# Sibelius 7 now available!



## Mike Marino

Check it:http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/7/index.html


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## Mike Marino

I also read that the new sound libraries from Sample Logic (Rumble and Fanfare) will have soundsets already included in Sibelius 7 for streamlined use.


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## MikeH

Other than 64bit support, what exactly is the selling point for an upgrade at $150? It can't be the 'new' sound library, because it sounds pretty much exactly like what I have in Sibelius 6. NOTION 3 has better sounding samples with less GB's than Sibelius 7.

I had to have a little chuckle when I read:

_a stunning, high-quality orchestra comparable to those you can buy from dedicated sample developers for hundreds of dollars._

Seriously? Maybe they should listen to their demos. 

I'll wait to hear from other users who have upgraded, but this all just looks seriously disappointing...or at the very least, not worth the upgrade price.


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## BlueStar

Haven't seen any interesting, new features for pro users!

I was eagerly waiting for Sibelius 7...

All I get is a new Office-toolbar-look, some text-boxes, graphic import,
better import/export, sounds I don't need and 64bit... Lots of things but
the change from 5 to 6 was really a big leap.

Does Sibelius 7 integrate triplets in the workflow like it should be?
Maybe the important changes can be found in details? 

Otherwise version 7 wouln't be made for Sibelius6-Users, but for
new clients - changing from Finale.

Cheers,
Bluestar


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## Dave Connor

Right, can't believe they're hyping the sounds - truly dreadful. I have 6 and don't knoe if it sounds that bad - maybe equally bad.

Great job with stunning new world class library!


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## Mike Marino

I'm surprised, as a registered Sibelius owner, that I wasn't even notified about the new program.

Hm. I'll be waiting as well.

The other upgrade from 6 is that you can now export in MusicXML from Sibelius. (I don't know why that wasn't available in 6.....).


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## JT

I'll end up getting this upgrade at some point. I use Finale 99.9% of the time. A couple jobs a year I need to work in Sibelius, so I need the latest version to stay compatible. But on its own merits, I really don't see anything here that really makes me want to upgrade. And the new Avid sample library and audio demos, I'd be embarrassed to present these to a client.


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## bryla

In the car today I was actually thinking: Sib 7 should be out soon.... wonder what it'll be!

Other than the sticky notes I can't see the point in upgrading. And even the feature not being there is a big problem for me. I would much rather they'ld work on part extraction.


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## windshore

I read over the list of improvements and a lot of them looked like things that should be part of an unpaid upgrade.

I've always been bugged at the inconsistency of their windows. In order to escape from a window sometimes the only thing you can do is click with a mouse. Also to open and edit window and have the highlighted button close the window instead of go into the edit area is just stupid. It looks like they've addressed a lot of that.

It also claims to be much better at re-writing or re-interpretting passages which could be a real time saver if true. For years I've wondered why Logic opens Midi files in a more legible way than Sibelius.

Other than that I tend to agree. Sounds? - please! And the new Graphics make it look like it's designed for frade-schooler kids.


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## Maximvs

When I read that Sibelius 7 includes 38GB of new samples I thought that the dream may finally be here to have great sounding instruments right inside Sibelius, then I eagerly proceeded to listen to the demos and am sorry to say Avid: The sound is awful, it is worse than an old organ :evil: 

Asside for being now native 64 bit which will finallly allow me to use Rewire with Cubase 5 64 bit and to be able to export XML files, I see very little that is not in Sibelius 6.

Yes, the overall face lift and finally a proper mixer is fine but I was expecting after two years something more revolutionary.


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## Mike Marino

+1


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## jamwerks

Bringing it to 64 bit must have taken almost all their time, not much for new features! o[])

Wonder if it’s Lion ready?


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## Mike Marino

Not sure about 7. According to an article on their FB page, 6 is Lion ready for the most part. They haven't found any bugs other than not being able to register the software online.


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## dcoscina

Dave Connor @ Wed Jul 27 said:


> Right, can't believe they're hyping the sounds - truly dreadful. I have 6 and don't knoe if it sounds that bad - maybe equally bad.
> 
> Great job with stunning new world class library!




I agree! NOTION's resident library KILLS this one as far as string sounds goes. Garritan's GPO4 even sounds better what with the PS brass.

