# Cost-effective minimum requirement tablet for Staffpad?



## Crowe

I'm looking into picking up Staffpad, but do not have a tablet *at all*.

What would be the most cost-effective (minimum requirement) tablet to get started with? I've seen the compatibility list, any recommendations for non-Surface Windows tablets? I do not require a full laptop.


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## Kanter

you will be be frustrated with "cost-effective" solutions. I have been through several iterations, upping cpu and RAM each time, and the app has responded kindly at each upgrade. 
Also, at some point t I had a maxxed out (i7, 32GB) Lenovo Yoga flippable tablet/notebook with the requisite active pen, making good headway-- but even the slimmest (i5, 8GB) Surface Pro I replaced it with responded better. I am now at a current SP7 model i7 16GB, running a host of libraries from Berlin, Cine et al, none of which more basic tablets would handle without stuttering-- so it also depends on your intent to stock up on libraries.


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## Crowe

I'd probably get a single one for Staffpad, my main music hub is elsewhere. I kinda just want to write notes digitally in a way that isn't so bloody frustrating.

Thanks for the feedback :D


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## Dima Lanski

An alternative would be a drawing tablet without a screen connected to a PC. I don't own StaffPad myself yet, but from my research/googling it is a viable solution. The downside is that it's not portable, but the upside is a better posture: looking up at a screen, while resting your hand on a table.


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## Jdiggity1

I'd look for a used Surface Pro 4 as a cost-effective solution. I use one for Staffpad without issues, fwiw.


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## Kanter

I second that advice, for the reasons mentioned.


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## MartinH.

Dima Lanski said:


> An alternative would be a drawing tablet without a screen connected to a PC. I don't own StaffPad myself yet, but from my research/googling it is a viable solution. The downside is that it's not portable, but the upside is a better posture: looking up at a screen, while resting your hand on a table.



On the microsoft store page it says among the requirements: 

"OS Xbox One, Windows 10 version 18362.0 or higher"

and:

"ACTIVE DIGITISER/PEN SUPPORT REQUIRED!;TOUCHSCREEN REQUIRED!;Designed for Surface "

That doesn't quite sound like it works on a normal PC with a non-screen Wacom tablet?!


I agree about the posture thing by the way. I have been using non-screen Wacom tablets for most of my life and I couldn't imagine switching to a tablet or cintiq for actual work.


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## Kanter

that posture/Wacom thing seems like an interesting alternative for non-mobile desktop work. Can you recommend a specific model? I imagine a basic one will do, as long as the pen/eraser flip that the Surface pen does is also there.


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## wcreed51

No, unfortunately a basic one won't do. You really need to have multi touch, and the the Cintiq "Pro" models.


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## Kanter

multitouch would be for zooming, right? because most every other function is accessible via key commands. And if the Pro Models all have their own display (as I seem to see from perusing the models), that sort of defeats the purpose of using the desktops display with staffpad in the first place, doesn't it?

BTW the zoom in/out key command is the only important one that's really missing, and I wonder if that is by design, so as to impede desktop use of SP with non-Surface Studio machines.


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## Dima Lanski

@wcreed51,* @*MartinH., do you guys know if there are any low budget drawing tablets with multi-touch, but without a screen?

EDIT: found Inspiroy G10T as an option: https://store.huion.com/products/inspiroy-g10t Not sure if touchpad will work with Staffpad well, though...


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## jeremiahpena

I agree that the best low-cost option is an older used Surface Pro. I bought a used Surface Pro 3 for just $220 and it works great with Staffpad. I've had no issues with it at all (although I don't use any of the libraries, just the stock sounds, so I'm not sure how well it would perform with a full set). A 4th or maybe 5th generation would be quite cost effective.


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## wcreed51

I don't think the Inspiroy is multi touch


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## jonathanparham

jeremiahpena said:


> I agree that the best low-cost option is an older used Surface Pro. I bought a used Surface Pro 3 for just $220 and it works great with Staffpad. I've had no issues with it at all (although I don't use any of the libraries, just the stock sounds, so I'm not sure how well it would perform with a full set). A 4th or maybe 5th generation would be quite cost effective.


