# Sibelius review...



## dodecabilly (Jan 5, 2019)

if you didn’t watch this, I recommend... It’s quite entertaining :D


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## Saxer (Jan 5, 2019)

... and true!


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## joebaggan (Jan 5, 2019)

Nonsense, just an opinion. I've never had any substantive issues with Sibelius and IMO the design is clear and straightforward, not to mention a fantastic program.


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## ScoringFilm (Jan 5, 2019)

Great review! If only Avid would watch and take note.


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## Sears Poncho (Jan 5, 2019)

joebaggan said:


> Nonsense


Agreed. The guy takes ridiculous little points and tries to make them all tied\ together while leaving out basic truths like 'the ribbon can be hidden and all the shortcuts from v6 work in 7' etc. I am not a fan of Avid at all, but Sibelius is a great program. I can't recall the last time I had a crash, it's been years.

Anyone who can't figure out "add or remove instruments" is way too stupid to use any notation program.


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## Saxer (Jan 5, 2019)

Sibelius and Band in a Box have the most evil GUIs with the design of a leftover 90s website. It's a nightmare. It's extremely far from intuitive and hurts the eyes. Has nothing to do with the functionality but the learning curve is unnecessary high and strictly avoids fun. You can become an experienced user but there were those using MS-DOS in the 80s too.


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## bryla (Jan 5, 2019)

Agree with many of the things! Have come to work and know it though. Dorico otoh while completely logical built is hard for me.


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## JT (Jan 5, 2019)

I have the same experience with Finale. When I was learning Sibelius, it was completely frustrating for me, nothing made sense about it because I was used to Finale's workflow. I still hate using it, while others have no problems at all with it. Notation programs are very specialized for a small audience. There are many things I'd like to see done differently, but as long as they get the job done and there's competition to encourage improvements, that's all I can hope for.


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## Piotrek K. (Jan 6, 2019)

Pretty much everything what this guy says was true for me.

Sibelius is huge mess, hides important things under tiny elements, which doesn't even look like may be clickable (no visual feedback at all), confuses with menus within menus, doesn't remember such simple things as export folders. And that plugin thing? Seriously, every submenu needs their own plugins submenu? Who does that? For me it's clearly software from long gone era and if you started Sibelius journey in that era I guess you will be fine (because you got used to it, not because it is smart / good design). But for new users... well, for me it was total, nerve wrecking mess. There are awesome things there, but whenever I try to find anything there, I always end up in Google. Good that they have trial + extended paid trial (subscription I mean). Plus time travel as a bonus ;D

On the other hand there is Dorico which works in many ways in similar fashion (playback options), but is modern, looks great and is mostly self explanatory. But yeah, this is just an opinion.


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## Vardaro (Jan 6, 2019)

OK, I'm still sticking to Sibelius 6.2. but in Finale 2003, I had to open the manual around 3 times per page: in Sibelius 4, about 3 times a month!

I may be a bit too old to try the Ribbon, though?


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## ptram (Jan 6, 2019)

Vardaro said:


> OK, I'm still sticking to Sibelius 6.2


The video refers to the Ribbonized-Sibelius. Sibelius 6.2 is still great. Shame it is slowly dying.

Paolo


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## Dewdman42 (Jan 6, 2019)

I can't stand numerous things about the Sibelius GUI, thanks for the well thought through video. Avid will never get my subscription for it unless its completely redone, which is unlikely. and by the way, their subscription model is a turn off too.


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## Sears Poncho (Jan 6, 2019)

Vardaro said:


> OK, I'm still sticking to Sibelius 6.2. but in Finale 2003, I had to open the manual around 3 times per page: in Sibelius 4, about 3 times a month!
> 
> I may be a bit too old to try the Ribbon, though?



I hated the ribbon when it came out, now I like it quite a bit. I also hide it frequently for more screen space. 

