Staffpad

I recently bought a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and quite by coincidence StaffPad was released - a music handwriting recognition application which leverages the pen supplied with the Surface tablet. I've tried similar applications in the past over the years but these have been hard work and invariably interrupted the creative process rather than aided it. Well I have to say that StaffPad is marvellous, it simply works and hand writing is turned into real notation. For a serious composer, I would go as far to say as it justifies the cost of buying a Surface pro (or a Surface + the optional pen). StaffPad itself only costs £55 orI $79.

Details of StaffPad

http://www.staffpad.net/

Independent review

http://www.sibeliusblog.com/news/staffpad-is-a-music-handwriting-app/

It goes without saying that I have no affiliation to StaffPad other than to support great software.

There's also NotateMe for iPad. (made by the Neuratron people who do PhotoScore)

Agreed that there are many similar applications, what I believe makes Staffpad unique is the ease of use as a result of leveraging the Surface pen and digitizer. The authors, despite being big Apple / ipad fans, have consciously implemented this for the Surface because of its capabilities, and have publically said that the application would not translate well to the ios or android platforms.

Wow! Thanks jwillans for alerting us to this software. If it's even half as good as the demonstration video it will be very useful and quick to use.

Of course the soon-to-be-released 12" and 14" Surface Pros also have great potential to be useful for putting on a music stand and playing from a score (e.g. no more page turns).

We are so lucky to be living through this period of technological developments!

My pleasure. Having used it for a few days I can confirm it is as easy to use as the videos demonstrate. Like HW for digital organs, I see Staffpad as a game changer for composition.

Note that the Surface pro 3 is already a 12" screen and is an all round excellent device both in tablet form and using the attached keyboard.

I would assume this would work on any windows 8 tablet or convertible computer (say the nice hp spectre x360 if you buy the dell active pen for it, which I read is better than hp's)