Still will upgrade but what a disappointment sound-wise. At least with 64 bit I can load more EWQL sounds. I just upgraded my Mac Pro to 15 gb RAM.


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## Pietro

I installed the trial.

Why does it still take several seconds to copy and paste things? I don't get it.

And while I'm waiting for this, most of my cpu cores are still in idle.

Did I misunderstand 64bit and multiple core performance improvement they are advertising or what?

The inteface will require some getting used to, especially if you've been working with previous versions for some time. I can't find some of the most basic functions :D.

- Piotr


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## JimmyPoppa

Hi Guys,

Does anyone know if this will run on XP (32 or 64)? The system requirements says Vista 32 bit is minimum. Thanks.

Be Well,

Jimmy


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## Mike Marino

Hm. Not sure Jimmy. You might wanna hit them up on Facebook.


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## BlueStar

Piotr:

Sibelius 6 with macbook
copy & paste of 70 bars, 58 instrument systems:
2,5 seconds

Cheers,
BlueStar


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## ScoringFilm

Also note that the minimum requirement for PC users is Vista (plus update) or Windows 7. Given that 66 Percent of Windows Users Are Still Running XP is this not a bit too soon to limit its use to a small market?

Justin


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## dcoscina

The virtual keyboard is still present in Sibelius 7. I had to look through the online handbook to find out how to get it up. Mind you, note entry in realtime from it is totally unusable. Luckily I don't do realtime input into Sibelius. I just like seeing the keyboard for reference sometimes.


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## windshore

I would be interested in any of you pioneer types who install the new version... does it mess up Siblelius 6 when you install 7? Does it overwrite or does it keep everything copasetic?


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## jsaras

The new sound library leaves much to be desired. What we ALL want is so simple; I just want to enter notes on the screen and have it sound like Thomas J. Bergersen. Is that too much to ask?


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## windshore

jsaras @ 7/28/2011 said:


> The new sound library leaves much to be desired. What we ALL want is so simple; I just want to enter notes on the screen and have it sound like Thomas J. Bergersen. Is that too much to ask?



I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but the management at Avid seem to continually waste resources on "sound" as though Sibelius will allow you to do what PT or Logic does. At the same time they continue to ignore some of the more obvious problems in the program - like the way it syncs with video or audio.

very annoying...


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## jsaras

The sound library comment was a little tongue in cheek, but for the life of me I can't figure out how they managed to make 38 gigabytes sound like a 10 megabyte SoundFont! As limited as the Garritan GPO4/JABB option is, it sounds a lot better than their new soundset. 

My biggest quibble is how it handles QWERTY note entry. I can enter a note from the keyboard, and I can alter its pitch using the up/down arrows on the keyboard (so it's the clearly the 'active" note), and I can transpose it using the transposition command, but I cannot add an accidental to it from the keypad?? Nor can I change its length? You have to de-select the note, re-select the note and then you can make those changes. Yeesh! I generally don't think of a Bb as a "b" B! At minimum, there should be some Preference options to allow you to change this behavior.

I would also like to have a DAW-like sequencer window. Sometimes I want to move an entire phrase over by an eighth or sixteenth note. Although it is possible to do this in Sibelius, it's a lot of keystrokes. Doing this in a MIDI editing window is a breeze.

Finally, I think it's high time for real MIDI input quantize. This is SO simple from a programming perspective...C'mon!..What year is this?


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## Mike Marino

Sounds like they've gone sideways and made note entry devilishly close to how it's done in Finale.

Not happy about that.....


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## Mike Marino

Also: @ JimmyPoppa:

Regarding your question about Windows XP, this comes from the Mod on the Sibelius Facebook page:

"I'm afraid Sibelius 7 can't even be installed under Windows XP. We tried to keep XP support, but in the end there were several technology changes (concerning e.g. the text features, and load-balancing VSTs across multiple CPU cores) that required we drop support. Sorry!"


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## jsaras

Mike Marino @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> Sounds like they've gone sideways and made note entry devilishly close to how it's done in Finale.
> Not happy about that.....



This is the behavior in Sibelius 5 and 6. I haven't tried 7 yet and likely won't.


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## dcoscina

windshore @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> I would be interested in any of you pioneer types who install the new version... does it mess up Siblelius 6 when you install 7? Does it overwrite or does it keep everything copasetic?