YUp, this is exactly the problem I ran into. Once I added Berlin. . . clicks pops not fun. BUT the stock stuff; fine.


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## jonathanparham

I'm currently on a used Surface Pro 5 i5-7300 with 8 gigs of ram. Much much happier


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## Crowe

Thanks for all the input, this thread is extremely useful and has given me a clear point of reference.


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## sundrowned

Fwiw I use a cheap non touch Wacom tablet. I have the zoom function mapped to a key shortcut and controlled by the pen action. A mouse scroll wheel can also be used.


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## Kanter

sundrowned said:


> Fwiw I use a cheap non touch Wacom tablet. I have the zoom function mapped to a key shortcut and controlled by the pen action. A mouse scroll wheel can also be used.


thank you! so the zoom function is there after all, I hadn't found any key command for it (nor is it listed in Steve Bardens SP book), but mouse wheel with modifier indeed does the trick.


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## Mornats

I have a Huion 610 pro V2 which has zoom buttons (but no multi touch). It's a good cheap alternative to a Wacom. I use mine for drawing.


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## sundrowned

Kanter said:


> thank you! so the zoom function is there after all, I hadn't found any key command for it (nor is it listed in Steve Bardens SP book), but mouse wheel with modifier indeed does the trick.



Yes I think by default it's ctrl + mouse wheel for zoom if anyone else is interested. All the functionality is available with either a keyboard and mouse, and/or graphics tablet.


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## Kanter

looking further into wacom tablets, besides multi-touch (interestingly, this seems to have been a natural feature on most wacom drawing tablet lines but dropped on some of the most recent iterations of the low- to mid end product line, for "lack of popular demand" as wacom states) but is there any argument against considering the smallest (as in drawing real estate) variety, for SP input? 

Also, do users confirm the flipped eraser ends on wacom pens are operational in Staffpad? Please include the model#/gen of the respective model if positive. Thanks!


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## wcreed51

But besides zooming you use touch to quickly navigate your score. Using scroll bars for that would be a real "drag"!


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## Kanter

right, but as I said, touch is pretty much ubiquitous in older wacom tablet incarnations down to the non-pro intuos variey.


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## Kanter

right down to the cheapo bamboo models, "pen and touch", anybody use those with staffpad?


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## Sean J

Surface Book 2 15" here

Spitfire Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion...
Berlin Strings + a soloist
Some extra staves for CinePerc, some Berlin Brass, Scoring Synths, a harp, Voxos choir, Spitfire's organ and steel drums, and several antique keys.

I just load it all like a DAW. I reached a limit at one point where performance struggled, removed a couple staves and haven't had an issue. So on a SB2, StaffPad can handle a Mahler sized template just fine.

Edit: I realize this isn't the lower cost option. Just saying if it comes down to it... or later on if one considers upgrading if something doesn't work out, that this certainly does handle a lot. I thought to say this after reading some points on upgrading hardware in the thread. I originally looked at a Huion for a desktop as well, but I want mobility most of all. I wrote a minute of music at the train station on Saturday.


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## Kanter

yes, but if an otherwise useless desktop (speaking in Staffpad terms) can serve as a highly RAM-endowed checking and editing platform for big arrangements, merely by addition of a humble old Wacom pad, the operation becomes interesting, especially if you spec that desktop to outperform even the most current and expensive Surfaces or Surface books.
I'm on a fairly new SP7 i7 16GB RAM, but SP-playbackwise it's no match for my trusted old 4930k 32 GB desktop, obviously.


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## sundrowned

wcreed51 said:


> But besides zooming you use touch to quickly navigate your score. Using scroll bars for that would be a real "drag"!



You don't have to use the scroll bars. You can use the pen for scrolling. I have one of the pen buttons mapped so that if I press it the pen functions the same as a finger swipe.


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## wcreed51

Interesting. But what do you use for the normal button function?


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## Montisquirrel

I am a little unsure after reading all these posts and also the other thread about problems with an Surface Pro 7 i5.

