# Sibelius RIP 1993 - 2012?



## synergy543 (Aug 5, 2012)

Sibelius London Office Shut Down for good - Goodbye Sibelius!

On July 2, they sacked the U.K. staff (the heart and soul of Sibelius development and support) and locked the doors for good. And AFID has refused to sell Sibelius to the Finn brothers who have offered to buy it back.

Could the AFID feedback site have been just a corporate ruse to vent steam from disgruntled users? Obviously, (all along) they weren't really listening. And once people get up on the platform and voice their opinion, they usually feel better as they've expressed their opinions...and thus will be out of the way.

You can go to the Sibelius.org and sign a petition to show your support.
http://www.sibeliususers.org/

What are the alternatives (things at Finale don't sound quite so healthy either)?

Maybe we need to learn to Rap instead an 'espress' ourselves?

I think I'm depressed. :(


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## rgames (Aug 5, 2012)

Yeah - that's really bad news. And hard to believe.

There must be more to this story - I'm trying to think of the business reason for just letting it die. Seems a sale of some sort would be the better option, and with only one other major competitor, it seems like a perfect opportunity for some investor, so it seems like they could find a buyer. Must have something to do with UK law - seems unlikely to happen in the US.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 5, 2012)

Actually - check that. Have they said they're abandoning Sibelius? Or just replacing the development team?

Moving the development team outside the UK might make good business sense.

rgames


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## sbkp (Aug 5, 2012)

Yeah, they're replacing the development team. Even if on the surface (i.e., on the balance sheet) it makes "good business sense" because it will cut costs, it also throws away all the background knowledge behind the code. Hand those millions of lines of code to another team, no matter how talented, and the new team won't be nearly as productive as the old team. They've also pissed off thousands of users.

Very, very sad.


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## StrangeCat (Aug 5, 2012)

God what a joke! I bet those brothers are pretty mad right now.


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## Daryl (Aug 5, 2012)

StrangeCat @ Sun Aug 05 said:


> God what a joke! I bet those brothers are pretty mad right now.


They are, but when you sell your baby to a 3rd party, you relinquish control. If you want to remain in charge, don't sell.

D


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## MikeH (Aug 5, 2012)

To my knowledge, the Finn brothers have recently tried twice to buy Sibelius back from Avid, and have been denied both times. It's a shame, really.

What exactly is Avid trying to accomplish by refusing to sell Sibelius and yet running it into the ground?


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## Daryl (Aug 5, 2012)

MikeH @ Sun Aug 05 said:


> To my knowledge, the Finn brothers have recently tried twice to buy Sibelius back from Avid, and have been denied both times. It's a shame, really.
> 
> What exactly is Avid trying to accomplish by refusing to sell Sibelius and yet running it into the ground?


I don't think that Avid (or the money men who run it) believes that it is running Sibelius into the ground. They probably believe that a development team somewhere in Eastern Europe can just take over the coding at a moments notice. However, I remember Steinberg saying that when they get a new member of the software team, it takes up to 6 months to integrate them, and get them up to speed. Imagine how difficult this will be when you have replaced the whole team.

D


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## DavidAdeyemi (Aug 5, 2012)

They WILL NOT take Sibelius away from us.

I don't care if I have to charge in there with a baseball bat- it's staying right where it is!

Period!


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## kclements (Aug 5, 2012)

I'm still really happy with Vs. 6 and plan on sticking with it. I haven't cared for the look of Vs. 7 since I first saw it, so I didn't upgrade.

Has anyone used Vs. 6 with Mountain Lion? Everything I have heard about ML has been pretty positive, but I haven't updated from Snow Leopard let. Thinking of moving to ML on my laptop but I use Sibelius 6 on this machine. Anyone have any comments on it?

Cheers
kc


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## nikolas (Aug 5, 2012)

We do need to agree that from the most superficial way possible changing all the team members to others who are dead cheaper makes sense! Simply put! Plus I would imagine that the UK has stricter rules to protect workers, thus moving it out of the UK into a former Eastern country makes perfect business sense: Cut the expenses in half or so.

