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  • Strategy for initial setting up of downstream iPads for local lyrics

Hi Community,

I'm in the process of migrating my band's backing tracks into ST3 (about 200 songs) and am now starting to think about how to go about setting up my band mate's iPads to load local lyrics, and then how best to continue to maintain this so that everyone has the same song database as our upstream iPad that plays the backing tracks, while adding their own local lyric sheets. There will be 5 people running downstream iPads connected to the master iPad and all will be running local lyric sheets. (note: I prefer to use the terms upstream/downstream rather than master/slave out of courtesy)

Assuming everyone has an iPad and they are all connected to the same network, what would be the best strategy for:

  1. Initial setup of each iPad, and then
  2. Ongoing, as we add new songs to our database, how to keep everyone's song database up-to-date (understanding that they willl need to add their own lyric sheet to the songs as we add them).

For the first point, I can't imagine the solution is "everyone individually install ST3, individually create a lyric only song, attach a local lyric sheet, and do this for 200+ songs"?
Can I take a Database only backup from the Upstream and restore it on a Downstream (yes, there will be audio files missing - is that a problem?), and then attach a local lyric sheet?
Or is there a better/cleaner/more recommended way?

For the 2nd point, I know I can't use the backup from Upstream/restore on Downstream as that would wipe out all of the existing local lyric sheets attached to songs on the slave iPad. But is there a better way than having everyone manually create a lyric only song and attach a local lyric sheet (the risk of people not exactly typing Song Title and Artist to match the Upstream iPad song seems pertinent).

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences here!

    • peter

    • Post #2

    You could create a database only backup and restore that on the client ipads, but this will mark all songs as "missing" on the other ipads as they reference audio files that are not part of the backup.

    If each band member has their own set of lyrics, just send them a list of your song titles & artist names and they can then setup lyrics only songs (with the same title and artist name) and add their own sheets or lyrics. They will have to do that anyway if they want to see their own sheets. If they are happy with your sheets, they don't need to do anything. The host will automatically send your lyrics or pdf files to the clients in a network session.

      AnthonyB I play in 3 piece band and create all the songs for each member (guitar, bass and drums). I use Moises to split the stems and create the backing track and add to logic but include an audible count in at beginning.
      Depending on the song sometimes I can get away with -
      Getting the guitar chords and lyrics from ultimate guitar.
      Convert them to chord pro
      Add to lyrics, timestamp, add audio regions. Duplicate the song, tweak for bass and drummer (but use the hide chords setting). Worst case scenario I have to add guitar and bass tab.
      I then airdrop the songs to them so they can play along and mute their own track when practicing. It’s a lengthy task for sure.

        peter Thanks @peter
        I guess the part I'm trying to avoid is 4 band members, for 200+ songs, all on iPads, all individually creating a lyrics only song, typing in the Song Name (risk of typos), typing in the Song artist (risk of typos), entering duration and BPM, then attaching their own lyric sheet.

        That is a LOT of manual work with a LOT of manual data entry with significant likelihood of typos causing mismatches when attempting to load local lyrics.

        I was hoping there might be a method that was a lot less time consuming for each band member, and lowered/removed the data entry typo risks.

        I don't know whether this is something that could be considered for ST4, but it would be great if in the remote session feature set, there was the ability to actually do one-way sync of the actual song database (Songs, Playlists, lyrics sheets) from upstream to downstream devices. Then, all that the downstream device users would have to do is replace lyric sheets with their own on their local device.

            • Damir

              • Post #5

              AnthonyB if I was in your situation knowing how ST3 works , this is what I would do.
              Only one person controls all songs no matter who creates a lyric song or a multitrack song they need to let me create the finished product , once all songs are on my iPad I would create and share this full backup with all members , then they have the responsibility to create their own versions of pdf or lyrics/chords and enter use the settings to enable their version of the songs ,
              The backing tracks always remain the same for everyone.
              If they want to add a song to the bands playlist they need to send me the .stsa song file for me to update the master iPad , once I have created this song how we are going to perform it I then send this .stsa file back to all users to update. All users need to make their own full backups just incase , and I have my own full backup .
              Basically I have all the backup songs on the master iPad all other members have the same files plus their own versions of the same songs .
              You can use airdrop when you are together to transfer data or other on line methods like email , Dropbox, iCloud etc if you are far apart.
              One person needs to be in charge otherwise it will become a dogs breakfast in no time.

                • peter

                • Post #6

                Another idea: If you have a second iPad, use that to setup your library as lyrics only songs. Then create a full backup (to include any pdf files) and send that to your band members. After the initial setup, you can use song export files to send whole playlists or specific songs to your band members and they can import them without fear of overwriting their own sheets.

                  peter Funny you mention that, I had the same thought last night (i.e. manually setup one downstream iPad database and then export that and have all other band members import it). I hadn't got as far as the next step for ongoing updates to use Song Export.

                  Thanks @peter! I think this is the most practical way of achieving my desired goals in ST3!

                    Hmmm.. just reliased one potential obstacle - to perform the intial restore of the full backup from one downstream to another, won't that mean that everyone will have to purchase the full version of ST, as it is not possible to restore backups in the free version?
                    Also, can only import 6 songs, so by the time I get to the 7th additional song, without full version they'll be stuck?

                    • peter

                    • Post #9
                    • Edited

                    Yes, the full version is needed for imports and also for the network functionality. In the free version you can not connect to a host.