StaffPad

Staffpad is a beautiful app. Very streamlined and a nice design. Very intuitive workflow. Excellent for creative composing.
But the handwriting recognition is frustrating:
- it’s very picky and unintelligent
- when it can’t recognise an element you’ll have to rewrite the whole bar
What could be improved?
- indication of non-recognised elements in the bar (so you only have to delete that element and rewrite it)
- an alternative way to enter notes
- improved, more intelligent handwriting recognition
Be aware that handwriting is at the moment the only way to enter notes!
Update 28/07/21 Yesterday I bought Staffpad on my Surface Pro 7. The recognition is much better on the Surface. Less picky.
Update 16/04/24 Handwriting recognition isn’t improved in StaffPad. Presonus Notion has a much better handwriting recognition from MyWrite.

I’ve been using StaffPad for several years now. There’s usually 1 update per year, maybe 2. Which is exceptionally slow compared to other apps. But the updates are mostly well thought through and contain exceptional features, unlike the weekly bug fixes you get for other apps.
The sound quality of the professional sound libraries are fantastic and definitely good enough for demo’s, often or even for end mixes.
Many kudos to the dedicated team. I would appreciate more frequent communication about what’s up, though.

I really want to like this app but it can be insanely frustrating. I get that you have to get used to the way of notating some things to make it register correctly and I’m fine with that, but when the program sometimes just decides to not do what it otherwise would do without a problem, that frustrates me to no end and immediately kills any creativity or productivity. In my case sometimes I just cannot select a specific note to drag it up or down. I press on it deadcenter or a little left or right and it just does not want to work. Other notes are fine. And when I want to erase a little mistake I made in a bar it sometimes removes the chord I wrote on top of the bar. I’m a pretty patient guy but I feel like this app is going to be dangerous to the health of my iPad if I use it any longer…

Staffpad is a beautiful app. Very streamlined and a nice design. Very intuitive workflow. Excellent for creative composing.
But the handwriting recognition is frustrating:
- it’s very picky and unintelligent
- when it can’t recognise an element you’ll have to rewrite the whole bar
What could be improved?
- indication of non-recognised elements in the bar (so you only have to delete that element and rewrite it)
- an alternative way to enter notes
- improved, more intelligent handwriting recognition
Be aware that handwriting is at the moment the only way to enter notes!
Update 28/07/21
Yesterday I bought Staffpad on my Surface Pro 7. The recognition is much better on the Surface. Less picky.

For me the StaffPad app is the dream of every composer (at least of classical music): it provides a kind of “living sheet music”. You can literally write music with a stylus and can directly hear a most realistic playback. StaffPad allows to write for a full orchestra, also for people who would otherwise never have an orchestra to play their music. Highly recommended!