Apple Music has become increasingly hostile to Apple Music library files. What I mean is audio files you create and want to store in Apple Music. Even the interface to manually manage songs is grayed out and doesn’t show you your files that are stored locally in the Finder. In addition, unrealBook only supports locally stored audio files in the iTunes/iPad/iPod library. It always only supported local files, but at some point Apple did or did not support linked cloud files. On iOS12 it certainly doesn’t. On iOS15 it seems like it actually does supported cloud based songs.
For this reason, (years ago) I implemented direct linking of supported audio files (mp3, mp4, wav, aif etc) in the unrealBook documents folder. It’s easy to use. Simply Airdrop, dropbox, open in…. any audio file to unrealBook and it will be imported. After that, use the CD Menu->Music Controller ->link audio file button or CD->menu->play audio file->then + button or create a transmogrify play button and use the use file button to link the audio file.
This is way more reliable, has none of the problems of linked Apple Music and is not subject to any iOS changes to Apple Music.
In short, don’t use Apple Music for linked audio files in unrealBook if you can.
Stay In Files Not In Set List – When on, this will treat any files opened from the Songs Menu as a single file even when you are in a set list. This will lock you on to the current song so that even if you turn past the last page, you will still stay in the current document.To go back to the set list, use the previous or next buttons on the set list toolbar or choose a song from the set list popup. This will prevent you from making a mistake and turning out of a song you have loaded on the spur of the moment.
Add songs to Set List Temporarily– experimental – any files chosen will add to the current set list temporarily so you can go back to them easily in the middle of performance. This is similar to Stay In Files Not In Set List but not as “clean” as any songs you open will be inserted in the set list temporarily and will appear in the set list song popup.
Disable Set List Options – Turn this on to disable the swipe left options in the set list song popup (such as colors etc..)
Undefined Setlist Bookmarks As one Page –If a bookmark number of pages is not defined, treat it as a one page bookmark in set lists.
Don’t Load First Song in Set List – Primarily used for the master iPad. You can browse set lists and load them, but no commands are sent to the slaves until you choose a song from the set list.
Long press highlight name in set list popup – If this is on, then a long press on a name in the set list popup will make the title red. Useful for marking certain titles.
Numbers in set list editor – will prepend numbers in front of the entries in the set list editor.
Go to the CD/Music menu and choose Music Controller.
Open the music controller and press Link Audio File
Press Link Audio File (in Blue).
Choose the song you want to link.
Choose the mp3 (or mp4) song you want to link to the page. You can use the search field to find the file. Press the title to select the song.
Next, go into the CD/Music menu again and choose Player Volume.
Set the slider to the volume you want for this song and then press Set Volume For Page.
Now when you choose this file and turn to the page and press play, the file will play at the predefined volume. Once a volume level has been saved, the window will display the volume level saved with the page.
If you have iTunes library songs, you will need to enable system volume.
Go to settings->global->Playback and enable System volume slider control.
You will be prompted to quit unrealBook. Double-press Home button or swipe up from the bottom to see the multi-tasking card view. Swipe up on unrealBook. Then run unrealBook again.
Now you can set volumes per page for iTunes library linked songs.
1. Enter a program number in the program field on the right. 2. Press the program button. The MIDI events are zero based. So program change 1 is entered as zero (0). Program change 49 would be entered as 48, etc…
System volume slider control – If on will allow per page volume control of playback for iTunes library files. This is not needed if you use imported mp3 files from dropbox, airdrop, email and link them to a page.
Metronome output – You can choose to output the metronome sound in the left or right channel, or both (center).
Note: if this is on, visual on screen volume will not be present. You will need to choose the music menu Set Player Volume to see the current volume level.
Bluetooth Audio– If you need to send the audio of unrealBook to a Bluetooth or Airplay device, turn this on. Note that this will disable the built in recorder.
Fade out audio – If on, the audio will fade out gradually when stopped.
Fade out time (secs) – You can set a fade out time in seconds.
Identity is used if you want the master to load concert parts and the slaves to load alternate files (Bb, Eb, parts etc…).