I installed it but I haven't gone back into Sibelius 6. One thing that seems to be gone is the easy way of switching between parts and conductor's score. WTF? Why did that get rid of that and make it more like Finale, which is one of the things I dislike from that program???

To me, I will upgrade for the 64 bit operation. Pretty much it. I do like that Finale-like Quick-Entry mode though. For those on a laptop, it's handy. Most functions and key commands seem to be intact though from ver 6. thankfully.

I'm going to load up some EWQLSO samples in ver 7 on my Mac Pro tonight and see if performance is better. I just upgraded my RAM in that puppy as well so it should fly.

To be honest though, if Notion had more ways of inputting notes (as it is, only MIDI keyboard and mouse entry- blech!) I would use it more for at least just composing, mostly because its sound library is vastly better than any other notation program. The short string arts are actually GOOD sounding. Winds and horns are only so-so but it too can use 3rd party plug ins...

Ah well, nothing's perfect...sadly.


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## Mike Marino

@ dcoscina: Can you still enter by way of the QWERTY keyboard AND the number pad?

- Mike


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## dcoscina

Mike Marino @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> @ dcoscina: Can you still enter by way of the QWERTY keyboard AND the number pad?
> 
> - Mike



Yes. Looks like all former note entry methods are present..Whew!

NOTE- if you do elect to use the Finale-styled entry, you need to make that adjustment in Preferences. This seems to disabled the virtual keyboard entry method and does effect QWERTY as well.


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## Maximvs

jsaras @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> The new sound library leaves much to be desired. What we ALL want is so simple; I just want to enter notes on the screen and have it sound like Thomas J. Bergersen. Is that too much to ask?



+1

With today's technology I was hoping for a real professional sample library inside Sibelius but I guess we should wait another 2-4 years with this Avid development strategy.

I feel that Sibelius with this new version 7 is going to alienate many old users, I am certainly not happy at all.

Avid be carefull that a competitor may come along with something more revolutionary and get a nice portion of the notation software market pie...


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## Pochflyboy

Massimo @ Wed Jul 27 said:


> When I read that Sibelius 7 includes 38GB of new samples I thought that the dream may finally be here to have great sounding instruments right inside Sibelius, then I eagerly proceeded to listen to the demos and am sorry to say Avid: The sound is awful, it is worse than an old organ :evil:
> 
> Asside for being now native 64 bit which will finallly allow me to use Rewire with Cubase 5 64 bit and to be able to export XML files, I see very little that is not in Sibelius 6.
> 
> Yes, the overall face lift and finally a proper mixer is fine but I was expecting after two years something more revolutionary.



not yet I think you need to wait for 64bit rewire for this to work.....


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## dcoscina

Massimo @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> jsaras @ Thu Jul 28 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The new sound library leaves much to be desired. What we ALL want is so simple; I just want to enter notes on the screen and have it sound like Thomas J. Bergersen. Is that too much to ask?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> +1
> 
> With today's technology I was hoping for a real professional sample library inside Sibelius but I guess we should wait another 2-4 years with this Avid development strategy.
> 
> I feel that Sibelius with this new version 7 is going to alienate many old users, I am certainly not happy at all.
> 
> Avid be carefull that a competitor may come along with something more revolutionary and get a nice portion of the notation software market pie...
Click to expand...


I'm going to put it midly- how can they manage 38gb and F*** it up so prfoudly? I mean how is this possible? Anyone from Avid here? Seriously. Why didn't you guys cull from the Wizoo library that you bought. Those strings are infinitely better in the Xpand2 library that comes with Pro Tools 9.


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## Maximvs

Hi Joseph,

Ahhh...I thought that using both software (sequencer and Sibelius) at 64 bit would have been enough but you may be right about needing Rewire also at 64 bit:-(


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## Maximvs

dcoscina @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> Massimo @ Thu Jul 28 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jsaras @ Thu Jul 28 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The new sound library leaves much to be desired. What we ALL want is so simple; I just want to enter notes on the screen and have it sound like Thomas J. Bergersen. Is that too much to ask?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> +1
> 
> With today's technology I was hoping for a real professional sample library inside Sibelius but I guess we should wait another 2-4 years with this Avid development strategy.
> 
> I feel that Sibelius with this new version 7 is going to alienate many old users, I am certainly not happy at all.
> 
> Avid be carefull that a competitor may come along with something more revolutionary and get a nice portion of the notation software market pie...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'm going to put it midly- how can they manage 38gb and F*** it up so prfoudly? I mean how is this possible? Anyone from Avid here? Seriously. Why didn't you guys cull from the Wizoo library that you bought. Those strings are infinitely better in the Xpand2 library that comes with Pro Tools 9.
Click to expand...


