Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus

by FreeHand

Product Features

• Size: 13.3'' x 9.9'' x 1.8'' (just over 4 lbs.)
• Easy-to-read, low glare, touch screen
• 128MB external USB flash drive (32MB internal flash memory)
• Resolution: 1024 x 768
• Add or erase rehearsal marks and notations

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0002IOYPM
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,777 in Musical Instruments (See Top 100 in Musical Instruments)

Product Description

The Music Pad Pro's 12.1" TFT LCD backlit, color display is about the size of a sheet of music, but this digital music notebook does a heck of a lot more. All your sheet music, drill charts, lyrics, guitar tablature, bowing and fingering marks, class schedules, set lists, and other study and performance aids can all be kept in one convenient place.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great concept, poor execution, December 15, 2008

By 

Mark Lehi Jones "MLJ" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus

This is a love/hate review. I love the concept, but hate the execution.
I play a wide variety of music, with several different bands. Over the years, I have formatted over 1000 song (in Word) for printing lyrics and chords in BIG print so that the whole band (or at least the vocalists) can read from the chart. Hauling all 20 of my music binders to each gig is just not practical, so I usually ended up printing custom gig binders for each gig. But then there was always someone who requests that one song in binder at home....
So when I saw the Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro, I figured it would pay for itself in about two months in terms of saving me time, printer cartridges, etc. So I bought one and started the LONG task of converting all of my music so that it would be readable on the unit.
Let me interject that I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and I'm somwhat of a computer geek and gadget freak, so my tolerance is pretty high for things that are not idiot proof. I'm writing this review for those of you who might have the misconception that this thing is easy to get working to your liking.

In converting all of my Word files to the proprietary .fh files, I had to open and print each of my document via the freehand printer driver, then re-name each file and add my tags. Figuring-out what print setting to use was quite a nightmare. (Hint: use scaling and select Freehand in your Windows print driver first). It literally took me 16 hours to go through the process of converting all my files. Freehand should be ashamed to put this on the market without some way to batch convert from any format to their .fh files.

Then there is the file management. Why in the world they decided to make this thing with a measly 35 Megs of usable internal memory is a mystery to me. Less than 1/2 of my songs fit on the internal memory. There is a USB expansion slot that I had to use. But guess what, most of the memory sticks that they include with these units DONT WORK on the MPP because of some filtering issue in the cheap USB memory sticks that they get from China (and apparently, they don't have someone checking these things before shipping them out). In fact, only a few select memory sticks will work with this device - so beware. Freehand should have included a 1GB internal memory.

The final complaint I have is the price. For what it is, and for all the headaches I've had to go through to get it working, it should sell for $300. If I would have know how difficult it was to convert all of my files, I definitely would have just purchased a tablet PC.

Having said all of the above, I am happy that I have all the conversion behind me, and that I know how to operate the thing. I will use it on a regular basis, and it will simplify my gig preparation. If you are thinking of buying one of these things, be prepared for some pain before you get to the pleasure.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Warning, July 6, 2010

By 

GuyF - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus

Let me first say that I bought a MusicPad Pro a little over a year ago after doing a lot of research into MusicPad Pro and the other alternatives that were available at the time. Despite being very concerned that there had been no updates to the MusicPad Pro operating system for two years, there was a MusicPad Pro forum and I read everything related to the product and decided to take a chance on it. That was one of the worst decisions that I have ever made it many years of being both in the music and computer related business. Let me clarify one point...yes, I do love the product. But since I have purchased the MusicPad Pro the company has all but totally abandoned the product. Without any warning they turned off the forum, the only link that allowed dedicated users to provide much needed input for the continued development of a product like this. There is totally NO support nor ongoing development for this product. (Yes, they will get back to you with some sort of answer eventually, but they are now in the business of selling sheet music online and the MusicPad Pro is a thing of the past as far as they are concerned. It is either that or they are just horrible at product support & development and that is definitely not likely...but anyway, take your pick.) There are and have been for 3 plus years absolutely NO software or product upgrades. The system has been left to run its course, sell as many existing systems as they can, and let it die. They rarely, if ever, respond to any support, upgrade, nor even any general customer support politeness to people like me that have put out a lot of money to purchase MusicPad Pro, not too mention the extensive time that it has taken me to convert my entire music library to this system. If I had to do it over, I would go with a touch pad computer and software like MusicReader that is continuously improving and upgrading their software on a very regular basis. Oh well, live and learn.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MusicPad Pro is a delight to use!, December 12, 2007

By 

Orpharion (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus

The MusicPad Pro is outstanding at displaying sheet music. Its backlit LCD screen renders sheet music in a bright, crisp fashion. Page turns are accomplished by a foot pedal, making this a "hands free" digital music reader that is perfect for musicians.

