# Sibelius 6.2 vs 7.5 - what do you miss from 6.2?



## Pietro (May 3, 2014)

Hey everyone,

I've been a bit skeptic about this upgrade, but I'm just testing the 7.5 and I have to say, that it works much smoother than Sibelius 6.2 on my machine.

Everything seems a bit snappier, not to mention scrolling the score, which is horrible in 6.2 but very nice in 7.5. So I'm kinda thinking of jumping in. I copied my keyboard shortcuts, so I can probably live with the ribbon and get used to it at some point.

One thing I don't like right away is the missing Parts window. Another one is the fact, that when I have zoom at 50% or less, the score looks a bit blurry. Especially the lines, haripins and slurs are much thiner.

What are the things that you don't like about it, or the things that were in 6.2 and you miss them? Besides the ribbon, which I think I could really get used to. I don't have to look at it at all, I have most of the stuff I need in shortcuts or right click.

- Piotr
edit:
Well, generally the scores look a bit fuzzy on my 2560x1440 screen, when at "fit page" zoom. Fortunately there's an option to turn off the smoothing on staff lines etc. Still, a bit less "focused" than Sibelius 6.


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## clarkus (May 3, 2014)

I've stuck with 6. 7 just seemed like a big learning curve for not enough gain. I may be wrong. Some say the MIDI playback is better. I was driven so crazy after years by the MIDI playback that I am now composing in Logic & only go to Sibelius if I need to make good-looking parts & score. I know some people are now running DAWs with Sibelius, and that seems promising, but a bit scarily complex for me, personally. I think what we all hope is that the sequencer world & the high-end notation program world will get together now that CPU and RAM are improving.

Sorry if this does;t answer your question. Just thinking out loud about why I didn't embrace version 7.

Also, of course, Sibelius was acquired, so what the support and upgrades situation is going forward is anyone's guess, as I understand it.


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## Pietro (May 3, 2014)

I compose in Cubase, and use NotePerformer in Sibelius, so I don't care about better MIDI/VST handling. NotePerformer made it perfect for me already.

Thanks for your input.

As for support, Sibelius has been Avid's product since version 7. We got 7.5, and I think I heard, they were already sketching for version 8 before the original Sibelius team left. I'm also totally not switching to Finale :D.

- Piotr


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## Cygnus64 (May 7, 2014)

I don't miss anything from 6. I didn't like the ribbon in 7 at first, but once I made the jump is was pretty easy. I know the shortcuts, and most of it is well-organized as to where things will likely be.


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## Daryl (May 8, 2014)

I'm sticking with Sibelius 6 and then swapping over to the new Steinberg application when it is released. Although I did use Sib7, I never really liked it, and so far nobody has asked for files specifically in Sib7 format. If they do, I'll work in 6 and then save in 7.

D


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## Mike Marino (May 8, 2014)

I'm probably with Daryl on this one as well. I stayed with Sibelius 6.2 and will be taking a hard look at Steinberg's new deal. If they had only updated Sibelius 6.2 64-bit compatible...


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## Pietro (May 8, 2014)

Thanks. I stayed with Sib 6.2, but I fell Steinberg software isn't coming any soon, and there will be a lot of hassle moving to it, learning from the beginning, so thinking of moving to 7.5 as it is a visible performance improvement.

I'm kinda missing the Parts windows though.

- Piotr


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## Cygnus64 (May 8, 2014)

Pietro @ Thu May 08 said:


> Thanks. I stayed with Sib 6.2, but I fell Steinberg software isn't coming any soon, and there will be a lot of hassle moving to it, learning from the beginning, so thinking of moving to 7.5 as it is a visible performance improvement.



Same here. I'd like to support the old Sibelius team in their new endeavor, but it could be a long time. Also, I believe it's going to have an iLok, and I really don't agree with that. 



> I'm kinda missing the Parts windows though.



It's a right-click (on a PC). :lol: Someone sent me a project today in 6 format so I just booted up 6. I'm surprised at how much I prefer 7 now after months of using it. I was a slow convert, I stuck with 6 until this year. I didn't want to lose the toolbar at top, but now I like the extra space and the clean look. Go figure.