Selling the software to the Finn brothers doesn't seem to be an option right now: Just because WE, the users, feel that Sibelius is being abandoned, the AVID admins have no intention to do that: It may very well be that there will be a gap to development for a year, and then things will pick up. 

Of course we all know that the above is shit: Sack the whole dev team is pretty much unheard of if you want to keep the development going, but we also do not know if there was any discussion between the dev team members and AVID admins that lead to this... 

Either way as I've mentioned everywhere else, I think that Daniel is the heart and soul of sibelius now, he's helped me more than once and if it wasn't for him I wouldn't be using sibelius. Simple as that! And this, in my book, means a lot: This kind of customer service is unheard of and something to be valued. Plus all the recent upgrades that make Sibelius the software that it is...


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## edhamilton (Aug 5, 2012)

This is such a common and unfortunate outcome but there are options now for the original Sibelius guys to overcome it.
Instead of the usual - raise capitol funding to buy it back - if Avid won't sell -

Crowdsource a new startup ala kickstarter....

$1000 contribution buys you a lifetime of free upgrades and personal support from team.

$500 Lifetime of free updates.

$100 invested gets you the first 3 gens of the new product.

I bet they could easily raise the funds to startup a new company and kick the living c r a p out of Avid.

I'm in at the $500 level.


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## Daryl (Aug 6, 2012)

DavidAdeyemi @ Mon Aug 06 said:


> They WILL NOT take Sibelius away from us.
> 
> I don't care if I have to charge in there with a baseball bat- it's staying right where it is!
> 
> Period!


Unfortunately you're too late. The London office is closed and all the staff are gone.

D


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## Daryl (Aug 6, 2012)

kclements @ Mon Aug 06 said:


> I'm still really happy with Vs. 6 and plan on sticking with it. I haven't cared for the look of Vs. 7 since I first saw it, so I didn't upgrade.
> 
> Has anyone used Vs. 6 with Mountain Lion? Everything I have heard about ML has been pretty positive, but I haven't updated from Snow Leopard let. Thinking of moving to ML on my laptop but I use Sibelius 6 on this machine. Anyone have any comments on it?
> 
> ...


I think that whilst it may work, in the long run you would be better to get a machine that does run it well and then freeze all OS updates until you know more of what is happening with Sibelius. I'm doing that with one of my Windows machines. Even though Microsoft doesn't' have the same reputation as Apple for breaking things with minor OS updates, I'm taking no chances. :wink: 

FWIW I've done the same with my Mac for use with Keymap Pro.

D


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## Peter Alexander (Aug 6, 2012)

Here's the news about Finale:

http://www.startribune.com/business/162 ... ml?refer=y

It appears to be very difficult times for notation programs.


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## mathis (Aug 6, 2012)

Daryl @ Sun Aug 05 said:


> MikeH @ Sun Aug 05 said:
> 
> 
> > To my knowledge, the Finn brothers have recently tried twice to buy Sibelius back from Avid, and have been denied both times. It's a shame, really.
> ...



My colleagues at Celemony say it's more like a year to integrate new developers. But, as you said, we're talking integration here, not building up a whole new development team.


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## dcoscina (Aug 6, 2012)

I think the Finns should release a new program called Elgar. Given their British roots, that would seem like a good program name. Then they can develop a killer notation program that carries on what Avid/Sibelius dropped...

I've been through this with Notion and the one thing I will say is this- notation programs don't need to stay as hip as DAWs do and I know a couple guys who are writing beautiful music with Notion ver 2. We have to remember that the ultimate aim of Sibelius and programs like it are to get REAL musicians to play the printed score. Obviously I'd love of it Sibelius development continues to a point where I don't have to rely on DAWs for really great realizations of my compositions. I still look forward to the say when I can boot up my notation program and get the sound quality of Spitfire Audio samples with the control of VSL but all done transparently so I can just concentrate on the music. I do appreciate the intentions behind the built in library of Sibelius 7 and honestly don't mind the ribbon. I hide it most of the time. I love the fact that I can take my laptop, my number pad, and write music. No external hard drives, no keyboard controllers, no audio interface- just a laptop and some inspiration. 