+1


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## Mike Marino

+1


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## ozmorphasis

+1 

...and they are charging $150 for this???

Amazing! It makes you wonder if this is one of those common situations where all of the veteran Sib staff are equally enraged by the direction it's going, with a chump up above from Avid barking some ridiculous orders. 

I just can't wrap my brain around this one. Sib 6 was a game changer if nothing else because of Versions and Magnetic alone. Very practical pro level time savers.

Sib 7 looks so pale in comparison so far.

XML fluidity should be a free update and should have been there all along.

64bit, also a free update based on moving forward with hardware and software developments, not a paid upgrade.

The only thing I'm excited about is the new text editing features (creating a text box).


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## Pietro

BlueStar @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> Piotr:
> 
> Sibelius 6 with macbook
> copy & paste of 70 bars, 58 instrument systems:
> 2,5 seconds



Thanks for checking, David.

I checked this with Sibelius 7 on my PC (i7 950, 24GB RAM, SSD's, Win 7 64bit Pro). A project with 53 systems (including hidden individual parts), 330 bars:
1. Select all - 4 seconds.
2. Copy - 2 seconds.
3. Paste - 60 seconds...
4. Extracting parts (flutes to flute 1 & flute 2)... 3 minutes :/.

My CPU is multithreaded so it's showing up 8 cores. Only one being used during this operation.

To me this is a disaster. No improvement.

- Piotr


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## kdm

Pietro @ Thu Jul 28 said:


> Thanks for checking, David.
> 
> I checked this with Sibelius 7 on my PC (i7 950, 24GB RAM, SSD's, Win 7 64bit Pro). A project with 53 systems (including hidden individual parts), 330 bars:
> 1. Select all - 4 seconds.
> 2. Copy - 2 seconds.
> 3. Paste - 60 seconds...
> 4. Extracting parts (flutes to flute 1 & flute 2)... 3 minutes :/.
> 
> My CPU is multithreaded so it's showing up 8 cores. Only one being used during this operation.
> 
> To me this is a disaster. No improvement.
> 
> - Piotr



Just running the Sibelius 7 demo at home on our Athlon II X4 650 (off the shelf HP net/family Win7 PC - nothing special): 72 bars, full orchestral film score paste took 7 seconds. Haven't loaded it on the studio system to see how it performs along side Sibelius 6 though.

Something else sounds amiss there Piotr - could be tied in with some Sibelius 7 compatibility issue. Is 6 running faster on that same system?


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## jsaras

Somebody at AVID piped in at the Northersounds forum. He basically said it was a marketing decision to drop the Garritan sounds and develop their own sound library. The priority is to be different from Finale, who also has Garritan-based sounds. I guess they've succeeded in that regard?!? The marketing geniuses over there better be careful what they wish for!


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## Pietro

kdm @ Fri Jul 29 said:


> Pietro @ Thu Jul 28 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for checking, David.
> 
> I checked this with Sibelius 7 on my PC (i7 950, 24GB RAM, SSD's, Win 7 64bit Pro). A project with 53 systems (including hidden individual parts), 330 bars:
> 1. Select all - 4 seconds.
> 2. Copy - 2 seconds.
> 3. Paste - 60 seconds...
> 4. Extracting parts (flutes to flute 1 & flute 2)... 3 minutes :/.
> 
> My CPU is multithreaded so it's showing up 8 cores. Only one being used during this operation.
> 
> To me this is a disaster. No improvement.
> 
> - Piotr
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just running the Sibelius 7 demo at home on our Athlon II X4 650 (off the shelf HP net/family Win7 PC - nothing special): 72 bars, full orchestral film score paste took 7 seconds. Haven't loaded it on the studio system to see how it performs along side Sibelius 6 though.
> 
> Something else sounds amiss there Piotr - could be tied in with some Sibelius 7 compatibility issue. Is 6 running faster on that same system?
Click to expand...


