Sibelius 4 Professional
Reviewed by Daphne Kalfon
Sibelius Software The Old Toy Factory 20-23 City North Fonthill Road London N4 3HF 0800 458 3111 FAX: 020 7561 7888 Australia Sibelius Australia 2/52 Weaver Street Edwardstown SA 5039 08 8277 1722 FAX: 08 8277 1799 $600 USD, $650CAD, £303 GBP, €443 Euro |
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Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.8/10.3.9/10.4 or later, 256Mb+ RAM, 250Mb hard disk space. Recommended if using Kontakt Player Silver or audio file export: G4/G5, 512Mb+ RAM, 500Mb hard disk space. Strengths: extremely versatile, flexible program. Geared to a very wide range of users such as music teachers and music students of every type of ensemble, conservatories, colleges and advanced users such as film composers, concert musicians, orchestrators, arrangers, conductors and more. Weaknesses: None found. For a demo (brochure and CD-ROM) of this product: call toll-free: 888-474-2354 or email infoUSA@sibelius.com. For those outside North and South America, consult the website for the applicable toll-free numbers and email addresses. |
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Introduction
Sibelius 4 is a complete package. It allows composers to write, play, print and publish their music notation projects. It is designed for beginners as well as very advanced composers. It has powerful tools for teachers, and allows users to synchronize their score with a video. Sibelius comes with the Kontakt Player Silver from Native Instruments, which will play back music using high-quality sound samples taken from actual orchestral instruments. The program is also available for purchase as a 5-pack, network or educational site license.
Getting Started
The box contains the installation CD, a handbook, a detailed 500+ page book called “Reference” which is a printed version of the online manual, a brochure outlining all the products in the Sibelius family and a sheet titled “Latest information and technical help”. I should mention that for regular purchasers, the box may not also include the “Reference” manual, but was included in mine for review purposes.
Installation and registration was a very simple, quick and straightforward process using the serial number provided. I really appreciated that when compared to previous experiences I have had in trying to install much smaller and cheaper notation programs.
After Sibelius finished loading, a dialog called “Playback and Input Devices” appeared, with Kontakt Player listed first in the “Device” column. Clicking on the test button allows you to confirm whether or not the chosen device is working.
Just to make sure it was indeed using the Kontakt player, I opened one of the many scores provided, to have it play through. Well, the only glitch was that even after installing the Kontakt Player Silver and choosing it in the “Playback and Input Devices” window, Sibelius still defaulted to the built-in DLS (General Midi) player, which is not what I wanted to use. The solution was quite simple however. Under the Play menu, I chose “substitute devices”, and chose “Kontakt Player”. Clicking OK will temporarily change it to use the Kontakt player, whereas clicking on the “reset sounds” button will permanently change it.
Choosing an input device (my MIDI keyboard) was simple and worked immediately.
Using the Software
I started by cracking open the handbook, which is basically
a quick tour of Sibelius. The first chapter deals with installation,
registration and MIDI setup. The next chapter gets you started on the “Quick
Tour”, and the last section of the book is a “How to” section which shows you
how to set notation for every kind of music such as band, choir, early music,
guitar, jazz, orchestra, percussion and so on. The back cover of the book has a
detailed diagram of what each item on the menu bar means, as well as many of
the most used keyboard shortcuts that are built into the software. A full
listing of keyboard shortcuts is contained in the Reference manual which is
also available online.
I decided to start off by going on the quick tour. They highly recommend it even for those who have used other notation software programs, because each program is different and one may otherwise miss those important differences and other special features. A nice feature about the handbook is that as one goes through the tour, the relevant tutorial videos are signaled using a clapperboard symbol, and every few pages there is at least one “Pearl of Wisdom”, about using the software, as well as a brief “recap” at the end of each section. For the tutorial videos, Sibelius co-founder Ben Finn explains how to use the program’s main features. Topics covered range from a basic intro right through to publishing your scores on the Internet and tips on using the built-in Kontakt Player.
Besides the tutorial videos (19 in all), the handbook and the detailed online reference manual, there is also an online help centre which can be accessed from the Help menu. So… it is easy to see that there is more than enough help on hand to get you from beginner to seasoned user and beyond.
So the first section of the Quick Tour consists of chapters “Look and feel”, “Playback”, and “Basic editing”. These sections introduced me to the basic tools I would use most often when I begin to use Sibelius. It was very straightforward. I watched the accompanying video for “Look and feel”, and found it very easy to follow. The voice-over was at a good slow pace, easy to understand, and accompanied by a “live” screenshot of whatever was being discussed. There is also a transport bar at the bottom which allows you to go back, rewind, fast forward and so on, through the tutorial.
