I’m ready to dive into midi control… but can’t decide between these two. Right now, all of my charts are in PDF format and I really don’t want to have to convert them or do any editing. I’ll do it if I have to though, but basically I’m lazy. One thing I notice is in On Song, the midi controls are issued as part of the lyric sheet (chart), whereas in SetList maker, they are a separate data field, so no editing of the chart itself.
What are your preferences and why???
Phil
I’m using Mobile Sheets on the android tablet at the moment - yet to try it out with MIDI 
Hey Phil hows it going? I use Set list Maker mostly because Im an Andriod user. Its ok and it works. Programming the Midi part takes a little getting use to but we all on the BB Forum can help with that. I think for your situation though it would be a hard transition from PDF either way. Set list maker dos have a way of Viewing PDF’s within a song entry but its not really that great (in my experience). I had to copy and paste all my lyrics From docs to the lyrics field in SLM.
Don’t mean to hijack this thread but what format for the cheat sheets would work better? Word or pdf, or does it matter since they have to be copied into SLM fields anyway?
yes good question. Hard to answer. Many things to take into account. One being an individuals computer skills. If they are highly skilled format really wouldn’t matter. Still would be a matter of copy & Paste though in the end
Definitely PDF - it’s the format that all chart readers use and “understand” well. They all (afaik) have auto cropping and they all (again afaik) base this predominantly around PDF files. Some, like OnSong (for iOS) and MobileSheets Pro (for android) even read and open correctly the old ChordPro format tunes!
I use OnSong with the BB. I actually use mostly PDFs. OnSong has no problem with PDFs, although you can’t use some of the features like transpose etc in the app. I actually use a small white board, write up my charts and then an iPad app called “Tiny Scanner” to get them on the iPad. From there I open then the charts in OnSong and I am off to the races. As far as MIDI which I use to control my beatbuddy, I pick a song in OnSong and via a puc+ the beatbuddy has the correct tune loaded and syncs my looper tempo. MIDI programming is easy, I simply edit the chart, add in the MIDI command(s) and I am off to the races.
35+ gigs since setting it up like this and it works great!
I’m the developer of Set List Maker (and its big brother, BandHelper). You can either display your existing PDFs, or copy and paste the text into the app; some pros and cons are listed here:
http://www.arlomedia.com/apps/setlistmaker/tutorials/compare_lyrics_documents.html
You can mix and match from song to song, so with my own bands, I started by using my existing library of PDFs, then entered new songs as text directly in the app. Eventually I went back and converted the older songs that had been using PDFs, since the in-app text is more useful for me.
If you do use documents and are debating between PDF and Word, I would say PDF because that renders more accurately across devices. Also, the Android version of my apps can’t display Word files, only PDF (iOS can do both).
Thanks for your response arlo, great video tutorial … I think even I could do this 
Is this used to bring up lyrics and music/chords during performance? I would use it to select tunes in my set list. Don’t need chords and lyrics. Is that possible? Instead of scrolling through the BB pedal. ?
yes both Setlist maker and Onsong can do that
You could probably also get by with a midi foot controller. Examples include Behringer, Boss ES-8, G Labs GSC-4, Disaster Area, McMillen SoftStep 2, Molten Voltage Master Control MV-58, and Gordius Little Giant 2, etc. If any of those appeal to you, you could check back here to see to find out what—if any— BB users think of them.
They take up more floor space as opposed to mic stand space; wide price range but probably no different than investing or accessorizing an iPad, software; more connectivity means more variables that break or will need troubleshooting. Maybe less learning curve but anytime you’re trying to program CCs or PCs, you will have to spend time. If you get serious about this option, think about buying used as opposed to new. Here’s a link to a used Behringer FCB1010 https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/behringer-fcb1010-midi-foot-controller-w-uno-chip.1782380/
I like unRealBook for handling pdf files (iPad only). One nice thing is you can enter large fakebook and build and index to link to individual songs. You can also you the same indexing procedure for building a set list of genre, artist, or songs you have on the Beat Buddy. AFAIK, though, it does not pull up the song on the Beat Buddy, but there is some midi programming available within it, so that may be possible.
Are you asking if you can show just a song list without using up screen space for lyrics and chords? Set List Maker offers multiple screen layouts, so you can see only a song list, or see other song info like key and capo position, instead of lyrics and chords.
Arlo et al… I’ve decided on SLM…it seems MUCH more intuitive than On Song. It only took a few minutes to set up a database, import pdf’s and start checking out layouts and other features. I haven’t ordered the midi package yet… that’ll be after I import everything.
Just want to know one thing… for each song, do I have to enter the artist manually, or is there a list of previously entered artists that can be selected from???
You’d need to enter each artist manually, sorry. Adding some kind of auto-complete function is on my wish list and I’ll add a vote for you.
Didn’t mean to cause you more work… doesn’t need to be an autocomplete, more like a list, like your TAG list. That would be fine.
I guess I’ll just set up my play list as I see best and hunt around if I need to take care of a request. All of this tech stuff tends to take the BB away from it’s best purpose. Turning it into a common midi sequencer, which basically is no different from a recorded backing track. What I like is the simplicity of editing the Bass and drums alone and making the rest happen myself in a live setting.
Well, that’s what it really is… a sequencer. And this way, some of us who don’t play with others, can be great in our own minds.
I thought this thread was about what app would be best for automatically picking beats using MIDI