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## Daryl (May 9, 2014)

Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:


> Pietro @ Thu May 08 said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks. I stayed with Sib 6.2, but I fell Steinberg software isn't coming any soon, and there will be a lot of hassle moving to it, learning from the beginning, so thinking of moving to 7.5 as it is a visible performance improvement.
> ...


Who on earth told you that? I would put money on it being an eLicenser, if anything.

D


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## Cygnus64 (May 9, 2014)

Daryl @ Fri May 09 said:


> Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:
> 
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> > Pietro @ Thu May 08 said:
> ...



Sorry, that's what I meant. I used iLok as a generic term for "dongle". And I read it, I think on Daniel Spreadbury's blog? It's a Steinberg product so it's not like it should be a shock.


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## snattack (May 9, 2014)

Pietro @ Sat May 03 said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> I've been a bit skeptic about this upgrade, but I'm just testing the 7.5 and I have to say, that it works much smoother than Sibelius 6.2 on my machine.
> 
> ...



This post is going to sound incredibly negative, sorry for that, but any opportunity I get to bash on Sibelius is therapy for surviving. So: I HATE the new Sibelius. I hate it so much. And I use it every day for 10-12 hours.

It's not only the fact that the interface is a huge workflow hog compared to the menu system in Sib.6 (even though I mostly use shortcuts of course), but it's the fact that in the incredibly long time span it's taken from Sib 6.2 -> Sib 7 -> Sib 7.5, there are NONE of the absolute essential features useful for professional orchestrators that has been dealt with. Instead, the 7.5 update basically had 3 things:

1. New instrument bank (which is useless since Noteperformer outperforms *haha* it anyday).

2. We can now copy/paste a hairpin from part of a tuplet (should have been implemented from the beginning)

3. We can now share our scores for free on the internet with a few clicks (WHAT PROFESSIONAL WOULD EVER WANT THAT!??).


What we don't have that takes A LOT to fix in EVERY orchestration are:

- Magnetic Gliss (the pitch slide on the keypad is useless)

- Support for cross-staff gliss (which is used ALL THE TIME in any harp part)

- Support for cross-staff slurs when writing a piano part

- Lines that aren't consequently to long so that they spill over to the next note (trills, 1., 2-houses, etc etc.)

- Rehearsal Marks that can be controlled properly and aligned above the first barline. In the layout process in one full score arrangement, dealing with rehearsal marks can take anything from 20-40 minutes (much longer in a medley or suite) of painstaking manually moving them to the proper place, writing X-values in the inspector in the score, etc). I wonder who's idea it was to relate rehearsal marks to the position AFTER the key signature.

Etc etc etc...

And ... it's .. slow on OSX. So very slow that I had to use precious SSD space to bootcamp Windows into my Macbook just to be able to work properly with full orchestral scores. And this isn't a crappy Macbook, this is Retina mid 2012 MAXED OUT in both processor and ram.

It's been clear that Sibelius is no longer for professionals, it's for music teachers or church musicians with tons of time to finish off their scores. The only reason I'm still using Sibelius is because of Noteperformer, nothing else. I would switch to Finale anytime.

I think the problem is that Sibelius is too easy to learn, so we'll never have a community of professionals reacting to these obvious flaws. Instead most people that work with tight schedules uses Finale, which is so painful to learn that everyone has to get into the depth of the software. And those using Sibelius are just happy that everything is faster than writing by hand.

I really hope that the new Steinberg software will be good enough, and aimed for workflow instead of cr*p.


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## Cygnus64 (May 9, 2014)

snattack @ Fri May 09 said:


> It's been clear that Sibelius is no longer for professionals, it's for music teachers or church musicians with tons of time to finish off their scores. .



I know that you're venting, but that's a bit of a stretch.  I've done 100+ orchestral charts since version 6, and every one looked as "pro" as it gets. Sure, there are a lot of things I would like to see, and I definitely agree with you about 7.5, but it's still Sibelius.



> 3. We can now share our scores for free on the internet with a few clicks (WHAT PROFESSIONAL WOULD EVER WANT THAT!??).



C'mon. the chicks really dig it.  