I dearly hope something gets resolved here but if it doesn't, once again, I'm formally appealing to the Finns to partner with those wonderful Spitfire chaps and make a kick ass notation program using the Spitfire Audio samples. 

ELGAR- the next notation sensation!


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## Gusfmm (Aug 9, 2012)

Peter Alexander @ Mon Aug 06 said:


> Here's the news about Finale:
> 
> http://www.startribune.com/business/162 ... ml?refer=y
> 
> It appears to be very difficult times for notation programs.



That happened a few weeks ago Peter. In fact, I disagree with your comment in this case. The move by this private equity firm seems to be prospectively positive to the future of Finale. Among other things, they openly acknowledge there is need for a complete code revamp, and are willing to invest in doing so. The SEC filing link below is a bit more detailed and instructive, worth reading if you have the 5 minutes.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ ... 071512.htm


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## MikeH (Sep 1, 2012)

Bobby Lombardi has been appointed as the new head of product development:

http://www.prosoundnewseurope.com/main- ... d-sibelius


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## dcoscina (Sep 1, 2012)

The problem with his rationale about where Sibelius was headed in is that it is not the same as Media Composer or Pro Tools! This interview confirms what most of us suspected already- that the program we all grew with is now dead. Avid, I will not give you a red cent more towards your products.

Edit- Lombardi throwing out all his credentials doesn't count for a damn thing either. The guys working on Sibelius day in and day out were all musically adept as well intimately knowledgeable with the program. Farming it out to musicians within Avid doesn't mean a damn thing. 75% of Avid employee might be musicians but how many of them are classically trained and know engraving? Lombardi's ignorance is astounding.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 1, 2012)

Bobby Lombardi is an old Digidesign guy who's been there for a very long time. In my experience as a magazine editor dealing with him, he's not a party line bullshitter.

What that means for Sibelius is something else - I have no idea. But actually I do think his academic credentials are important, because it means they have someone who understands the product managing it.


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## dcoscina (Sep 1, 2012)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Sep 01 said:


> Bobby Lombardi is an old Digidesign guy who's been there for a very long time. In my experience as a magazine editor dealing with him, he's not a party line bullshitter.
> 
> What that means for Sibelius is something else - I have no idea. But actually I do think his academic credentials are important, because it means they have someone who understands the product managing it.



I truly hope so Nick.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 1, 2012)

So do I!

And I don't really use Sibelius - everything I've done in the past few years as been MIDI-plus-overdubs, so I haven't needed anything more than Logic for notation.


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## dcoscina (Sep 1, 2012)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Sep 01 said:


> So do I!
> 
> And I don't really use Sibelius - everything I've done in the past few years as been MIDI-plus-overdubs, so I haven't needed anything more than Logic for notation.



I've moved away from sample libraries and daws to Sibelius these days mostly because I'm concentrating on concert works and I was hoping that Sibelius would continue developing in the direction the UK office and staff were moving in. Now I'm afraid these noobs at Avid cannot discern between production software like Pro Tools and compositional and engraving software like Sibelius/Finale.


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## Daryl (Sep 2, 2012)

"Sibelius wasn't running at the same rate as the rest of the company..." What the hell does that mean? Corporate bullshit. :roll: 

D


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## almound (Sep 1, 2015)

Sibelius 7.5.1 is still around. In fact, I'm using an internal MIDI cable (LoopBe30) to establish control over a sequencer using the notation program, Sibelius, with Kontakt retail player for automation and key-switching. () Now I don't have to choose which software to compose in. Together, these programs work better than either one separately (in my set up, Sibelius 7.5.1 and Presonus Studio One 3.0). I get better than the best of both worlds.


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