# Best iPad composing app?



## Bunford (Sep 13, 2015)

Any recommendation for a good app to use for composition for multi instruments?


----------



## bcarwell (Sep 13, 2015)

The one I am excitedly following now is Staffpad:

www.*staffpad*.net/. 

Great demos on Youtube. For Surface though, NOT iPad. Around $70.

I am awaiting a few more point releases however, to insure bug fixes and
to see how the hardware requirements pan out, e.g. do you need Surface Pro
or is a $700 Surface adequate. Also will it be ported to Android, etc., etc.

But I am really excited from what I've seen.

Bob


----------



## dcoscina (Sep 13, 2015)

Bunford said:


> Any recommendation for a good app to use for composition for multi instruments?


Notion for iPad if you are comfortable with notation.


----------



## mpalenik (Sep 14, 2015)

bcarwell said:


> The one I am excitedly following now is Staffpad:
> 
> www.*staffpad*.net/.
> 
> ...


I don't mean to derail, but I actually bought a used i5 Surface Pro 3 on Craigslist, including the typecover (usually around $140) and a year left on Microsoft complete protection for $700.

Staffpad doesn't FEEL like a resource hog. The playback is. . . moderately better sounding than a PC soundcard. I am running it on the i5 and haven't tried anything huge yet, but I just don't see how it can require that much processing power.

Also, I wanted to mention that being left handed, I write a little bit differently than most people. Not all left handed people do this, but I arch my wrist upward, so there's a space below my hand so that I can see what I've written. This has proved to be bad with Staffpad, as I'm always tapping things on the left hand side of the screen before the palm rejection kicks in. So menus keep popping up for changing the volume of the track or key signature, and I tend to drag the score under my hand.


----------



## bcarwell (Sep 14, 2015)

I thought I'd read that Staff Pad doesn't run on Surface Pro as well as a Surface, but may be all wrong. And what sound library are you running for Surface Pro/Staff Pad ? I also thought I'd seen somewhere that there is supposed to be a new sound library coming out for it.


----------



## mpalenik (Sep 15, 2015)

To be clear, I am running it on the Pro, not the regular surface. I even have the i5 processor as recommended. I just find it hard to believe a program like this actually requires that kind of hardware, after using it. And also to be clear, the troubles I'm having aren't from glitches in the program or hiccoughs in processing. They're from the fact that the stylus doesn't seem to work as well as it could for someone who writes the way I do.

I'm using the default sounds that come with Staffpad. You can buy additional sounds through an in-app store, but all the basic orchestral sounds are covered.


----------

