Use your iPad as a Sibelius control surface

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How Sibelius Control looks in action

If you have an iPad and are interested in using it as a control surface for Sibelius 6 or the new Sibelius 7, then Sibelius user Tobias Escher (@NovatlanSound) has a treat for you.

Sibelius Control is a layout for an app called Custom Keypad, which:

…allows you to create custom keypads that you can use to control your computer over the network from your iOS device. You start by creating a keypad layout, which includes buttons and other controls that you can easily arrange and customize. Then for each control, you define which actions to send to your computer, when the control is touched. Actions can be keystrokes, such as keyboard shortcut commands, or mouse clicks such as the left, right or middle mouse buttons. Once you are connected to your computer, simply touch the controls on your keypad to send the actions to your computer over the network!

Tobias has spent a great deal of time examining his own Sibelius workflow and designing a Custom Keypad layout that puts the things he uses most often at his fingertips, and now he’s making it available for everybody to use:

Sibelius Control is perfect for working with a portable computer or far away from a computer screen. I just love taking my iPad with Sibelius Control to my Stage Piano and entering notes from across the room!

It also is the perfect companion to Sibelius for switchers from a different application such as Finale, as it clearly labels all the keys without you having to learn all the shortcuts in a short amount of time.

Getting Custom Keypad to work with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is tricky right now due to some changes in the way Screen Sharing works in Apple’s latest operating system, so you may run into some speed bumps on Lion, but on Snow Leopard you should be good to go.

Check it out, and let Tobias know what you think.

Comments

  1. Derek Williams

    Oh no! I always swore that nothing could ever seduce me into buying an iPad, and now this!

  2. Andrei

    This is sick dream come true! Thanks a billion, Tobias and Daniel…
    Off to customize this bad boy.

  3. Tobias Escher

    Glad you like my layout!
    Andrei, if you like, drop me a line with your suggestions for improvements. Then everyone can benefit from it :)
    There’s tons of stuff planned for the future.

  4. Eric Heukehsoven

    A REALLY useful tool for new and experienced users alike!

    Thanks Tobias!!

  5. Henri Frischer

    Please let me know when you will have the version compatible with Windows.
    Thanks Tobias!

  6. Silas S. Brown

    Eventually they’ll be able to combine this “control” idea with the Scorch app and network it, and then the conductor of an orchestra can say “go from HERE” and touch a bar of the score, and all the players will get that same bar highlighted on all their parts (perfect for those who get lost). Would be nice if the hardware got a bit cheaper though.

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