Enter a string in the identity field such as -Eb- or -Bb- or -Trumpet- etc… to give your iPad an identity. Once this string is set, it will be added to the end of the filename (before the extension) when a remote load is issued from a master iPad. For example if the master iPad tells the iPad to load myfile.pdf and the identity string is set to -Bb- on the slave, the file name to load on the slave will be changed to myfile-Bb-.pdf on the slave and will be loaded. In the event that a matching file cannot be found, then an error will be displayed. If you want the slave to default to try to match the name without the identity string, then turn on if ID file not found, try to load received filename. This way if a -Bb- file is not found, then the original file will be loaded instead.
2 Fingers For Pan– very useful. If turned on, unrealBook will not pan/scroll a document unless you use two fingers. This eliminates any problems where you try and turn a page, but the page moves (pans or scrolls) instead. Ignore Accidental Page Turns– another useful feature. Sometimes for unknown reasons you might tap twice and accidentally turn through 2 pages on stage. This will ignore double-taps on page turns if they occur within a second. This feature is on by default. Stop iPad from sleeping– when on, will stop the iPad from going to sleep. Turn it off to save battery if you don’t mind the iPad falling asleep. Add songs to Set List Temporarily– experimental – any files chosen will add to the current set list temporarily so you can go back to them easily in the middle of performance. Use Apple Music Picker – Use the standard Apple music picker when choosing songs. Use Auto Start for Metronome – global toggle for all auto start functions. Export Mode – Disables alerts when creating Hot Spots, Text and when moving objects. Old Index– when indexes point directly to page numbers in a document (as they should do), the set page 1 function will not affect the offset of the index numbers. Reverse Recent – when set ON will add newly loaded files to the bottom of the Recently Loaded list in the Songs menu. If set OFF, newly loaded files will be added to the top of the list. Count up timer– when music is playing, the time display will show elapsed time instead of time remaining. Toolbar stop instead of pause– stops playback instead of pausing it for the main toolbar. Old Export – When this is on, exporting will be slower and lower resolution but compatible with all files.
Sync new files with iCloud –(Version 4.4 and later) will use iCloud Documents to sync all files across all iPads signed in with the same iCloud. See iCloud Documents page.
Allow iCloud to delete local files – (Version 4.4 and later) if set on, files deleted in iCloud will be deleted on your local device. See iCloud Documents page.
Apple Pencil Drawing – Turn this on to support the Apple Pencil with the iPad Pro. Press the i button for options. There are 2 options. Finger either erases or allow finger drawing. Disable Set List Options – Turn this on to disable the swipe left options in the set list song popup (such as colors etc..) Undefined Setlist Bookmarks As one Page –If a bookmark number of pages is not defined, treat it as a one page bookmark in set lists. Enable Playbar – If you have an audio file (not in the iTunes library) linked to a PDF, you can have a Playbar appear on the bottom third of the screen. You can use the Playbar for controlling playback. Press the Info button to set the Playbar to start from the beginning all the time as an option. Ask For Files From Master If Not Found – If the slave does not have a file and the master is allowing sharing of files – the file will be automatically loaded into the slave. This only works with WiFi.
Pedal scrolls in landscape – each press of a bluetooth pedal will scroll a little in landscape mode.
Jump pages with double and triple tap – if enabled, a double tap or triple tap will jump pages by more than one.
Disable sharing with password – if enabled, you can set a password to disabled all sharing of files from the iPad. Warning, this password is stored internally and there is no way to recover the password if you forget it.You can reset the password in the settings->utilities window.
Make search active will always bring up the song list with the search field selected and the iPad keyboard ready to type a search. and clear search will make the Song list always display the search field cleared at the top of the list. Fuzzy Search– consider this a work in progress. If you mistype, it will try and find a somewhat suitable match after a few seconds. Very experimental.
MIDI– when set to ON, unrealBook will scan for a MIDI interface. (Default is on). MIDI Send – when set OFF will disable transmission of MIDI messages. MIDI Recv– when set OFF will disable MIDI messages from controlling unrealBook. (use this to disable listening to the iRig Blueboard). Expert MIDI – when ON, additional parameters appear in the File->MIDI window. See File->MIDI
Send to Arranger – when ON, will send messages to Arranger.
Use custom VGA out– turn this ON when running iOS 5 or earlier. Allows Output VGA Sideways for custom VGA out to work. Unfortunately as of this date, iOS 6 breaks all text editing when this is set on. For iOS 6, set this OFF. Output VGA Sideways for custom VGA out– rotates the output of the screen through the VGA connector. 180– will rotate the VGA image 180 degrees.
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