (one for each part), but the way you will connect these songs when using the "Connect Tablets" feature is another field such as the Custom field. This is controlled on the slave devices if they tap the Settings button on the "Connect Tablets" dialog. If you match on Custom, then you need to insert values on each device to match up the parts you want displayed. So if the master loads one version of the song, the other tablets will load different versions of that song based on which version they insert the matching custom value in. Hopefully this makes sense. While you can use Song ID for this, if you also use the library synchronization feature, this can cause issues as the library sync will match up and sync songs with matching song IDs.
As a side note, I'm going to be adding a feature in the future for instruments/roles. I've talked about this in other posts, but you'll be able to assign instruments to different versions of a song (although you can use whatever identifier you want in this "instrument" field), and then there will be an instrument selection on the main library screen. After picking an instrument, MobileSheetsPro will always choose the version of a song that matches the instrument if one is available. So you could then use the "Connect Tablets" feature and the correct version of the songs will be loaded on each device. This also simplifies the library synchronization as you can then just have the same library on each device.
2. Is it better to use wifi or bluetooth for connecting the tablets?
It depends on your device and requirements, but I personally find WiFi to be more reliable with my standard Android tablets. This does not take into consideration power draw though. WiFi also supports any number of tablets connected at once, where as bluetooth can allow anywhere from 3-7 devices. The limit depends on the hardware in the device and/or the bluetooth stack in the OS.
3. Is it possible to connect a bluetooth pedal while also connecting to other tablets using bluetooth/wifi?
Yes, you can maintain multiple simultaneous bluetooth connections, but you still have the same limit I described above. So the pedal eats up one of the possible bluetooth connections.
4. Is there a benefit to having the piano parts in a separate library to the quartet parts or should I just have them as different collections?
This is a complicated question as it depends on how you want to manage things and how many songs you'll have in the library. In general, having a separate library isn't really necessary and you wouldn't gain much from that. If you had 10000+ songs in each library, then it might be easier to have separate libraries just when it comes to navigating and managing the library.
Hope that helps a little,
Mike