StaffPad 4+

Looking at some of these reviews, I had hoped that I would not have issues with handwriting because I rarely write music on paper and would not have to relearn much. However I am too having issues with the handwriting detection. The biggest issue is sets of sixteenth notes. It doesn’t matter what I do - StaffPad cannot detect them most of the time. I even tried to follow how it was done on one of your tutorial videos and it didn’t change much. I have also had a whole note be detected as a quarter rest. The dynamic marks also do not like to work. MF turned into both MP or SFZ. I would also prefer if it could detect notes if stems are longer. Making the stems exactly one octave from the head is very hard to do.

The app simply needs more time put into the handwriting detection for people like me with “messy” handwriting. It would nice to not have to take so much time trying to make every note so perfect that it can be detected.

I wrote a review shortly after I bought the app and shared my enthusiasm at the time. Well, my appreciation for this app has only grown. I have bought the Berlin sound libraries, a number of fine samples libraries, and Voxos ( about $800 worth of sound libraries in total). This app, with sound libraries of this quality, is truly the fulfillment of a lifelong dream…write out musical ideas and realize them in high quality with ease. I look forward to how the app will evolve, but I hope that you continue to build on the core vision, which, for me, is the support for easily inputting notation by hand and translating it into high quality sounds. Currently, I get 80-90 percent of the way there with StaffPad. And, I am grateful for that! To get the last 10-20 percent, requires exporting midi or xml in order to fine tune performance with more fully featured sound samples (For example, VSL synchron series or EWQL libraries). Unfortunately, the last 10-20 percent requires almost starting from scratch in a DAW (Cubase or Studio One for me) as almost none of the performance subtlety output via midi or xml translates. Not sure what the best solution would be…integration with more libraries, or the addition of some sort of export settings? Maybe the ability to draw more accurate cc curves and export them to channels as desired? Not really sure. Anyway, thank you!

I really enjoy this app but it is excessively difficult to consistently draw the accidentals correctly. Flats in particular are especially hard to get right. It’s moments like this that can really kill the momentum of writing. Adding accidentals to the tool bar will be a very simple fix to this issue that way I can just toggle to the accidental I need instead of fighting with my iPad to draw the accidentals perfectly. You should also add note values to the tool bar. Just about every notation software has this option and will be a game changer for this app. Again, instead of fighting with my iPad to write out the notes perfectly, I can just select the note value I need and put it on the staff. In fact, why not combine both of those ideas.

For example, if you need to draw quarter notes, just select the quarter note value in the tool bar before you draw the notes. That way, the software knows no matter how poorly the note is drawn that its supposed to recognize the notes as quarter notes. Same thing with tuplets. These two things alone will easily make this the best music notation software bar none. The interface is gorgeous and the sounds are phenomenal. However, all of that is useless if 99% of your time is spent fighting with the software. I am BEGGING you guys to please include these features in the next update.