Planning Center Music Stand 4+

I use this app on a weekly basis and it works mostly great. I love being able to make my own personal notes on songs and save them for future use. However, recently, there was an update that changed the way the songs are displayed in landscape view. I had been able to have 2 pages displayed and change the display one page at a time, with this update, I have to change 2 pages at a time. This simply doesn’t work for me unless every song is 2 pages or every song is one page. If I have a one page song and then a 2 pager, I will have pg 1 and pg1 on a screen and then pg2 is on the next screen. Super inconvenient, please fix this. 🙏🏻

We're sorry about that! I'm afraid this was an uncaught bug, but we have a fix that will come out after the weekend. If you're in a bind, and would like to try our pre-release beta version, please write in to beta@pco.bz.
Thank you,
Matt

I’ve been using this for a month, there is 1 glitch and there are a few things that would make it more useful. The glitch that needs to be fixed: When I open the app and choose the pdf song versions I need, there needs to be a save button. When I exit the app and return, it usually changes them. I have to have this ready to go prior so others aren’t waiting to start worship. The requests that would make it more useful: 1) when zooming in on a 2 page song they nearly always needs to be zoomed at different levels but the program won’t allow it so it would be helpful it it could be zoomed by the individual page; 2) sometimes more than 1 version of the same song is needed. For example, a keyboard player may need written piano music (like for an intro, bridge, instrumental, etc.) in addition to the chord sheet. There are a few ways around it but it’s a pain (like adding the song more than once in each version but there again, close the app and it doesn’t remember it and you get 2 of the same thing or something else you didn’t want. Plus adding a repeat song to the list confuses others). I’m glad to have this app though. I keep detailed notes on my written music and my copy gets lost often when others file it, so this way it is saved and I don’t have to fumble my paper each week!

Hi and thanks for the honest review!
The app should certainly save that last-selected PDF, so something odd is happening there. Could you please send in an email to support@planningcenter.com with more details so we can talk together more about this?

As far as these feature requests go, we can certainly consider them! Zooming a PDF will always apply that setting to the entire file, including each page, so that the text etc all match sizes. I don't think we plan on supporting viewing more than 1 PDF file at a time. The PDF your keyboardist seems to require is a custom one, where pages of both piano music and chord charts would need to be a part.

Again, please feel free to write in to us with more, so we can talk about it together. Reviews aren't very conducive for conversation 😊

Thanks and Happy New Year,
Matt

Years ago, this app was ok. Subsequent updates have made it worse, while apps like Unreal Book continue to advance functionality without adding bugs. At some point, Music Stand removed the ability to zoom with 2 fingers while in annotation mode, which adds steps and takes time. None of my other apps of similar use are like that. They are smooth and streamlined for professional musicians who need to work quickly. This one is not. The last couple of updates have been pretty buggy as far as the app taking way too long to "think" while making annotations. Or even turning a page in annotation mode. Meanwhile, I have none of these problems with similar apps. This latest update seemed like an improvement until I started working with it for a bit. It is actually worse. I’ve never had this app work so slowly as it does now. I spend so much time staring at a loading screen while I could move on to other things. The writing tool just flat out doesn’t work half the time until I exit the app and return. I am unfortunately tied to it with various church gigs, but even then, if I can avoid using it, I do.

I'm very sorry you are experiencing these issues. Could you write in to support@planningcenter.com with details so we can help you today? We'd love to look into what is causing this for you. We haven't run into these ourselves in our development and testing, so the more information about your experience, the better.
Thank you,
Matt