> - Lines that aren't consequently to long so that they spill over to the next note (trills, 1., 2-houses, etc etc.) - Rehearsal Marks



Yeah, that bothers me too. I'm not a programmer, but it seems like fixing first and second endings wouldn't be that tough. Same with 8va etc.



> I think the problem is that Sibelius is too easy to learn, so we'll never have a community of professionals reacting to these obvious flaws.



I don't think it's as easy as you think. If you're like me, you've been using it forever (since #3 for me) and it's all second nature, but there was a learning curve along the way. But it's disappointing that 7.5 was such a lame update. Even 6 to 7 didn't have anything as far as engraving, so I do feel your pain. Rant on. 8)


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## bdr (May 9, 2014)

With the first and second endings, you are supposed to select from the first to last notes in the bar then add the line, not select the bar.


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## Daryl (May 10, 2014)

Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:


> Daryl @ Fri May 09 said:
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> > Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:
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Ah right. Yes, it probably will use an eLicenser. It was the iLok statement that confused me.

Either way it doesn't matter to me, and probably won't worry most professionals either, although the people who only do engraving might find it a strange thing to get used to.

D


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## snattack (May 10, 2014)

Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:


> snattack @ Fri May 09 said:
> 
> 
> > It's been clear that Sibelius is no longer for professionals, it's for music teachers or church musicians with tons of time to finish off their scores. .
> ...



What I mean is not that it's impossible to produce good scores in Sibelius. It's great for composers, but the simple fact is that a composer usually have more time than an orchestrator. We're the last part of the chain before the printout.

I write at least 100+ orchestrations & arrangements / year, and the problem is a little bit this response: "it works fine for me". Well, for me it doesn't, and at the speed I have to orchestrate, I'd consider myself a pro-user, and it's impossible that there aren't more people in my situation bothered by the same issues. If you need to write an orchestration in 4 hours, every single part of the workflow needs to be optimized.

And it's not that I don't try to do something about it. I actually hired a guy taking care of the rehearsal mark issue to develop a plugin. When it's finished it will be released as donation ware.

But with the Harp Gliss, it's IMPOSSIBLE apparently to get this working, even with a plugin. So I instead tried the workaround of creating a bank of the most common gliss in the Ideas-bank. Well, it turns out that it doesn't keep the position of the gliss line properly. So if I copy the gliss to the ideas bank, and then paste the same idea into the same score, it's ruined.

And that's what's most frustrating with Sibelius: in almost every corner it feels "half done". There are GREAT ideas in Sibelius, but they're not finished, with the result that those things going faster in Sibelius actually doesn't add up for those things slowing it down. These are problems that people don't care about if they're not writing 2-3 orchestrations/week, because it's only then it becomes apparent. And all they had to do was focusing ONE SINGLE UPDATE on increasing these small flaws to save huge amounts of time.

An example, writing a drum part and replacing it with slashes to have a bar with sounding slashes:

1. Move to layer 2 (keystroke)

2. Filter Layer 2 (keystroke)

3. Hide layer 2 (keystroke)

4. Click a rest in layer 1 (mouse)

5. Add 4 quarter B's (4 keystrokes)

6. Select Bar (mouse)

7. Filter layer 1 (keystroke)

*) You could shift select the separate notheads here, but that's 4 clicks instead of 2 and requires accuracy

8. Replace noteheads with slash noteheads (keystroke).

EIGHT STEPS.

Compare to Finale:

1. Right click the bar

2. Select staff style "Slash notation".

TWO STEPS.

Now to the point: if I'd say this in the Sibelius forum, the reponse would be "It's easy, just do these 8 steps". And that's not a response from a professional orchestrator, that's a response for someone with loads of time at their hands.


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## snattack (May 10, 2014)

bdr @ Fri May 09 said:


> With the first and second endings, you are supposed to select from the first to last notes in the bar then add the line, not select the bar.



That's just plain stupid software design, since the first/second ending in fact isn't an element in any kind of engraving situation connected to the notes, it shows HOW MANY BARS this applies to.

Sibelius has more of those things. For instance, if I want to START writing a dotted note, I have to select the actual rest in the middle of the bar instead of just clicking in the bar, which requires precision with the mouse, and that's just one of all those small hogs in the workflow. It'd just been easier to be allowed writing dotted notes just selecting the bar. Mouse precision should always be put down to a minimum in any application since it's much slower working with than the keyboard.