I just checked. Sibelius 6 has always been running here the same way on 2 different computers, and I hear people complaining about the basic functions sluggishness too.

The only difference in this test was that Sibelius 6 was 6 times faster than Sibelius 7 exploding parts... So much for an improvement.

- Piotr


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## nikolas

And I was actually getting ready to crossgrade from Finale to Sibelius in order to use both, and in all honesty I doubt that I can escape that... But I have to say that I feel a bit sadden after this thread.

On another semi-related thread, the upgrade option of Finale 2010 to 2011 sucks... There are very few improvements and apart from wanting to stay in par with my coworkers... :(

PS. I'll just gonna get an old orchestral score into Finale and see how much time it takes to copy paste the whole thing. I'm just curious, because I don't usually copy paste that massive amounts of bars...


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## dcoscina

I brought up the sounds issue with Avid on their FB Sibelius page and they said that they are working on better demos and sounded liked they regretted putting the ones we heard up. 

Nikolas, I also have Finale 2011 but barely touch it compared to S6. Ive had a little time to spend with S7 and the Speedy Note entry method from Finale has somewhat been ported over. It's not bad!


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## windshore

Given the Finale upgrade disappointment it appears developers have spent a lot of resources going to 64 bit and have tried to add a couple of features to make the upgrade more enticing... but it's really about 64 bit - I guess. I just hope they soon get back to making the programs more functional.


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## Mike Marino

Yeah, the 64-bit is nice....but ReWire isn't 64-bit yet, right? So that's mean that S7 would still run in 32-bit mode when ReWired to a DAW, right?

Nah. No thanks. Wow. I'm really disappointed in all of this.


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## Marius Masalar

Umm ok this is unusual.

I've grabbed the demo and put it both on my laptop and my studio machine and am having significantly different results than what seems to be common here.

For starters, Sib 7 is MUCH faster and more responsive; not just for edits and copy/paste but also for things like just starting up. I can't comment on the library, not having used it, but I will say that if you watch one of the quick start videos from the menu of the program rather than what's on the marketing pages, you get to hear some more of the library and it DOES sound significantly better than the old one — and I say this as someone who thinks what they have on the main pages sounds pretty shitty. Very curious to discover what the truth is from someone who uses the library.

To me there are no ground-shaking improvements here that make it worth getting, BUT the minor tweaks that are in place are enough for me. It's like the Leopard -> Snow Leopard transition. No major new features, but great optimization.

What I love: TABS. Bloody finally! Instant happiness to be able to have parts open in tabs while working on the full score so you don't always lose them behind the main window. The 64-bit seems to lend the program noticeable performance improvements on my two machines. Why this is the case for me and not for others I don't know. Grab the demo and see how it behaves for you. The new interface takes a bit of getting used to, but I like it...it makes reaching some crucial functions much easier and the program otherwise behaves essentially the exact same as it used to, so fans of the old look aren't losing anything but an aesthetic preference.

Those are my two cents. Just figured I should post since I seem to be getting markedly different behaviour than the others who've posted! 

EDIT: To Mike, this is from their product page re: the ReWire 64-bit thing:

"ReWire normally requires both the master and the slave to be 32-bit applications, because the underlying technology is not yet available for 64-bit systems. But Sibelius 7 can run as a 64-bit application and communicate with a 32-bit ReWire master, thanks to its unique inter-process communication approach."


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## dcoscina

The Sibelius rep also said that a feature that I thought was discarded (being able to switch between part and conductor's score) is intact. Looks like almost all features from 6 have remained on 7. I'm probably upgrading. Looks good and I demo'd some EWQLSO stuff last night. didn't break a sweat and I used Platinum too!


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## Marius Masalar

Yea, it's just now a smaller button. Top right of the interface; works just like it used to, just moved slightly.


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## dcoscina

Mathazzar @ Fri Jul 29 said:


> Yea, it's just now a smaller button. Top right of the interface; works just like it used to, just moved slightly.



I'm not on my laptop right now (work PC- boooo) but would you say the new sounds are better than Garritan? I did hear an example with a short string art that sounded not too bad. GPO still doesn't have separate samples for short arts and that's annoying beyond belief.


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## Marius Masalar

As I said, I'm just using the demo too so I don't have the new sound library to toy with, sorry :( I'm waiting on some hands-on user thoughts too.


