Yesterday, 07:06 PM
(Sorry for this rather long post, but I'm trying to share the real context.)
I think there are many many bands out there who are looking for the best way to manage a completely digitalized sheet music collection. While MobileSheets is clearly the best app for managing a personal sheet music collection, I think there are still a few things that could be improved to help bands of different sizes.
We have a band where I am the sheet music administrator ("master"), managing the master files, Songs and Setlists in MobileSheets. Most musicians ("clients") have their own tablet with a unique MS library, as most of them also play in multiple other bands.
Each client often makes individual annotations on their own tablet. They might also add their own metadata to the songs.
My role is to:
1. Buy or retrieve song files (pdf), using them to create new songs in the master library.
2. Create new setlists for gigs.
3. Update existing setlists before the gig.
4. Distribute songs and setlists (new and updated) to the clients.
We have agreed on using a common tag "OurBand" in Collections to identify all our Songs included in the clients' libraries. I also maintain other metadata in the Songs, such as Genre, Key and Artist.
For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that every client is playing any of our songs based on the same pdf file. In a bigger band, things are actually more complicated because different musicians play different parts (instruments), and for such pieces we must create multiple Songs in the library, one for each part. Different part also need to be tagged in some group, in order to facilitate filtering of the relevant part.
What we need is an easy and foolproof workflow that makes sure that every client is always equipped with the sheet music for the latest setlist in their own MS library. Synchronizing libraries does not seem to be a viable solution. The best solution we've found so far is to use msf files.
Using msf files
==========
For a new or updated setlist, I will export an msf file to a cloud folder and the clients can import that msf file anytime to their own MS apps. We have faced the following behaviors:
A) If the Setlist already exists in the client's library, that setlist can be updated. This is the option we are using.
B) If a Song with the same name already exists in the client's library, the client is prompted with two options:
B1) Update the existing Song with data (file, annotations and metadata) from the msf file.
B2) Create a new Song with data (files, annotations and metadata) from the msf file
The issue with behaviour B1 is that even if the existing Song uses the same file as in the msf, all the client's existing annotations and metadata are erased.
The issue with behaviour B2 is that the client's library ends up with duplicate songs based on the same file. The version used in the setlist does not include the annotations that the client has made.
What we would like to see is the following behavior to be added:
@Mike: Can you please consider/comment on this?
Or does anyone have an "easy and foolproof" workaround?
I think there are many many bands out there who are looking for the best way to manage a completely digitalized sheet music collection. While MobileSheets is clearly the best app for managing a personal sheet music collection, I think there are still a few things that could be improved to help bands of different sizes.
We have a band where I am the sheet music administrator ("master"), managing the master files, Songs and Setlists in MobileSheets. Most musicians ("clients") have their own tablet with a unique MS library, as most of them also play in multiple other bands.
Each client often makes individual annotations on their own tablet. They might also add their own metadata to the songs.
My role is to:
1. Buy or retrieve song files (pdf), using them to create new songs in the master library.
2. Create new setlists for gigs.
3. Update existing setlists before the gig.
4. Distribute songs and setlists (new and updated) to the clients.
We have agreed on using a common tag "OurBand" in Collections to identify all our Songs included in the clients' libraries. I also maintain other metadata in the Songs, such as Genre, Key and Artist.
For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that every client is playing any of our songs based on the same pdf file. In a bigger band, things are actually more complicated because different musicians play different parts (instruments), and for such pieces we must create multiple Songs in the library, one for each part. Different part also need to be tagged in some group, in order to facilitate filtering of the relevant part.
What we need is an easy and foolproof workflow that makes sure that every client is always equipped with the sheet music for the latest setlist in their own MS library. Synchronizing libraries does not seem to be a viable solution. The best solution we've found so far is to use msf files.
Using msf files
==========
For a new or updated setlist, I will export an msf file to a cloud folder and the clients can import that msf file anytime to their own MS apps. We have faced the following behaviors:
A) If the Setlist already exists in the client's library, that setlist can be updated. This is the option we are using.
B) If a Song with the same name already exists in the client's library, the client is prompted with two options:
B1) Update the existing Song with data (file, annotations and metadata) from the msf file.
B2) Create a new Song with data (files, annotations and metadata) from the msf file
The issue with behaviour B1 is that even if the existing Song uses the same file as in the msf, all the client's existing annotations and metadata are erased.
The issue with behaviour B2 is that the client's library ends up with duplicate songs based on the same file. The version used in the setlist does not include the annotations that the client has made.
What we would like to see is the following behavior to be added:
- If a Song with the same name already exists in the client's library AND it is based on the same file as in the msf file, a third option is added to the user prompt:
B3) Keep existing Song and link it to the setlist.
@Mike: Can you please consider/comment on this?
Or does anyone have an "easy and foolproof" workaround?