I am a professional musician and make my living playing solo guitar. In the past I had to lug a 4 inch thick 3 ring binder of my arrangements to gigs. The binder was so enormous it threatened to topple my heavy duty music stand. Just to take care of requests from listeners I also had to cart along a portable file box of fake books.

But those days are thankfully over! Whew! With the MusicPad Pro I keep **ALL** my 600+ classical guitar arrangements on a 1GB flash drive that plugs into the "Pad." Each song is at least 3 pages long. Fake book songs were scanned in and saved as well! I can program the device with custom song lists or set lists for any occasion, and it's easy to do a search for a specific song and have it ready to play in seconds.

The backlit screen is perfect for indoor gigs or outdoor gigs, provided you play in the shade. Direct sunlight renders the LCD screen nearly unreadable -- just like taking a laptop outside on a sunny day. You'll never require a reading light again.

The display quality of notes, staff lines, and lyrics is astonishing. It must have something to do with the high pixel rate of the screen. It's like having a super duper ebook reader for musicians. I've been using the MusicPad for over 4 years (playing 4 to 5 gigs a week), and it has never given me problems. It's built like a tank.

I highly and unequivocally recommend this device to any musician who reads music on the job or at home!

DISCLAIMER: If you have a lot of sheet music on paper in binders, you will have to go through a labour intensive process of scanning them in as TIFFs and converting them to the proprietary MusicPad format. The bundled MusicPad manager software (for PCs and Macs) will do the conversion, which allows you to make onscreen annotations, rehearsal marks, CODA page turns, half page turns, etc. that are not available with standard PDFs.

HOW TO CONVERT FILES (on a MAC): I work on a Mac and use Encore 5 to make my arrangements on my computer and save them as PDFs with this Page Setup: 10.4" width and 14.2" height , 130% scale, and ZERO MARGINS.

Then I use Quicktime 7 to open the PDFs and export them as TIFFs (with the pull down menu choice set to "movie to image sequence"). Go to the options and select TIFF, 8 frames per second, insert space before number, no compression, and Best Depth. This is a one time setup. Quicktime will remember all your settings for the next time you convert a song.

QT will output your PDF as individual TIFF pages, which you import into the MusicPad Manager and convert to a file format readable on the Pad. I'm sure this can be accomplished on a PC using a similar process.

PEP TALK: This method does sounds tedious when written out, but it's accomplished quickly when you've sussed it out and done it a few times. It takes me fewer than 60 seconds per song, and the end product is a wonderfully crisp, readable score. You worked hard to be musician, and you can't be a wuss when you have to prepare your scores for the MusicPad. There is no magic fairy who will do it for you. But once done, you'll marvel at the convenience of having all your music on the Pad.

FLASH DRIVE: I use a Lexar 1GB flash drive. Lexar 1 GB JumpDrive FireFly USB Flash Drive ( JDFF1GB-431 ) (Retail Package) It's fast and can store hundreds of songs. My Pad formatted arrangements are between 200K and 400K each, depending on the number of pages.

BACKUP POWER MODULE: If the battery starts getting low, and an outlet is not handy where you're performing, I have found the Power Runner Module II to be a godsend. Amazon does not carry this external battery pack, so you'll have to google it.

UPDATE: June 20, 2011. I am still using the MusicPad Pro since I first wrote this review back in 2007. After hundreds of gigs this device has performed flawlessly.

COMPARISON to iPad 2. The screen is smaller on the iPad, making it difficult to read music.

HOT TIP to make the MusicPad Pro work better:


I have had great success using the Footime Page Turner pedal with my laptop to turn pages of sheet music with my foot. Just google it, as Amazon does not sell it.

However, I wondered if there was a way to make it work with my MusicPad Pro. The Roland damper pedal supplied with the MusicPad only allows the user to go forward in a piece of music, which is a limitation. I thought there must be some way to use the Footime pedal with the Pad and have the ability to go forward and backward with page turns.

I figured out how to do it:

1) Plug a Connectland 4 port hub Connectland CL-U2MNHUB-4B 4 Ports USB V2.0 Mini Hub (Black) into the USB port on the MusicPad.

2) Plug a USB Flash drive into one of the ports on the Connectland.

3) Plug the Footime pedal into another available port on the Connectland.

Voila! It works!

The Connectland 4 port hub can be velcroed to the back of the MusicPad for more stability.