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## dcoscina

I so want to buy the DL but I'm getting Albion today and don't want to go broke with going over my monthly maximum with my provider....

I'll check out those demos from the start page when I get home, You said they were much better than what is on the website. I wonder if someone screwed up and they used a GM sound source for those demos. Seriously, they suck in such an epic sense of the word.


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## Marius Masalar

It's weird, in all the demos of the new library, I can hear glimpses of awesomeness but the execution is poor. I get the sense that they're demos produced by folks with little to no sequencing/sound library manipulation skill.


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## mducharme

nikolas @ Fri Jul 29 said:


> On another semi-related thread, the upgrade option of Finale 2010 to 2011 sucks... There are very few improvements and apart from wanting to stay in par with my coworkers... :(.



"Very few improvements"?

They got rid of staff system optimization - to me that improvement is *huge*. They didn't tout it much in their marketing, but staff system optimization was one of the stupidest design things in Finale and they fixed it in 2011.

Finale 2012 is going to be late because they are doing major architectural changes to the application (probably the equivalent of magnetic layout, but they are keeping tight-lipped about it).


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## Mike Marino

Thanks for the clarification on the ReWire stuff Marius.


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## Marius Masalar

No worries. I've not tested ReWire so I'm not sure how they did it and how it actually performs, but in theory it's neat


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## Mike Marino

That's cool. I'll probably (eventually) end up upgrading from S6 to S7. There are just many other things I need to purchase before this deal.


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## Robin

I have been working for a few days with S7 now (been a "power user" with S6) and have to say that, even though it took me a while to get used to the ribbons and I still find that it looks a bit childish with all the symbols, it is a really clever thing. You practically have (if you use the mouse) everything in 2-3-click distance. The old menus were quite cluttered and incosistent just for the sake of keeping the continuity. Now with the radical switch, it needs some time to get used to it but when you actually know where everything is, it is a much more organized structure making things alot easier to find.

Apart from that, I have mixed feelings about the release. As the 64bit feels very responsive and quicker to me and the text tools are really useful, I feel a bit underwhelmed by the amount of actual new "engraving" features. I know there were a lot of features requested by many people but obviously a few were mentioned over and over again like proper part separation when there are 2 instruments on one staff etc. I would have loved to see that. Also, from the standpoint of someone working in the film business, I really think that the video function could have used quite a bit of update and improvement.

Robin


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## dcoscina

The sounds still are underwhelming even with the other demos I have heard. Not that it's a deal breaker but surely the cost of upgrading could have been slightly lessened if they had just stuck with the old sounds. The new ones are a step backwards IMO and don't add anything to the upgrade.


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## bryla

If they would just focus on notation and not wanting to be a semi-sequencer....


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## dcoscina

bryla @ Sun Jul 31 said:


> If they would just focus on notation and not wanting to be a semi-sequencer....



Yeah that's where NOTION went downhill. But honestly, if they'd continued along with the route they began, they'd be better off. They cannot compete with Finale and Sibelius. Which is why I often compose in Notion but transfer the files to Sibelius 6.


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## windshore

I've got to ask as video was mentioned. Did they at least come up with a better solution for syncing vid?

In my view it has been basically non-functional. There's no way to visually line up transients in an audio file and video sync regularly drifts on my systems.


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## Marius Masalar

bryla @ Sun Jul 31 said:


> If they would just focus on notation and not wanting to be a semi-sequencer....


I 100% agree with this. I'll point to a blog article I wrote on the subject rather than spill my thoughts again: http://mathazzar.posterous.com/daws-vs-notation-software-why-theres-no-conte (http://mathazzar.posterous.com/daws-vs- ... s-no-conte)

I guess it's a pipe dream, but I can hope.


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## Maximvs

Great article Marius! I totally agree with what you have shared.


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## DouglasGibsonComposer

Thanks for the link Marius.

However I think that Sibelius is primarily serving a different market than what you outlined in your blog. I think that the educational - grade school/ high schools are there biggest market and not game/pro composers. I also think this is why the blend of notation and DAW has emerged; so kids in the class room can get better sounds and immediate results (ideas tool, worksheet creator, etc.) 

Of course I 100 % agree with you on why this is frustrating for those of us who seek professional solutions with the greatest attention to detail.


