Miscellaneous Music scanning apps

[SaxinNZ]

Just wondered if anyone has come across this one.

I was looking for a simple low cost music scanning app to allow me to copy some sheet music (purely for myself and my own practicing, not to breach copyright etc etc) from the various tutorial books I have, so that I can have the “written score” played back to me, which will obviously help me hear/learn how to translate and play back.

I found one app through a review, which said that the cost was a mere $4.49 purchase on Google Play. However, when I looked at the same app on the Apple Store website, (as I have IOS not Android), the same app is only available at a yearly subscription of $40. The discrepancy here seems very strange to me.

Can anyone tell me, is this usual? I’m a little old school, and I would sooner pay for something than have to continually pay each year. These things can run away with your money if you don’t keep an eye on them, and I have enough “regular” bills without having to account for one after another “subscription”.
Thanks

 

[wakyct]

Which app? Sometimes there's a difference in features etc. which explains the different prices.

I found a website recently that you might like, Soundslice | Create living sheet music, though to be honest things like that seem like they could turn into a bit of a crutch. That one is $60/year to scan PDFs among other things (it has a free tier with fewer features).

 

[skeller047]

My experience with these kind of things is that accuracy is always an issue. If you are scanning saxophone music, you will need an app that does transposition, which may increase the price.

My suggestion - get a notation app, (Dorico, Sibelius, MuseScore), and input the music yourself. Most notation apps have a light or free version that is limited to just a few staves per system, which should be fine for your case. MuseScore is completely free.

There is a learning curve to these apps, but there are many tutorials on YouTube. I think you will get to where you want just as quickly.

 

[SaxinNZ]

The one I was looking at (because of a good review) was "Sheet music scanner" .

 

[SaxinNZ]

My experience with these kind of things is that accuracy is always an issue. If you are scanning saxophone music, you will need an app that does transposition, which may increase the price.

My suggestion - get a notation app, (Dorico, Sibelius, MuseScore), and input the music yourself. Most notation apps have a light or free version that is limited to just a few staves per system, which should be fine for your case. MuseScore is completely free.

There is a learning curve to these apps, but there are many tutorials on YouTube. I think you will get to where you want just as quickly.

Well I have some Sax playalong books, but Im not a music reader as such...just learning. One book I have has a CD to let you accompany the written music which is great. I just wanted to have the same facility to do this with other written sheet music and books I have.

 

[SaxinNZ]

My experience with these kind of things is that accuracy is always an issue. If you are scanning saxophone music, you will need an app that does transposition, which may increase the price.

My suggestion - get a notation app, (Dorico, Sibelius, MuseScore), and input the music yourself. Most notation apps have a light or free version that is limited to just a few staves per system, which should be fine for your case. MuseScore is completely free.

There is a learning curve to these apps, but there are many tutorials on YouTube. I think you will get to where you want just as quickly.

Well the question was really about the discrepancy in pricing.
As I said, on Android (Google play store) the app is simply $4.49 as a one off pay for life.
But, on Apple Store, the same app costs about $40 per year...???

The irony is, I recently bought a Ipad because all the other music apps I wanted were not available for MAC (my laptop).

 

[mizmar]

I'd think carefully about this (well, you asked here, so you are!). Although the idea of scanning the pages and quickly having a digital version, maybe with some backing or demo, seems obvious; it rarely works "out of the box". Not only can there be errors, but file format incompatibility so that this app doesn't read files from that app etc. Also the attempts at playback may need fettling with, yet another app, googling, websites with dodgy adds etc - All much harder if your music reading isn't great...

.... You can easily end up with a major incident of time theft.

On the other hand, filling an iPad with fresh digital sheet music and backing content will cost much less than the iPad itself.

I use android and Mobilesheets so that all my material is well organised, easy to find and backed up. Backing, demos, metronome, notes, annotations, links to YouTube etc. All in one place. And if you're desperate, you can take a photo of a page and stick it in there. A real time saver! Apple has mobile sheets, forescore or equivalent - and probably woth the £$€¥ more than flakey scanning apps and hours of your time.
Pro tip: spend your ¥ on a digital pen to annotate scores, I've found that to be really worthwhile

 

[Jimmymack]

I use Musescore. It's free and pretty comprehensive. I'm using a fairly old version (3) which does the biz in terms of playback but is a bit basic soundwise. The new one has much improved playback.

If you are struggling a bit with your reading you may find it also helps you as you need to pay attention when you are copying something over and you become more aware of what you are doing and what's going on in the music.

Learning to use it is the usual learning curve stuff but it doesn't take too long to get going especially if you are mainly looking at lead sheets and there's plenty of info and advice available online. They have been trying to get a process to scan PDF into it but last time I tried it was definitely hit and, mostly, miss but they may have improved it in later versions.

Try it, there's nothing to lose.

 

[skeller047]

The point I was trying to make is stated more clearly by @mizmar above - namely, you will likely spend significant time trying to “fix” problems that the scanning app doesn’t address.

That time is maybe better spent by just copying the written music into a notation app. You will learn the music better, and develop a skill that will help you as you progress in music.

I agree with @Jimmymack - MuseScore is great. A learning curve to be sure, but it is a very capable program.

 

[SaxinNZ]

The point I was trying to make is stated more clearly by @mizmar above - namely, you will likely spend significant time trying to “fix” problems that the scanning app doesn’t address.

That time is maybe better spent by just copying the written music into a notation app. You will learn the music better, and develop a skill that will help you as you progress in music.

I agree with @Jimmymack - MuseScore is great. A learning curve to be sure, but it is a very capable program.

Firstly, some great advice from all you guys, and thank you.
I have a few of the apps/programs mentioned. Some on MAC and a couple or so on my new Ipad (which I bought for all of this).
Skeller, I agree with your suggestion that writing up my own music onto a notation app will be a good step in actually teaching me to develop skills, whereas simply photographing an existing sheet and pasting it wont do much at all in that respect. So, I will use this approach, but also I guess it wouldnt hurt to explore the other options along side of this.

Thank you all for helping me make the right decisions.

 

[mizmar]

I use android and Mobilesheets

I thought I'd mention that the developer of Mobilesheets has added support for ABC with ChordPro. This provides a text/markup tool for writing music (abc) as well as annotating lyrics with chord symbols etc (ChordPro). It's not at all a full fat score composing tool; but might be a convenient way to note a few bars of a tune.

Disclaimer: in have no relation with the developer other then using the app.