Digital or Paper?

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm not adept at using the search function here. So . . . here it goes.

I'm eyeing Fred Sokolow's Beatles fingerstyle book for the ukulele, and I have a choice of a physical copy or a digital copy. I've never bought any digital book before, let alone a tab/songbook, so I'm wondering whether I should go traditional or digital. Any advice?

The one drawback of a digital copy I can think of is the screen of my tablet is set to go off after two minutes. But I can always set it so that it stays lit all the time.

Have you guys mostly gone digital?

Moving toward digital. OnSong on the iPad, and regular files on the desktop.

Never bought a digital book. I can't think of anything more impersonal. But then I've never even downloaded a song. I still write with notebooks and pens, read books, play vinyl and cassettes and use a transistor radio.

Hippie Dribble said:

Never bought a digital book. I can't think of anything more impersonal. But then I've never even downloaded a song. I still write with notebooks and pens, read books, play vinyl and cassettes and use a transistor radio.

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Yeah, but in your part of the world, anything having to do with tech is hard to come by.

Do I detect a little bitterness?

If you can get a preview of what it will look like on your tablet, that would be wise. Years ago when I first bought my iPad, I tried to get The Dailey Ukulele as a digital book, and was disappointed in that it only showed two lines of music at a time. I don't know if that is fixed now, but it made it two much work to have to change pages that often. So, I got the paper version and scanned it for digital use. I found I like to have the pages scroll, and I can do that in OnSong if I set up my files as one long document. I would be interested in hearing how other people are using their music on tablets now.

–Lori

consitter said:

Yeah, but in your part of the world, anything having to do with tech is hard to come by.

Do I detect a little bitterness?

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By the way, I use my ipad to look up music.

The only time I've bought an ebook was when a physical copy was not available. I've noticed that some music books cost as much for the digital copy as the print edition. Sure, there's the instant gratification of getting it as soon as you buy it, but then if you want to put copies on your music stand, you have to "spend" more because of the ink/paper it takes to print it out.

I don't own a tablet and have no desire to read music from one.

Steveperrywriter, I tend to play music I've downloaded in front of my monitor to decide whether or not I want to print it out. But I can't imagine sitting in front of a screen just to be able to play.

Besides, what do you do when the power goes out? Mine went out this morning. It was only for a couple minutes, but a few years ago it went out for three days. I would have gone bonkers if I couldn't have played music, since there was no internet or tv to entertain me. Paper copies and a battery powered clip-on light for after dark and I was good to go.

Hippie Dribble, I think you're even more of a Luddite than I am!

Lori said:

Years ago when I first bought my iPad, I tried to get The Dailey Ukulele as a digital book, and was disappointed in that it only showed two lines of music at a time. I don't know if that is fixed now, but it made it two much work to have to change pages that often. So, I got the paper version and scanned it for digital use.

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Now, that's just silly. You bought a digital copy but it didn't suit you so you bought a physical copy and scanned it (which must have been a monumental task for a book of that size!) just so you could have it function how you wanted.

I'd say you were more dedicated than 99.9% of people, but unless and until digital publishers put out more editions that actually "work" for people, I can understand why they wouldn't want to buy wonky stuff. I'll just stick with my paper copies, thank you very much.

I buy both physical and digital ukulele books, depending on the kind and availability. Those interactive, enhanced iPad books (like the Dummies one) actually add quite a bit to the experience, but those are still uncommon. Diagrams-heavy materials, or tabs, I prefer as large format, physical books, ideally ring-bound.

With novels, I have switched to ebooks years ago already, though I read them on a dedicated e-ink reader, not on a backlit tablet. I tend to read two per week, and I don't really have the space or desire to keep so many paper books.

Quasi-tangent... I just read an article about physical yearbooks and that sales are basically holding steady... one quote said "It's the one tangible thing from high school that you can keep with you, and look back at when you're older"
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/glencoe/news/ct-high-school-yearbooks-met-20150604-story.html

Almost on-topic:

If you own a physical copy of a book, and want to also read it on a digital device, do you pay for it all over again, or download a pirated copy?

I mean, if you own a CD, you'd rip it to disk to put on an mp3 player rather than pay for it again on iTunes, wouldn't you?

