Hi musicians (or speakers, or...)
this is mostly a quick note for those who may think about getting such a gadget for playing sheet music.
Although the PineNote may be a little to small it works for lyrics and chord sheets (I tweak the pages to get more on one screen).
And it's good to have the backlight, e.g. for a dark stage. Unfortunately I find the flickering of the backlight distracting. But in the lower positions (not at 100% backlight) it works.
The PineNote (Debian) with KOReader works perfectly fine with following page turners:
- Airturn PED 500 https://www.thomann.co.uk/airturn_ped_500.htm
- Airturn BT500S-2 https://www.thomann.co.uk/airturn_bt500s_2.htm
- Joyo JSP-01 https://www.thomann.co.uk/joyo_jsp_01_pa..._pedal.htm
I had them all and they are connecting fine and instantly via bluetooth with the PN.
Page turning works out of the box with all of them in KOReader (Attention: it starts in "scrolling" mode, but you most likely want the "page flipping" mode).
I didn't like the PED500 - it's very compact, usb-c, but the haptic feedback wasn't good for me.
The Airturn BT500S and JSP-01 both are nice, but have their pros/cons:
Airturn BT500S:
- Made in USA (might be a pro argument?!)
- expensive (~80Euro)
- no USB-C (that was the main reason I decided against it. It has a round power jack, like you would find in a E-Guitar pedal case)
- has a plastic shell, but still looks/feels nice and sturdy
- the switches have a good feedback - like those of a normal effect pedal
- switching of page turner mode works by holding a button. Not obvious at first, but it works.
JSP-01:
- I decided for this one because of the price (<30Euro), the surprisingly good quality and USB-C power
- Made in China (might be a con?!)
- although it's all plastic it feels well manufactured
- the feedback of the plastic flaps is good enough
- changing the mode is easy and clear
But as I said they both work well with KOReader:
- in a multi-page document (and if you are in page-flipping mode) the right switch flips to the next and the left switch flips to the previous page.
- If you configure KOReader to go to the next file at the end of the document, you can click through a whole set of songs/documents if the filenames are numbered in a specific order (I tried with collections, but I wasn't able to find "go to next file in collection" or something like it.)
- the only things that doesn't work (or at least I didn't find out how) is to go back to the previous documents. (I put the "go back" function in one edge of the screen and configured it to go to the last position. Thats a workaround to at least go back to the previous song in case it's needed. But it doesn't work with the left pedal and you can only "go back" to the "last used" document - it will not cycle back to the first document in your set list)
App-wise: Making notes is not completely straightforward. Okular can be used as a workaround, to make an edit fast. But Okular annotations may be cropped/cut off by KOReader.
A solid workflow was:
- I put the original PDF-files in one folder (together with the original odt files from which I exported the PDFs with libreoffice)
- Editing them with Xournalpp and:
- saving the Xournalpp files in a separate xopp folder
- I export the annotated PDF files in a separate folder where I number the filenames like they occur on the setlist
If anyone has a more convenient approach/idea on how to setup documents, or other apps to use - I'd be glad to read about it.
adios
this is mostly a quick note for those who may think about getting such a gadget for playing sheet music.
Although the PineNote may be a little to small it works for lyrics and chord sheets (I tweak the pages to get more on one screen).
And it's good to have the backlight, e.g. for a dark stage. Unfortunately I find the flickering of the backlight distracting. But in the lower positions (not at 100% backlight) it works.
The PineNote (Debian) with KOReader works perfectly fine with following page turners:
- Airturn PED 500 https://www.thomann.co.uk/airturn_ped_500.htm
- Airturn BT500S-2 https://www.thomann.co.uk/airturn_bt500s_2.htm
- Joyo JSP-01 https://www.thomann.co.uk/joyo_jsp_01_pa..._pedal.htm
I had them all and they are connecting fine and instantly via bluetooth with the PN.
Page turning works out of the box with all of them in KOReader (Attention: it starts in "scrolling" mode, but you most likely want the "page flipping" mode).
I didn't like the PED500 - it's very compact, usb-c, but the haptic feedback wasn't good for me.
The Airturn BT500S and JSP-01 both are nice, but have their pros/cons:
Airturn BT500S:
- Made in USA (might be a pro argument?!)
- expensive (~80Euro)
- no USB-C (that was the main reason I decided against it. It has a round power jack, like you would find in a E-Guitar pedal case)
- has a plastic shell, but still looks/feels nice and sturdy
- the switches have a good feedback - like those of a normal effect pedal
- switching of page turner mode works by holding a button. Not obvious at first, but it works.
JSP-01:
- I decided for this one because of the price (<30Euro), the surprisingly good quality and USB-C power
- Made in China (might be a con?!)
- although it's all plastic it feels well manufactured
- the feedback of the plastic flaps is good enough
- changing the mode is easy and clear
But as I said they both work well with KOReader:
- in a multi-page document (and if you are in page-flipping mode) the right switch flips to the next and the left switch flips to the previous page.
- If you configure KOReader to go to the next file at the end of the document, you can click through a whole set of songs/documents if the filenames are numbered in a specific order (I tried with collections, but I wasn't able to find "go to next file in collection" or something like it.)
- the only things that doesn't work (or at least I didn't find out how) is to go back to the previous documents. (I put the "go back" function in one edge of the screen and configured it to go to the last position. Thats a workaround to at least go back to the previous song in case it's needed. But it doesn't work with the left pedal and you can only "go back" to the "last used" document - it will not cycle back to the first document in your set list)
App-wise: Making notes is not completely straightforward. Okular can be used as a workaround, to make an edit fast. But Okular annotations may be cropped/cut off by KOReader.
A solid workflow was:
- I put the original PDF-files in one folder (together with the original odt files from which I exported the PDFs with libreoffice)
- Editing them with Xournalpp and:
- saving the Xournalpp files in a separate xopp folder
- I export the annotated PDF files in a separate folder where I number the filenames like they occur on the setlist
If anyone has a more convenient approach/idea on how to setup documents, or other apps to use - I'd be glad to read about it.
adios