The next chapter is “Printing”. Using an example score from the Quick Tour to print out, the operation went smoothly and I was very impressed with the quality of the printout.
This is followed by “Starting a new score” and “Mouse Input”. Following the easy steps, I ended up with four full bars of note input on a very professional looking new score.
The next chapter is titled “Alphabetic Input” and guides you through the process of learning how to input notes into your score using the computer keyboard, as well as how to input lines, text, and how to notate using the four voices - which are colour-coded to make things easier. A feature I really like is that as I save at regular intervals, Sibelius creates a “backups” folder of each save so that in case my score gets deleted by accident or I simply want to go back to a previous save, I can go to the folder of backups and choose which one I want from there.
Next is “Step-time input” which covers how to enter notes into your score via your MIDI keyboard. This method is extremely straightforward. One glitch I noticed was that as I input my notes, Sibelius didn’t quite get the right accidentals in its “intelligent guess” process. It chose A-flats instead of G-sharps (my score was in the key of F +) so I did have to correct those. I was pretty impressed with how I can play for example, a chord, and Sibelius will enter the whole thing instantly into my score.
Something that wasn’t mentioned is that you can also use the numeric keypad on your computer keyboard to change note values during step-time input; the quick tour only mentioned using Sibelius’s onscreen Keypad to do this, which isn’t as efficient.
This is followed by “Flexi-time input”. After a few tries, I was able to get a perfect written rendition into my score, of what I played on my MIDI keyboard, all in real time. I was impressed by the speed and accuracy with which Sibelius was able to transcribe what I played.
Next is “Basic formatting” which illustrates just how flexible and sophisticated Sibelius is when it comes to being able to instantly change layouts and formats, of which there are many to choose from.
“A little arranging” showed how with just a few easy steps, you can easily rearrange your music for any combination of instruments, and here again, there are so many combinations to choose from under the “Notes” menu.
The next chapter discusses how Sibelius allows you to publish music on the internet either to SibeliusMusic.com, which is a very large database of sheet music, or you may publish teaching materials onto SibeliusEducation.com for students and colleagues to download and which in turn allows you to obtain the same from others, or you may also publish your scores onto your own website.
I should mention that this viewing, sharing and printing of scores on the internet is enabled by Scorch, which comes with Sibelius and is a free web browser plug-in.
What I was particularly interested in (and excited about) checking out was the “Video” chapter. Well, it was so easy to import a video and have it play in sync with my Sibelius score. Wow, that was easy. Sibelius also has many files of short videos which you can copy to your hard disc from the CD-ROM, and either view the accompanying music score that was written for it, or write your own. I viewed one of the videos and found the accompanying music score to be of quite a decent quality. I do think this is yet another great tool that comes with Sibelius, for those who are keen on writing film scores.
I need to mention that as I was playing the music to the video, I noticed lots of clicks and pops. I then closed the two other Sibelius notation projects I had currently open, and just in case, I also quit any other programs I had running which I didn’t need. Then I quit Sibelius and re-opened the score and video, and then the music played fine. Just something to keep in mind. That may be a bit of a glitch but there is an easy solution : )
The handbook also covers “Parts”, “Worksheet Creator” (for music teachers), Guitar tab”, “Exporting graphics” (this allows you to export all or part of your score into another program), “Scanning”, “Opening files from other programs”, and the Espressivo feature which uses artificial intelligence to create a more human-like performance of your music. I checked out the sample score, before Espressivo was used, and after, and was impressed by the difference in performance. This feature can be easily applied to any score.
And of course once you are done, exporting audio is done simply by choosing the “export” option under the file menu.
The handbook goes on to describe further features of Sibelius by listing them and where they can be found in the Reference manual for more detailed information. This is a very handy feature as it allows you to quickly find what you are looking for and read the relevant sections in the Reference manual.
I found the sounds in the Kontakt Silver Player to be of quite a good quality but you can always upgrade to Gold if desired.
The last part of the handbook is called “How to” and basically gives you very helpful pointers on how to set up pretty much any kind of score in Sibelius, from early music to jazz
Conclusion
Sibelius is an incredibly sophisticated yet easy to use notation software program. It will allow you to do anything you want to do in the world of notation.
Recommendation
For anyone who is keen on writing their own scores for whatever ensemble of their choosing, without having any limitations on creativity, Sibelius is most definitely the way to go. As always however, always try before you buy and Sibelius lets you do that with the demo CD-ROM.