I don't own StaffPad, but want to invest into it with some 3rd party libraries and I want a fluent experience without compromises. I want at least 16GB Ram and an i7 and always though I would buy a Surface Pro. Than did some research and I like the very new Lenovo Yoga 7i which will be released this month, but I am not sure anymore. 

I don't want any desktop solution, I want to be able to write music where ever I am.

This is not an easy decision, because it will be about 1500€ and I have no chance to test it.


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## Aceituna

Dima Lanski said:


> An alternative would be a drawing tablet without a screen connected to a PC. I don't own StaffPad myself yet, but from my research/googling it is a viable solution. The downside is that it's not portable, but the upside is a better posture: looking up at a screen, while resting your hand on a table.


Interested in this solution.
I got a Wacom.
Is there an StaffPad version for PC?


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## Kanter

there always has been!;


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## sundrowned

wcreed51 said:


> Interesting. But what do you use for the normal button function?



The pen has two buttons. So the other button. 

The tablet also has modifier buttons that can be mapped for other functions. For example I have the eraser mapped to one of them.


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## wcreed51

Which Wacom are you using? Is it 4K?


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## sundrowned

wcreed51 said:


> Which Wacom are you using? Is it 4K?




No it's a very cheap Bamboo cth-460 with the touch function turned off. 
I also have another cheap ctl-470 non touch that works similarly.


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## Dima Lanski

sundrowned said:


> You don't have to use the scroll bars. You can use the pen for scrolling. I have one of the pen buttons mapped so that if I press it the pen functions the same as a finger swipe.



Can you please direct me where this function in the list of assignable functions for wacom? 

I just bought a used wacom and StaffPad. It mostly works great, but I have a problem with panning. I tried to map one of the buttons on the pen to the middle mouse button, but it doesn't work. The middle button on a regular mouse doesn't work as well, it just draws instead. Probably a bug introduced in some recent version, since the manual says the middle mouse button should work for panning. 

So I assume you're using some other function? Can you please direct me to it?


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## Sean J

Kanter said:


> yes, but if an otherwise useless desktop (speaking in Staffpad terms) can serve as a highly RAM-endowed checking and editing platform for big arrangements, merely by addition of a humble old Wacom pad, the operation becomes interesting, especially if you spec that desktop to outperform even the most current and expensive Surfaces or Surface books.
> I'm on a fairly new SP7 i7 16GB RAM, but SP-playbackwise it's no match for my trusted old 4930k 32 GB desktop, obviously.



It's not that simple.

2-core machines have outperformed 6-core at sampling before. For a long time, chipset mattered more than clock rate for a reliable DAW build. The thing to remember here is that StaffPad is actively developed for iPad and Surface. Nothing will ever come close to being as reliable as using the same hardware the dev is using to test the product on. That's not saying it won't work, but even if you had a nice tablet monitor that supports active-pen input and multitouch (both being the requirements to run SP) then a 4 socket Supermicro board with 2TB of RAM wouldn't necessarily be as good as an iPad mini.

The best desktop option is a Surface Studio, for that reason alone.


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## sundrowned

Dima Lanski said:


> Can you please direct me where this function in the list of assignable functions for wacom?
> 
> I just bought a used wacom and StaffPad. It mostly works great, but I have a problem with panning. I tried to map one of the buttons on the pen to the middle mouse button, but it doesn't work. The middle button on a regular mouse doesn't work as well, it just draws instead. Probably a bug introduced in some recent version, since the manual says the middle mouse button should work for panning.
> 
> So I assume you're using some other function? Can you please direct me to it?



I'll have to check when I get home. But I think I set it in the Wacom software. I think one of the options was 'panning' or something like that. I'll double check a bit later.


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## Dima Lanski

sundrowned said:


> I'll have to check when I get home. But I think I set it in the Wacom software. I think one of the options was 'panning' or something like that. I'll double check a bit later.



Thank you! Can you please also check the StaffPad version you have, when you're able? I'm on 3.3.3.