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## Marius Masalar

Glad to have provided some food for thought, guys 

It's true, Douglas, their audience is more likely the educational crowd, but their blog loves to discuss and emphasize their pro market — including film, game, and concert composers using Sibelius — so I felt it was fair for me to treat them accordingly.

Maybe they need to have a difference in more than price between their educational and standard versions? It seems to me that they could squish Sibelius First, Auralia, Musition, and Compass into a single product that addresses all the needs of their educational market thoroughly, and then leave Sibelius itself to service the professional market with its more robust toolset — and they could consider some of the functionality I suggested in the article to help streamline it for the way pros actually use it.

It's nice to imagine, but I somehow doubt we'll see anything like that happening.


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## nikolas

I know that this is off topic, but I HATE the fact that Finale, still after 13-14 different versions STILL cannot produce effortless a watermark! In this world, producing a watermark in the native software (as opposed to acrobat pro) would be awesome, but still there we are... Not to mention the crazy bugs!

And all the keep advertising is new playback machine, new audio this, audio that. Crap I say! They will NEVER reach the abilities of DAWs and this is what I keep telling my students! Stick to the software they need!


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## Pietro

As a follow up to my posts here, I brough the performance issue to the Sibelius forums.

Sibelius officials responded, saying that improving this is next to impossible, and would require rewriting core code.

Looks like they are not interested in improving this.

As a matter of fact, it totally needs improving - executing plugins is horrible in large projects. Some complain on one bar every two seconds. I've seen 1 bar per second over here on nothing crazy. Small scores - all cool, a couple of seconds to explode flute parts in the whole score. But on large scores, it looks more like 30 minutes.

The problem is, they are reluctant on agreeing with the fact, there is need for improvement. Obviously, if they don't do it soon enough, each version will run slower, because of the new features. And it won't matter if you have an 8-core Xeon machine with top components, or a 10 year old Celeron. 

Time for some serious 10-year old core code rewriting.

- Piotr


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## dcoscina

Something I noticed a huge difference in is using an SSD to run Sibelius 7 with. Given that it's a hefty built library (which actually sounds very good if you know what you're doing), the load times for Classical Orchestra are about twice as fast on my aged 5 year old Macbook 1.83 that I outfitted with an SSD compared to my Mac Pro 2.66 Quad with 15gb RAM. Disk speed is king twoud seem.


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## Marius Masalar

For what it's worth, I can't seem to reproduce those lagging times to that extent, Pietro...

Tried it with a 300-bar, ~35 system score and I can't get it to take more than 2 seconds to select all, maybe 15 to copy/paste. Personally, I'm not bothered by that. 

For my usage, there isn't really a lot of copy/pasting going on, certainly not of 300 bars at a time, so waiting an extra few seconds the one time in a blue moon that I do that kind of operation is acceptable.

While I'm sure they could optimize that by doing some core code tweaking, I don't see that it would be a priority for them; nothing is actually *broken*, it's just not as quick as you'd like it to be. If your work entails a good amount of plugin usage and copy/pasting on huge scores then I completely understand the impatience, but for those of us who don't often encounter that situation I think it's worth saying that Sibelius 7 is, overall, far snappier than its predecessors.


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## Pietro

Ok. Try using Explode plugin to split parts (like horns 1&2 into horn 1 & horn 2). Doesn't the time required bother you? Depending on the size of the score it can be like one bar per second or even less. In a 1000 bar score, you can see why I think of it as a problem.

While of course, small scores perform 10 or more times faster, which is just weird. Why the lenght would affect the speed (not only time) of serial producedure? After all, processing 10 bars should go with the same speed as 1000 bars. While in fact, the speed is 10 times lower, and the time required is not 100 but 1000 times more. 

@David: I have Sibelius 6 (with Sib 6 Soundset) and Sibelius 7 trial on an SSD drive already.

Loading soundset may be a little faster with S7, but not other actions, which you do 100 time more often .

- Piotr


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## Marius Masalar

It's certainly not quick then, you're absolutely right, but I can't say it bothers me since I don't work with 1000-bar scores or even 300-bar ones too often. Doesn't mean it's not a problem, just not one that affects me too directly.

