Sibelius for Windows/Mac

Sibelius for Windows/Mac has all the main features of Sibelius 7* plus many, many improvements which users have asked us for:

Cut-and-paste

• Work on several scores at the same time, and cut-and-paste music between them.
• Copy and edit arbitrary groups of notes - not just whole bars.
• Copy between bars of different lengths.

Multi-level undo

With 'undo history' which lets you jump back to any earlier point.

Display

• Fully WYSIWYG all the time.
• Zoom in and out (from 13%-1600%) while editing - no overview window required.
• Even have multiple views at different zoom factors, or of different parts of the same score.
• Panorama allows you to view your score as a single system on an infinitely-wide page.
  
• Hide staves with music on, so you can just see the staves you’re working on
• Optional toolbar showing common features (print, play, save).
• Textured paper on screen with range of colors, textures and materials (even silk and marble!).
• Notes too high/low shown in red, with two different user-definable ranges for each instrument ('Comfortable' and 'Professional').
• ‘Shadow note’ shows pitch of note you’re about to input with the mouse

Flexi-time

• Flexi-time overdubs (plays back while recording), recognises tuplets, staccato and tenuto, and has an automatic moving split-point.
• Record into 1 or 2 voices per staff.

Playback

• Plays trills, grace-notes, 8vas, arpeggiated chords, complex repeat structures, metric modulations, guitar tab, lute tablature, etc.
• High-quality playback using built-in Kontakt Player 2 sounds, with extra sounds available
• Use state-of-the-art VST and Audio Unit virtual instruments.
• Create CDs and audio files.
• Add your own words to the built-in playback dictionary (e.g. 'spiccato', 'flutter-tongue') and define how they sound.
• Precisely control how standard notations such as arpeggio lines, articulations, trills, etc. play back.
• Play at any zoom factor - follows the score without unnecessary jumping.
• Comprehensive MIDI command language.
• Real-time tempo slider and tempo/timecode readout for playback.
• Playback multitasks, so you can even work on another score while playing!
• Realistic performance options include comprehensive Rhythmic feel options (including swing playback) and Rubato.
• Live Playback reproduces the exact timing and dynamics you played in, which you can fine-tune afterwards.

Dynamic Parts

No need to extract parts – Dynamic Parts are automatically created as soon as you start the score, and instantly update whenever you change the score.

Educational worksheets & resources

Includes over 1700 ready-made worksheets, exercises, songs, instrumental pieces, posters and other resources for your students. Copy music into Microsoft Word for worksheets, essays, books, etc. Special web site SibeliusEducation.com for publishing and downloading worksheets.

Arrange

Automatically arrange or orchestrate music for any ensemble, using any of the more than 130 supplied Arrange styles. Produce keyboard reductions in seconds. 'Explode' copies music from e.g. piano staves onto an entire brass section in a single operation.

Ideas

Like a supercharged Sketchpad, capture your musical ideas in the Ideas Hub, and use them in any score. As well as your own ideas, Ideas Hub comes preloaded with over 2000 ready-made ideas. They cover all styles of music and help provide useful inspiration for your compositions.

Graphics

Import color or black and white graphics into your score and print them out in full color. Export graphics files from your score in a variety of formats, such as BMP, EPS, PNG and TIFF. Simply copy and paste any selection of graphics from Sibelius to another application. Export the whole score, a range of pages, or even just a single system.

Automatic re-notation

Re-write music in different time signatures (e.g. turn 4/4 music into 6/8) or different key signatures (which adjusts accidentals on all notes). Music automatically shifts when you change clefs, copy between clefs or even copy between transposing instruments!