#controversial

ps. This is about 30% of the books I own. I'm not about to buy them all over again.

http://www.thebigkahuna.co.uk/library.jpg (don't download on your phone, it's a big image)

The Big Kahuna said:

If you own a physical copy of a book, and want to also read it on a digital device, do you pay for it all over again, or download a pirated copy?

I mean, if you own a CD, you'd rip it to disk to put on an mp3 player rather than pay for it again on iTunes, wouldn't you?

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If you own the CD, I believe you have every right to rip it for your own personal use on another device.

But to me, it's never okay to download a pirated copy of anything. You could do a Lori and scan it yourself.

First of all, many pirate sites are really dodgy, and downloads may give you a virus or malware. Secondly, if your ISP busts you for pirating, saying you already owned the book ain't gonna buy you a reprieve.

consitter said:

Yeah, but in your part of the world, anything having to do with tech is hard to come by.

Do I detect a little bitterness?

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I don't own a mobile phone either nor have I ever had cause to use one. I do not want to be that contactable. Nor will I be a slave to technology. I don't know what twitter is and I have deactivated my facebook thingy awhile back. No bitterness whatsoever. These are deliberate choices I have made.

itsme said:

If you own the CD, I believe you have every right to rip it for your own personal use on another device.

But to me, it's never okay to download a pirated copy of anything. You could do a Lori and scan it yourself.

First of all, many pirate sites are really dodgy, and downloads may give you a virus or malware. Secondly, if your ISP busts you for pirating, saying you already owned the book ain't gonna buy you a reprieve.

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My question was more to do with the moral question, rather than the technicalities, which can always be overcome.

Let's assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that your ISP can't bust you, and that piracy sites are totally free from malware, where do you stand now?

I'm hoping that Steve P, being one of the only people here who truly has a dog in the game, weighs in with his opinion.

When I was with Lori in the Westside Ukulele Ensemble, I started using an iPad, OnSong and an AirTurn foot pedal, but I found the 9.7" iPad screen to be too small, so despite being a total Apple fanboy since 1986, I found a 13.3" Hannspree Android tablet for $199 on Amazon and MobileSheets Pro. I design my own PDF lead sheets on my Mac with a great graphics design program, Canvas. I do not use paper anymore, and I'm going to buy the digital version of Sokolow's Beatles book now that I know about it. I have all kinds of backups and battery charger systems.

A preview of the Kindle version of "Fred Sokolow's Beatles fingerstyle book" is available on Amazon ... I'd strongly recommend checking that out before committing to anything. For myself, the style of tab used in that example is not intuitive ... for that reason alone I'd probably not purchase it.

In a wider vein, paper every time, though that can mean a printable download, as supplied by some publishers in pdf format!

Just my tuppence worth ... YMMV

I bought the kindle edition of The Daily Ukulele. Big mistake. It's poorly laid out and the song index is not hyperlinked to the song - essential, IMO for a book of this nature. Going to a song is a pain as the page nos in the index do not correspond to the kindle location so you have to make a guess and then scroll back and forward to find the song. Even then you often find the song is split over two pages even though it's one page in the paper version. The kindle screen is too small but iPad or large Android tablets are OK. However, more thought and care needs to be taken in converting music books to ebook format if they are to be any use.

Scanning and formating pages from a physical book is very useful, though. I have most of my song sheets and my sheet music for ceilidh tunes scanned, converted to pdf and stored in dropbox. I can then upload them to ForScore on iPad. For playing for dances it saves me having to carry large files. I have the tunes arranged in sets so it's easy to call them up when needed. I find the iPad screen fine for that use. I also use a smaller Android tablet for songs though I tend to learn those that I'm going to sing out and use the tablet for reference.

Sheet music is a bit hit and miss. If you can get sheet music in pdf format it's great and it's usually fairly modestly priced and there's lots of free sheet music from the 19th and early 20th century available from the likes of the Lester Levy collection but some sheet music sellers insist on using the Sibelius Scorch format and that's no good to me. My PC runs Linux and Sibelius refuse to provide a Scorch reader for Linux.

Tootler said:

My PC runs Linux and Sibelius refuse to provide a Scorch reader for Linux.

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Have you tried the Scorch reader under Wine ... assuming Wine is available for the version of Linux you're running

I've bought a lot of digital ukulele books and personally I'd go with the physical version. It will keep you more focussed and away from a computer/tablet where there's so many distractions

I bought the Kindle version, no regrets. I have music in both forms, digital and paper, but I'm moving more toward digital.