That being said, I suspect the reason it takes so long is that it's having to recalculate staff optimization and magnetic layout for all these things, which means the plugins have more work to do the more bars there are. That would just be my guess though.

Sucks that they didn't fix that issue for you or take it more seriously though :(


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## Treppenwitz

Just curious, Pietro - do you always have the mixer panel open? I found (at least in Sib 6) that some operations took 3-4 times longer when the mixer was open than when closed.


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## Pietro

Thanks for the suggestion. No, I don't use mixer very often, but I often have the properties window open. I saw this tip on Sibelius blog - in fact closing properties and keypad windows significantly improves selecting stuff.

Not the copying or plugin performance though. It's still pretty horrible :D.

- Piotr


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## nikolas

You know what? I got sibelius 7 because I NEED it (to collaborate with other composers) and it's EXTREMELY SLOW! Not constantly but especially when changing page size, or the beginning.

I'm wondering if it's some kind of bug, cause it's bugging the shit out of me! : < I mean honestly... A quartet will take 20 seconds to change a font size when the program has just started out. Heck moving around the score will take a while!

I understand what the fuss is about with Sibelius and I don't think it's a bad program, but right now if I wasn't forced to use it I would just stick to Finale if only because it's quicker to load, work, and move around in general (although it seems that Sibelius is quicker if it was working correctly. You don't need to change tools constantly).

Any ideas why it is SO damn slow? I don't have any mixer open, but it's turning into a nightmare (especially since after the quartet I have to edit an 80 page symphonic work).


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## Pochflyboy

I hate it I went back to using Sib6 until they get some of this worked out. I use it to export musicXML and thats it.... Who has time to wait for their software to figure out simple tasks these days

-Joe


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## nikolas

So it's not only me, right? And I waited for sib 7 to come in! Damnit! Honestly... this company... I know I'm a finale fan and this is not right (especially in this thread), but:

Sib 7 is acting up (though, I repeat I see the potential). Scorch never ever ever worked on my computers and it's only Browser bassed now. WTF?!?!

Anyhow I think I'll ask for a reinbursment and use Sib 6 instead... Grrr...


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## JT

When Sib 7 first came out, I thought the audio demos were dreadful. I'll be upgrading to 7 in the near future. I'm trying to decide if I should bother installing the sounds. 

Those of you that have it, are the sounds any good? Can you use them in a DAW?

JT


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## nikolas

JT: I have never ever used a notation software for creating a recording, so I really don't know. I don't even 'playback' anything on neither Finale or Sibelius... Sorry


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## Daryl

Two things that can slow Sibelius down:

1) Loads of Dynamic parts. Suggestion: don't create them until you have finished the score.
2) Magnetic layout. Suggestion: switch it off until you finish the score.

FWIW every version of Sibelius feels slow when it is first released, and then is optimised (what a stupid word) as the cycle goes on. Keep complaining on the Sibelius forum, and the guys will get the picture. :wink: 

D


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## nikolas

Daryl, good ideas and thanks for the info.

I'll turn those off and see what happens (although I *think* I already have dynamic parts turned off... Oh well...).

I'll also check the info in the website about Sibelius *6!!!!* on how to make things go faster and get back in a couple of days with hopefully some good news...


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## Pochflyboy

JT: sounds in notation are never realistic... they are more there just to give you an idea of how it will sound...ish. even if you use great sample vsts it is still going to sound like crap. They are simply not performance applications. 

I will complain lots... I dont want to turn off the magnetic layout. its the best thing since sliced bread when your on a tight deadline!


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## Daryl

Pochflyboy @ Fri Sep 23 said:


> I will complain lots... I dont want to turn off the magnetic layout. its the best thing since sliced bread when your on a tight deadline!


I agree, and it's why Sibelius is much better than Finale for those of us who do have deadlines. However, what I was saying is that switch it off whilst you're inputting and then switch it on for final editing.

D


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## bdr

Definitely check out the Sibelius forum
http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcen ... ?groupid=3

there's a lot of discussion there on why Sib 7 can be slow. For me it is more sluggish than really slow.

The sounds are way better than Sib 6 although there is some funkiness with them also (staccato seems to be a major problem volume-wise). They cannot be used with any other DAWs.


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## JT

bdr @ Fri Sep 23 said:


> They cannot be used with any other DAWs.


Thanks, that's all I really wanted to know.

JT


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