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## Cygnus64 (May 10, 2014)

bdr @ Sat May 10 said:


> With the first and second endings, you are supposed to select from the first to last notes in the bar then add the line, not select the bar.



OK...


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## bdr (May 10, 2014)

I should have said notes/rests..select the first and last note and/or rest.


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## bdr (May 10, 2014)

snattack @ Sat May 10 said:


> Cygnus64 @ Fri May 09 said:
> 
> 
> > snattack @ Fri May 09 said:
> ...




There's a plugin called (from memory) Rhythm Section Assistant that will take care of those 8 steps automatically.

I completely agree with the problems with harp notations and other lines, really annoying. I'm wondering with the rehearsal marks if you might be able to fix it with magnetic layout...You can prioritize which score elements get shifted or not.


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## Cygnus64 (May 10, 2014)

bdr @ Sat May 10 said:


> I should have said notes/rests..select the first and last note and/or rest.



It doesn't make any sense in many cases. If there's a whole note rest, it doesn't work. Sure, I can figure out that I have to select the notes of the second staff too. It's a small thing of course as either way it's an easy fix, but it's what I've been missing from Sibelius since version 6- they aren't concentrating on notation and engraving any more. It feels like "that's it" and the known issues are here to stay.

I might be in the minority, but I don't really care about playback. It's nice of course to have it sounding good, but half the time I write with the sound off.  Dynamic parts with smart wind divisi would be killer. The ability to make Youtube videos doesn't really seem connected to the prime directive- making sheet music for players.


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## bdr (May 11, 2014)

I'm not any kind of apologist for Sibelius...just trying to help out with issues. There's plenty to fix in Sibelius- for me pedal lines and harp lines/arpeggios as snattack mentioned are a PITA. Also tied notes into second endings. And a bunch of other stuff.

I've asked on the Sib. forum about your example of a whole rest. I'll post if I get an answer. The lines attach to notes, not bar lines (apparently). Whether it makes sense or not- that doesn't really matter if you want to keep using Sibelius..it is the way it is so lets figure out the quickest way to get stuff done. Or go learn Finale.

There are numerous plugins that will automate a lot of work.

There is a plugin to correct all the ending lines that are too long...
http://www.sibelius.com/download/plugin ... plugin=459

There is a Rehearsal Number plugin that might help
http://www.sibelius.com/download/plugin ... plugin=479


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## Daryl (May 11, 2014)

Guys, my suggestion would be to start a new thread that could perhaps remain a sticky, and collate all these suggestions/problems. i think that we could expand on them over time and invite both Avid and Steinberg to view our suggestions.

I have little hope that Avid cares, but I'm Daniel, over at Steinberg, would be very grateful for the feedback. Particularly with things like rehearsal marks, because unless someone tells him what they would like to be able to set up as a default, it is unlikely that he will just do it "perfectly" by accident.

D


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## Cygnus64 (May 11, 2014)

bdr @ Sun May 11 said:


> I'm not any kind of apologist for Sibelius...just trying to help out with issues.



Sorry, I should have mentioned that I appreciated the help. Got a little overzealous there. You've already helped as your suggestion actually does work, or it shows what to do. One doesn't have to put a 1st ending on the top staff, any staff will work and it will automatically go on the top. I checked. 8) It still takes manual moving at the top, as you'll see it doesn't quite line up.




> Or go learn Finale.



I, possibly naively, believe in the power of people. I think that if the Sibelius users make it known that they are not happy with the direction of the program, it will be a start. When 7.5 came out, the problems in Ukraine started about the same time (I remember a post in the forum that was poorly timed about it). Hard to say "fix the lines dammit" when lives our at stake. Regardless, 7.5 was the lamest version by a long shot, and if we make it known as a community that we aren't impressed, it's better than nothing.

I always download the latest demo of Finale and spend some time with it. I started on it as well, so I'm quasi-fluent in it, in the event that Sibelius goes under, or Finale comes up with some "must-have" creativeness that would make the switch worth it.


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