For some reason the panning only works in a verticle direction. Both for moving 2 fingers on the touch pad, and when assigning pan/scroll action to the pen's button. It works fine in other programs (Blender, Krita), so I assume it's a bug/missing feature in StaffPad.


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## sundrowned

Dima Lanski said:


> Thank you! Can you please also check the StaffPad version you have, when you're able? I'm on 3.3.3.
> 
> For some reason the panning only works in a verticle direction. Both for moving 2 fingers on the touch pad, and when assigning pan/scroll action to the pen's button. It works fine in other programs (Blender, Krita), so I assume it's a bug/missing feature in StaffPad.



I'm also on 3.3.3. 

I have Pan/Scroll mapped to a pen button and can scroll sideways and up and down. It also works with two fingers. And of course up and down also works with the mouse scroll wheel.


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## Dima Lanski

sundrowned said:


> I'm also on 3.3.3.
> 
> I have Pan/Scroll mapped to a pen button and can scroll sideways and up and down. It also works with two fingers. And of course up and down also works with the mouse scroll wheel.



Thanks! That means the problem is at least somewhat specific to my setup. I just updated to windows 10, maybe I need to reinstall some drivers. Or maybe it's because my tablet is a bit older. We'll see.


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## Montisquirrel

Kanter said:


> I'm on a fairly new SP7 i7 16GB RAM, but SP-playbackwise it's no match for my trusted old 4930k 32 GB desktop, obviously.



I am not sure if I understand this sentence. Are you satisfied with the performance of StaffPad on this Surface or not? I am planing to get exactly this SP7 like yours and would love to know if there are problems or if everything is fine for StaffPad + 3rd Party libraries. I mean, if a Surface Pro 7 i7 16GB can't handle a fluent experience, no other portable windows device can, right?


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## Dima Lanski

Kanter said:


> looking further into wacom tablets, besides multi-touch (interestingly, this seems to have been a natural feature on most wacom drawing tablet lines but dropped on some of the most recent iterations of the low- to mid end product line, for "lack of popular demand" as wacom states) but is there any argument against considering the smallest (as in drawing real estate) variety, for SP input?


I just bought a used pth-651 (wacom intuous pro m) and sadly the multi-touch on it doesn't work like a touch screen, but rather like a giant trackpad. I suspect it doesn't send individual touches to the software, but emulates a mouse and recognizes multi-touch gestures on a driver level instead. That's why it's not the same as a touch screen and probably requires trackpad support from app developers.

Since StaffPad wasn't designed with a trackpad in mind, right now it has problems with it. Like I wrote in one of my previous posts, panning doesn't work with my setup. I emailed StaffPad support about the issue, they passed it to the dev team. We'll see if they can resolve it.

By the way, the quality of gesture recognition is not as good as on my macbook or modern touchscreens. Maybe the newer wacoms are better at it, but mine is a bit wonky. Maybe it's just a bit wornout, though.

Apart from that, the wacom is great. I never used a drawing tablet before, but after only a few hours of practice I'm getting really used to working with it in all my apps (logic, blender, krita, unity). Even navigating windows and browsing the web feels more intuitive with a pen now.



Kanter said:


> Also, do users confirm the flipped eraser ends on wacom pens are operational in Staffpad? Please include the model#/gen of the respective model if positive. Thanks!


The eraser works just fine.


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## Elephant

Dima Lanski said:


> I just bought a used pth-651 (wacom intuous pro m) and sadly the multi-touch on it doesn't work like a touch screen, but razer like a giant trackpad. I suspect it doesn't send individual touches to the software, but emulates a mouse and recognizes multi-touch gestures on a driver level instead. That's why it's not the same as a touch screen and probably requires trackpad support from app developers.
> 
> Since StaffPad wasn't designed with a trackpad in mind, right now it has problems with it. Like I wrote in one of my previous posts, panning doesn't work with my setup. I emailed StaffPad support about the issue, they passed it to the dev team. We'll see if they can resolve it.
> 
> By the way, the quality of gesture recognition is not as good as on my macbook or modern touchscreens. Maybe the newer wacoms are better at it, but mine is a bit wonky. Maybe it's just a bit wornout, though.
> 
> Apart from that, the wacom is great. I never used a drawing tablet before, but after only a few hours of practice I'm getting really used to working with it in all my apps (logic, blender, krita, unity). Even navigating windows and browsing the web feels more intuitive with a pen now.
> 
> 
> The eraser works just fine.


