Sheet Music Scanner

This app is absolutely terrible. It can’t correctly play the music and if it says the picture is blurry and I retake it with no problems, it still can’t read it

I picked up my trombone after a 40 year break. I joined our community band and enjoyed playing for a year and a half now. I realized it was taking me much longer than I needed to get my part down so I started searching for an app that would help me. This app is absolutely amazing. Not only is it accelerating my ability to get my part down but it’s also like having an on-call partner to practice with. I putting my headphones on and playing my part and having the app in my ear really has improved my playing

It mostly successfully scans the music and you can always rescan if needed. I do have an issue with the subscription ad popping up sometimes when I open the app and there’s no way to close the ad. A bit annoyed. But when that doesn’t happen the app is really good!

I’ve seen some reviews where people say this app doesn’t work, or it doesn’t read key signatures, or it doesn’t do this or that. That’s utter nonsense. It’s not the apps fault, it’s your fault. I’ve relied on Music Scanner since 2015, which is about the time this app came out and when I bought my first iPad Pro. I’ve devised a sure fire way to get a near perfect scan from almost any image using tricks I learned in the 90s to make low resolution images look like high definition images in Photoshop. Here are three tips. TIP 1 - Using your iPhone or iPad camera 1. If possible photograph an original source, from a published book. 2. Use photography lighting. These days, a couple of LED photography lights with diffusers, that put out 5000k white light or better is recommended and they’re cheap. If possible don’t use warm lighting. If you don’t want to spend money, order a 5000-7000k LED bulb and a mechanics style clamp socket, then put a thin sheet of paper or wax paper, parchment paper, or some thin cotton cloth over the light for diffusion. Using two lights is better as it gives you better spread nd evenness. 3. Lay the page that your going to scan as flat as possible. Make sure there are no shadows on the page nor any glare. 4. Use either an iPhone camera or an iPad camera. You will get near perfect results. Sometimes an iPad camera works better. 5. If you’re not getting perfect results, take a picture of the notation with the camera app. Color correct the image in photos by adjusting the exposure, contrast and black point. 6. Scan the image in Music Scanner. TIP 2 - Scanning a PDF from a file or an image from your photo library. 1. Convert the image to black and white. Color images have too much noise. Make sure the image has good exposure, contrast and black point settings. You can adjust these settings in Photos, Affinity Photo, Pixelmator or any number of apps. These settings will help make the white “paper” background look perfectly white, and the notation perfectly black. This helps the scanning process tremendously. 2. If you want to convert a photo png into a PDF, open the photo in the files app, and select print. Instead of printing, pinch outwards on the first thumbnail in the print dialog box. Then save it to the Files app. The image, which might have been a png, will now be saved as a PDF. Now you can really improve the image. 3. Check the resolution and page size of the PDF document with any app that can open it. Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, Designer, etc will allow you to enlarge the document. For example, if you check the PDF or image and it’s about 1000 pixels by 800 pixels at 72dpi, resample it at 4000 x 3200 pixels at 300dpi. 4. Scan the image. TIP 3 - If you’re scanning a document you downloaded from IMSLP. Sometimes PDF files from IMSLP need help. Look at the instructions above for scanning a PDF. 1. Make sure the image is not a color image. Convert it to black and white. 2. Upscale the document to about 4x the size and change the dpi to 300 if possible. 3. Color correct it with at least the exposure, contrast and black point tools. 4. Once the “paper” background is pure white, and the notes are pure black, scan the image or PDF. Conclusion: The developer has really done a great job with the MusicXML scanning and converting. He’s had 10 years to improve Music Scanner and he has he done a fantastic job. I can scan or photograph just about anything, export as MusicXML and import into Finale or Dorico with sensational results. Follow my tips and the results will be close to magical. Watch YouTube for a video called “How to get the best results from Music Scanner” which I will make available sometime in May 2024. Enjoy!

This app was recommended and was supposed to be tab friendly and also able to use chord charts. Tabs are not recognized by the camera in App. Waste of money.

I wanted to try the free trial but was charged for it. I don’t recommend.

This app helped me so much in marching band and jazz

Doesn’t recognize key signatures. Don’t bother.

This is the best app ever

Being in a choir and not playing an instrument, this tool is great because it lets me practice my part outside of scheduled rehearsals. Exporting to midi is great also since I can play particular parts in car or whenever convenient without opening the app.