Google Pixel Tablet
Introduction
So I bought a Google Pixel Tablet
specifically for running Roland Zenbeats using Christmas money
family gave me. While I have a 2-in-1 Dell laptop with a
touch screen, I don't like the thought of having to transport my
laptop to and from gigs, if I'm using the tablet as my beat
making and DAW. My goal is to set up loops to help with
worship music, as well as busking. This page is a work in
progress.
Setup
Initial setup was incredibly easy. I was given the option to move my documents, music and settings to the new tablet. If you agree, you eventually get the option to specify which settings and documents to bring over. I chose to include only app settings and certain apps (because my phone and my tablet have different use cases).
This tablet and the Google ecosphere allow you to, for example, do texting and dismiss notifications from the tablet and it takes effect on my Pixel phone and watch. All three communicate with each other.
But recently a coworker thought he was
turning the dock off and instead reset it. The ISP our
work uses was having DNS issues on that day, and the result was
the dock simply would not complete setup (since they
accidentally did a factory reset). This is not very
acceptable simply because then I can't use the dock. But
you connect the tablet to the dock with a 4-wire connection: two
of those can easily be a slow-band serial connection for
communication. Basically what I'm saying is it should be
possible to complete setup through direct connection. My
tablet was docked but I couldn't complete setup due to WiFi
(internet: the ISP's DNS sucks).
Experience with Other Applications
Most Android apps for tablets versus phones
are horribly designed in one way: visually. Instead of
getting more "landscape" and the app scaling visually, usually
(such as Facebook and Reddit) I get just an exploded view of the
same thing as a phone app. To me, that's really
pathetic. These apps also don't seem to have a tablet
setting either. Some of the Google applications function
better, such as Keep, GMail, and Messaging: they set up so that
on the left, you see a sort of menu, and on the right, you can
edit the Keep, or reply to an email, etc. Kudos for the
DnD Beyond app developers: their app re-flows the data and
visuals to work on a tablet.
Experience with Zenbeats
Thankfully, since Zenbeats was too small to be super useful on a medium sized android phone, it is amazingly well set up for a tablet. And this is good because Roland, in many places in documentations and their website, advertised this as specifically made for tablets (though it works on PC and phones). For phones, it was fun in a sense because it was cute to use it in a small package. And on a phone, it could still be used to run loops and beats. But for a tablet, Zenbeats really comes into its own, scaling very well visually.
However, one minor problem exists that I knew about beforehand: Android does not support VSTs at this time. This means that if someone really wants to run VSTs from a tablet, they should probably look towards Apple tablet products so that you can use AUv3 plugins. Roland has a page that explains this. But at the same time, the problem here is that most tablets are not going to have super powerful processing powers / CPUs. For me, I only use Roland AIRA and Legendary VSTs, which would likely require more processing power than most tablets will have, so I went into this decision knowing that I was not going to use VSTs.
But I don't have to use VSTs because Zenbeats has the ability to record and use clips of any sound imaginable. As well, it has the ZC1 synthesizer and many loops and drum sets in it. If I really need to use a VST, I would be using my laptop for this anyway.
The problem I am currently facing (I'll probably edit this later) is that the interface of Zenbeats is almost TOO intuitive. I'm slightly struggling to learn how to use the interface, but I'm currently only spending like 30-60 minutes a day. Roland's website has plenty of very helpful videos that are helping me learn, so I am VERY excited to see where this goes!
Experience as an Aid to Therapy and Counseling
There are both pros and cons of using this for my counseling work. One of the pros is that I can move around with Best Notes and other software. I can also use the dock to cast videos to the tablet in such a way that all clients in my office (think groups) can see. And the sound quality of the dock is very good indeed.
The first drawback is mainly due to the app:
BestNotes will not allow me to place any clinical notes.
The second drawback is that, due to not being able to directly
sign into the tablet with my work Google workspace email, which
is not the tablet's fault. But this would be ideal because
being signed in as myself, I get notifications from my home
GMail and also my work GMail. I'd appreciate the ability
to specify that one account can display notifications while
another cannot, etc. The solution could end up being just
blocking all notifications on the lock screen.