07-03-2025, 12:57 AM
Hello everyone.
Our community wind band will soon, thanks to some charity funding, be buying thirty Android tablets. I am the band's librarian (and trombonist) and so I will be the guy responsible for making sure all the tablets are correctly set up. I feel I am right at the start of a massive learning curve... and it's quite daunting and overwhelming. I'd really appreciate some gentle help and advice.
My hope is that the thirty tablets can all be exact copy clones of one 'master' tablet. The band owns the tablets and will not allow players to take the tablets away from gigs and rehearsals. As each tablet will be identical, the players should be able to pick up any of the tablets and navigate to their instrument - for example THIRD CLARINET. From there they have access to all the third clarinet content parts of our entire library of music. From my research so far I can then set up a folder with just the songs for our next concert: all the third clarinet parts in order, ready to play.
Now it starts to get complicated. For example: if we have two THIRD CLARINETISTS in the band and one of them starts marking up their part with reminders and directions, that copy of the part is now personalised to that player. The other THIRD CLARINETIST should still be playing from an un-marked version of the file (and my indeed start putting their own mark-ups on their part). Is it possible to have multiple 'mark-up overlays' each given a personalised name of the player?
Can I update all thirty tablets in one go, or do I have to do each one individually? We have good wifi here, but perhaps there is a cable loom system for large ensembles?
Another potential problem is that I'm on a Mac and have no clue how Windows works. Am I correct that I can run all the Android tablets from the comfort of my own personal iPad which would function as the 'MASTER' device?
I have Dropbox too and I believe this will be important for syncing and backing up.
I'm sorry if these questions are making you all groan out loud and roll your eyes to the ceiling... I'll get there eventually, but some friendly guidance would be very much appreciated and valued. I couldn't find much info out there about using mobilesheets for large ensembles, but I'm guessing it must be possible.
Thanks,
Sam
Our community wind band will soon, thanks to some charity funding, be buying thirty Android tablets. I am the band's librarian (and trombonist) and so I will be the guy responsible for making sure all the tablets are correctly set up. I feel I am right at the start of a massive learning curve... and it's quite daunting and overwhelming. I'd really appreciate some gentle help and advice.
My hope is that the thirty tablets can all be exact copy clones of one 'master' tablet. The band owns the tablets and will not allow players to take the tablets away from gigs and rehearsals. As each tablet will be identical, the players should be able to pick up any of the tablets and navigate to their instrument - for example THIRD CLARINET. From there they have access to all the third clarinet content parts of our entire library of music. From my research so far I can then set up a folder with just the songs for our next concert: all the third clarinet parts in order, ready to play.
Now it starts to get complicated. For example: if we have two THIRD CLARINETISTS in the band and one of them starts marking up their part with reminders and directions, that copy of the part is now personalised to that player. The other THIRD CLARINETIST should still be playing from an un-marked version of the file (and my indeed start putting their own mark-ups on their part). Is it possible to have multiple 'mark-up overlays' each given a personalised name of the player?
Can I update all thirty tablets in one go, or do I have to do each one individually? We have good wifi here, but perhaps there is a cable loom system for large ensembles?
Another potential problem is that I'm on a Mac and have no clue how Windows works. Am I correct that I can run all the Android tablets from the comfort of my own personal iPad which would function as the 'MASTER' device?
I have Dropbox too and I believe this will be important for syncing and backing up.
I'm sorry if these questions are making you all groan out loud and roll your eyes to the ceiling... I'll get there eventually, but some friendly guidance would be very much appreciated and valued. I couldn't find much info out there about using mobilesheets for large ensembles, but I'm guessing it must be possible.
Thanks,
Sam