@Dima Lanski Dima please do keep us posted on Staffpad's reply - that would be really interesting to know. It would also be very interesting for Surface Pro/Book users to experiment a bit to see if there is a way of using their Surface Pro (or Surface Book) together with a desktop. The key benefit I see is the ergonomics - looking up at a large monitor whilst having the Pro/Book flat on the desk. I see that happening in 2 main ways (with the second way also allowing use of a desktop's generally greater power).
a) Use an additional connection to your desktop monitor from the second display output on your Pro/Book, and use Win+P to project the Pro/Book display to the larger monitor.
b) On the assuption that you have the Surface Pro/Book on the same local network as your desktop PC and that the desktop is running Windows 10 Pro, you can enable Remote Desktop on the desktop (and presumably Windows ink and Staffpad as well), and the desktop should in theory allow itself to be controlled by the Pro/Book.
Method A will be useful when the Pro/Book is capable of handling all the libraries you throw at it, and method B when you have some old prehistoric Surface Pro that works OK on the inbuilt library for use out and about but cannot run the third party libraries, and you install all the third party libraries on the desktop. If anyone wants to try B, there are some good articles on how to do this and which authentication methods to use.

As per my suggestions on related threads, this is simply to give each us more ideas and options to try in the process of finding the ideal individual set up and workflow. @Kanter, you may want to give these options a try and let us know how what happens ..... and if you get that working you would also be very well placed to give us feedback on the use of a Wacom tablet (try in both absolute and relative mode) as a tablet vs using a Surfacebook as a tablet.


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## Kanter

Montisquirrel said:


> I am not sure if I understand this sentence. Are you satisfied with the performance of StaffPad on this Surface or not? I am planing to get exactly this SP7 like yours and would love to know if there are problems or if everything is fine for StaffPad + 3rd Party libraries. I mean, if a Surface Pro 7 i7 16GB can't handle a fluent experience, no other portable windows device can, right?


The machine is fine, I was just speculating that extreme playback chores would be handled even better by a desktop with twice as much RAM and a potent non-mobile CPU.


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## wcreed51

Looks like Dell has discontinued the Canvas 27, but they're still available on Amazon for only $1k. Very tempting. Hmmmm... I wonder if my wife would notice if it showed up on my desk...


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## Fry777

I couldn't find how much Hard Drive space the additional libs (Berlin, CS, Spitfire...) were using, anybody has info on that?
Would a 128gb surface have enough storage?


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## jonathanparham

Fry777 said:


> I couldn't find how much Hard Drive space the additional libs (Berlin, CS, Spitfire...) were using, anybody has info on that?
> Would a 128gb surface have enough storage?


yes they're pretty small


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## Fry777

jonathanparham said:


> yes they're pretty small


Less than 10gb each ?


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## Martin S

I recall reading somewhere on this subforum that each section (f.ex. Berlin Strings, Spitfire Chamber Strings, etc.) is around 2GB in size, but please correct me if I'm wrong..

EDIT: Please see Eric G's reply (post no. 71 in this thread : https://vi-control.net/community/th...libraries-available.89798/page-4#post-4507626 

"Knowing what we all know about Sample Libs, I watched my IPad storage after each install. No more than 2GB of IPad storage for each one. Just downloaded VOXOS Choir so now I am up to 11.36 GB to be exact since I went into the Settings dialog and found the exact number. So that is OT Berlin Strings, WW,Brass, Piano, Harp, CinePERC, and VOXOS = 11.36GB. (IPad Pro 2nd Gen 256GB)"


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## sundrowned

Fry777 said:


> I couldn't find how much Hard Drive space the additional libs (Berlin, CS, Spitfire...) were using, anybody has info on that?
> Would a 128gb surface have enough storage?