The program has come a long way since 6.2. At times it's hard to see that since progress can be slow, but the little features add up. Sliding notes left or right is one I use constantly. Smart Rests in multiple voices is an excellent feature as well. Little ones like "magnetic gliss" might not seem like much but it's nice. Things like "sticky tuplets" can be helpful. Mp3 export is a timesaver. On and on. 

I don't have the latest version with the multi-edit stuff, I think I have 8.6 so I miss out on that. Like many, I don't like Avid's pricing and as a longtime user I'm not about to shell out $300 more bucks. I got back to v3 and I've upgraded to 5, 6, 7, 7.5, 8. And now they want 300 bucks more. Not a chance. If I need to I will upgrade in 3 years.


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## resound (Jan 10, 2019)

Totally agree with this video. I still use Sibelius 6 because the ribbon sucks. It was designed for people who point and click, not professionals who need to work fast. There are some nice new features in Sib Ultimate, but they still haven't fixed simple things like ties that hang over repeat bar lines! Or proper default note grouping for long notes in 5/4, 7/4, etc. I could go on....


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## Sami (Jan 10, 2019)

Sibelius is the worst software I use by a truly great margin and I totally agree with the video, although not with all the points he makes. Unfortunately, it's the best we have. If I had time, I'd switch to Dorico.


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## Bassious (Jan 10, 2019)

My two cents: i was looking for transcription software too. I have been back woodshedding piano and composition/theory. I bumbled with cubase score for a while and spent a lot of time reading through vi control. I had seen the yt vid posted and laughed all the way through. I was considering notion seriously but started warching Adam Neely on yt. He referred to using Sibelius a number of times.
What did it for me was the monthly subscription (no huge comittment) and some good-ish tutorials on macpro and groove3.
I took the dive and its ok. A learning curve but not too painful. Like any software its time invested and finding your own workflow. But the vid is hilarious


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## cmillar (Jan 10, 2019)

C'mon....Sibelius just works....it does the job fine.

If anything, Finale seems like a dinosaur (for the average composer who just needs to print their own scores and parts.)


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## dflood (Mar 26, 2019)

Saxer said:


> Sibelius and Band in a Box have the most evil GUIs with the design of a leftover 90s website. It's a nightmare. It's extremely far from intuitive and hurts the eyes. Has nothing to do with the functionality but the learning curve is unnecessary high and strictly avoids fun. You can become an experienced user but there were those using MS-DOS in the 80s too.


I totally agree about Band in a Box. What’s worse is they take what is already a nightmare Windows UI and somehow make it even worse in OSX. Band in a Box can get away with this because it is a unicorn program without any real competition. The bad UI does not do justice to its many great attributes. However, I think the Sibelius interface may have it beat!


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## dflood (Mar 29, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> Granted, some of the stuff is legit. But come on, this video just makes it sound like we should feel entitled to instant gratification without having to actually learn our tools.



I've had some experience in designing and modifying user interfaces. I hear this 'Lazy User' argument all the time to defend poorly thought out interfaces, where important settings and functions are non intuitively scattered like Easter eggs under fathomless drill downs, or under cryptic menu icons that spawn a set of poorly organized whack-a-mole dialogs. 'Lazy programmer' seems more accurate.

Learning a program interface requires the user to create a basic mental map of where things are located. The more logically that the things are organized, the easier it is to memorize the basic map coordinates and to guess correctly where the things that are related to other things will be found. User interface design is being taken much more seriously now, but too often in the past it was treated as tertiary part of software development rather than a primary one. In my experience, no matter how brilliant they may be at coding, programmers are often the worst people to be assigned the task of designing the user interface.


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## Vik (Apr 26, 2019)

Watching that video makes me think: wasn't Sibelius, with all the quirks mentioned in that clip, made by the same team which now makes Dorico? There's lots of nice stuff in Dorico, and I certainly won't start a Dorico/Sibelius war, but Dorico is still missing many of the things that made me want to buy Sibelius.


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