Advanced notation

Four automatic voices per stave, fully automatic cross-stave beaming, ties positioned intelligently (e.g. move correctly if you change pitch of notes), 12 or more leger lines, nested tuplets (with any depth of nesting), automatic quarter-tones (which even transpose!), any mixture of noteheads within a chord, divided systems for codas, user-definable lines (using any combination of dashes, arrows, symbols, etc.). Up to 7 beams (hemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver), dotted breves, 'longs' (double breves), easy to create incipits, automatic ossias, 24 notehead designs plus user definable noteheads, bracketed accidentals, automatic multi-arc phrase-marks, automatic additive time signatures (e.g. 2+3+2/8), grace/cue-notes of any size, many more accidentals and articulations are automatically positioned. Hide any object in your score, and even include hidden cues in the full score that automatically appear in parts. Color in notes, text, and almost anything else. Over 400 pre-defined instruments

Engraving

Sophisticated Optical engraving rules produce excellent note spacing, beam and tie positioning, etc. Magnetic slurs and tuplets automatically reposition when you change the notes. Fine control over details like individual hairpin apertures.

Filter and find

Let you find, select and edit notes which have particular characteristics - e.g. transpose all staccato middle Cs up an octave, put accents on the second beat of bars 9-17. Also filter for different text styles, lines, words, etc. in any combination for one-click editing.

Layout

Automatic page turns and system breaks in parts to produce excellent default layout. Create title pages and front matter in a few simple clicks, and easily create other blank pages anywhere in your score.

Text

Change font, point-size, bold, italic, underline anywhere in any piece of text.

Plug-ins

Features you can create yourself using an easy programming language. Over 110 free plug-ins included, e.g. automatically add chord symbols or tonic sol-fa notation, check music for parallel 5ths and 8ves, find rhythmic and melodic motives, automatically write note-names over notes, automatically add brass and string fingerings, proof-read your score for common mistakes, harmonize melodies, create scales and arpeggios.

Scanning

Comes with free copy of PhotoScore Lite scanning program (cut-down version of Optical Manuscript). Full PhotoScore Ultimate package (available for separate purchase) reads multiple voices per staff, unlimited staves per page, and even handwritten music.

Internet publishing

Put your scores on your own website so people can view, transpose and play them. Automatically publish your music on SibeliusMusic.com, the self-publishing web site where you can sell your music, and we'll pay you 50% of the proceeds.

Video

Compose in sync to digital video files.

File conversion

Transfer your files from the Acorn Sibelius programs, Finale, Allegro, PrintMusic and SCORE, plus MusicXML and ASCII tab formats.

Keyboard shortcuts

Huge range covering all main features; even user-definable. Colour-coded keyboard showing all the main shortcuts is available separately. Disable features you don’t need (for schools).

Guitar tab and lute tablature

Tablature automatically converted to/from notation, using any tuning. All common guitar tab notation supported, such as bends, slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, vibratos, harmonics, etc. Guitar chord frames automatically transpose, and can be stored in libraries of your favourite ones.

Mac/Windows compatibility

The Mac and Windows versions are supplied on the same DVD, have the same features and file format and are 100% compatible, so transferring files between Mac and Windows is easy. Sibelius even automatically substitutes fonts and character sets.

Transposing instruments

User-definable - even change transposition mid-score! Instantly switch whole score between concert pitch and transposed notation, and back.

Advanced stave control

E.g. staves with 4, 6 or more lines, automatic ossias, drum-kit with automatic noteheads on different lines/spaces, all markings go small on small staves, easy to create incipits, omit sections of staves (Lutoslawski-style), change number of lines mid-stave, change order of existing staves.

House Styles

Export/import House Styles, text styles, etc. between files. Many new House Style options. User-definable note-spacing tables. Comes with 3 music font families (for modern, traditional and handwritten looks). Compatible with standard music fonts such as Petrucci, Sonata and Susato.

Formatting

Make any passage into a system/page, lock format of any passage, indent any system by any amount, move individual notes out of alignment, align staves across pages.

Documentation and help

Handbook, comprehensive on-screen reference (also available as a book), plus over an hour of on-screen tutorial videos. Plus Internet links to frequently asked questions, chat page and other useful information.

 

*A few features of Sibelius 7 have not yet been implemented in Sibelius for Mac/Windows or have been replaced with features which work in better ways.