Berlin brass and strings are each about 2gb. SSS is 1.3gb. Spitfire woodwinds is 1.6gb. Cinebrass is under 1gb.


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## ed buller

I went for the Ipad pro 12 inch...bliss

e


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## Fry777

sundrowned said:


> Berlin brass and strings are each about 2gb. SSS is 1.3gb. Spitfire woodwinds is 1.6gb. Cinebrass is under 1gb.



That's super impressive, thank you


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## Zardoz

I also recently bought the ipad Pro 12.9 and it's just about perfect. Unbelievably thin and light, perfect screen size, battery lasts forever, zero clicks, pops or issues in Staffpad and it's super fast for everything else too. I can edit 4k video on it as smoothly as my 16" Macbook Pro that cost twice as much. It's kind of incredible.


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## zolhof

Dima Lanski said:


> I just bought a used wacom and StaffPad. It mostly works great, but I have a problem with panning. I tried to map one of the buttons on the pen to the middle mouse button, but it doesn't work. The middle button on a regular mouse doesn't work as well, it just draws instead. Probably a bug introduced in some recent version, since the manual says the middle mouse button should work for panning.


Hi Dima, I had the same issue with my Intuos and, after a lot of trial and error, the solution was to roll back to driver version 6.3.34, that's the last driver to work seamlessly with StaffPad.






Release Notes for Windows 6.3.34







cdn.wacom.com





In Standard Gestures, I have two fingers set to "swipe left/right", "scroll" and "zoom". You can also set one of your pen's buttons to "pan/scroll", if you prefer.

I hope it helps—I figured I'd spare someone else the frustration.


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## Dima Lanski

zolhof said:


> Hi Dima, I had the same issue with my Intuos and, after a lot of trial and error, the solution was to roll back to driver version 6.3.34, that's the last driver to work seamlessly with StaffPad.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Release Notes for Windows 6.3.34
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cdn.wacom.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I hope it helps—I figured I'd spare someone else the frustration.


Hey zolhof! Thank you for the tip, I'll try rolling back the driver next time I get to Staffpad.

I actually figured out a temporary workaround back then, though it's not ideal. You can enable legacy inking in the StaffPad, and disable Windows Ink for StaffPad in the Wacom settings. Then you can map one of the pen buttons to the middle mouse button and it works okey. It's still wasn't panning in an ideal way, but it was better than nothing. 

Maybe this can help you or anyone else having issues. Though, if rolling back the driver works perfectly, than you probably don't need the workaround anymore


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## zolhof

Dima Lanski said:


> It's still wasn't panning in an ideal way, but it was better than nothing.


Why is that? I just tried your workaround and I'm able to navigate in all directions, 360º, it's actually better than the way it was working for me. The default behavior for the two-finger gesture or the pen "pan/scroll" is either panning or scrolling, not both at the same time. So I'm definitely going to use your workaround, thanks for mentioning it!

edit. well, the eraser stopped working after disabling Windows Ink haha I assigned keystroke "e" to one of the pen buttons and can erase again.


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## Dima Lanski

zolhof said:


> Why is that? I just tried your workaround and I'm able to navigate in all directions, 360º, it's actually better than the way it was working for me.


Well, the ideal for me would be to press a button on the pen and drag, similar to dragging with touch on phones. And the way it works with wacom in other apps, like Krita or Blender. But maybe I want too much


zolhof said:


> The default behavior for the two-finger gesture or the pen "pan/scroll" is either panning or scrolling, not both at the same time.


Oh, that's definitely worse.


zolhof said:


> So I'm definitely going to use your workaround, thanks for mentioning it!


Glad it helped!


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## zolhof

Dima Lanski said:


> Well, the ideal for me would be to press a button on the pen and drag, similar to dragging with touch on phones. And the way it works with wacom in other apps, like Krita or Blender. But maybe I want too much


That's exactly how it's working for me now. I press a button on the pen and drag around freely—it works while hovering as well. Perhaps it's due to driver v6.3.34 behaving differently? Give it a try when you have a chance, hopefully it's the missing piece of the puzzle for you.


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