Sibelius 6 Professional Edition

Perfect scores up to twice as fast. And much more.

Sibelius 6 is a giant leap forward in notation software – with amazing new features and improvements for educators, students, composers, arrangers, copyists and musicians of all kinds.

Magnetic Layout in Sibelius

Write perfect scores up to twice as fast.

Magnetic Layout takes care of almost every detail of score layout for you - so effortlessly, you’ll hardly notice. This one feature saves so much time, it may be the greatest revolution in music engraving in 20 years.

Sibelius already has ‘magnetic’ slurs, accidentals, tuplets and so on – which stick to notes, and repel various other objects to avoid colliding with them. Now Magnetic Layout extends this intelligent behavior to everything else in your score, to produce truly professional results without you doing anything.

As usual, there’s lots of ingenuity under the hood, but you don’t have to think about it – just input the music, and let Sibelius 6 take care of the rest. It’s really that easy.

So, what does it do?

While you’re writing music, the dynamics, lyrics, chord symbols, rehearsal marks and all other objects quietly shift around to make sure your music is as clear as possible. They’re attracted into neat rows and columns, and repelled by other objects, making the best use of space on the page.

Dynamics line up in rows and columns, while avoiding notes, slurs, etc. Lyrics shift out of the way of low notes, but stay lined up in verses. Tempo marks, chord symbols, and many other objects also organize themselves neatly while avoiding collisions.

Drag something across a complex score, and other objects will helpfully jump out of the way. And on the rare occasion things get so tight that Sibelius 6 can’t prevent a collision, it will mark it in red so it’s easy to spot and fix.

Staves behave just as intelligently – Sibelius can optimize the space between them to allow room for low/high notes, lyrics, tempo markings and rehearsals marks. It adds extra space between instrument families to make large scores easier to read, and saves space between other staves that don’t have much on them.
Advanced options

But there’s more: advanced users can freeze the positions of objects, for complex engraving situations which you want to stay fixed. Or switch off Magnetic Layout entirely, for individual objects or the whole score. And though you’ll probably never need to, you can even set which objects’ positions matter most, how much white space to allow round them, and which ones to align.


Track changes and compare versions

Another ingenious first in music software, Versions keeps track of revisions to your score, lets you look back at earlier versions of it, and see what changes were made since.

This is invaluable for all kinds of people. Students can record their progress as they write coursework, and submit an automatic commentary along with their piece. Teachers can track what each student has done since last week. Composers and arrangers can look back at earlier revisions, or see changes made by orchestrators, publishers and other collaborators.

So now, there’s no need to fish out crumpled-up paper from your bin, or hunt through backups from weeks ago. To see any earlier version of a score, just choose from a list of them on the toolbar. You can print out these past versions, play them back, or export them as separate files. You can also copy music from them, to resurrect an idea you’d discarded – or even revert to an old version entirely.

To save a version at any point, just click a button – the date, time, and a name and optional comment are saved with it, so you won’t have to remember which version is which. And all versions are stored in the same score you’re working on, so you don’t need to go searching for them later.

What’s more, you can compare two versions of a score, or even two different scores, to see what the differences are. This produces a summary and detailed list of all the differences between them. Objects which have been added, changed or deleted are also color-coded in the music, so they’re easy to spot.

You can even export a Word file which lists all these changes, and graphics of each page with the differences highlighted.

Comments are like Post-It™ notes you can add to your score. And just like the real thing, you can use them to write reminders to yourself, or to communicate with someone else you’ll be sending your score to.

Student and teachers commentsTo create a comment, just click the new toolbar button, then type – it automatically includes your name, the date and time. Add a comment to a selected passage, and it will also state the instrument(s) and bars referred to.

You can change the appearance of comments, and ones written by different people are automatically color-coded – ideal if you’re sharing a score with a student, teacher, arranger or editor.

Finally, you can resize comments, minimize them (so they don’t get in the way), or hide them throughout the score.



Conduct your scores in Sibelius

Live Tempo lets you ‘conduct’ the playback of your score to produce a nuanced, musical performance.

Simply tap a key on your computer keyboard, MIDI keyboard or foot pedal, and Sibelius follows your beat. Every detail of your interpretation is recorded, so you can play it back again later, or produce an audio or MIDI file of your performance.

And just like a real conductor, change your beating patterns at any point, and Sibelius 6 will follow you: subdivide beats for a rit, tap one in a bar in a fast passage, or stop beating entirely and Sibelius 6 will keep going. At fermatas (pauses), Sibelius 6 holds until your next beat, just like an orchestra. You can even record separate tempos for different repeats of a section.

Should you want to edit your performance, you can delete or re-record sections of Live Tempo, or play back with Live Tempo switched off entirely.




Sibelius 6 now includes effortless tempo control, stunning new sounds and effects, easy set-up, and sophisticated audio software connectivity.
Integrated playback

No longer does Sibelius need a separate player such as Kontakt Player 2 to get the best results – high-quality playback is now seamlessly integrated, thanks to the latest technology from Digidesign’s AIR team. So it’s simpler than ever to use, and needs no set-up at all – just hit the space bar, and Sibelius plays! You don’t even have to wait for sounds to load any more.

Everything can now be adjusted directly on the Mixer, including new high-quality effects on each staff such as convolution reverb and chorus, and up to six faders for other effects (e.g. EQ, distortion, timbre). All fader positions and settings are now saved in the score, so you won’t have to fiddle with them next time you open it.
Stunning new sounds

There’s a new Sibelius Sounds Essentials library, with a variety of new and improved orchestral, choral and jazz sounds from Garritan, Tapspace and AIR. Sibelius 6 provides up to 128 channels, so you can use as many different sounds at once as your computer can handle.

Sibelius 6 also comes with a General MIDI virtual instrument (using technology from M-Audio). This provides the full range of General MIDI sounds – from music box to gunshot – and is particularly suited to playing MIDI files, or for getting good playback on older computers.




ReWire is a standard which lets you record audio from Sibelius 6 on a digital audio workstation (DAW), such as Pro Tools. It also synchronizes Sibelius with your DAW so they can play back at the same time – starting playback in one program sets it going simultaneously in the other.

This opens up all kinds of possibilities for using Sibelius 6 with other audio software. For example, you could add an acoustic solo instrument line to your Sibelius playback by recording your score into your DAW, or by making Sibelius and your DAW play back simultaneously.

ReWire logoPro ToolsReWire is so widely used that you can connect Sibelius 6 to almost any audio program – not just Pro Tools, but also Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, CakeWalk, Reaper, and even Garageband. And again, no other notation program can do this.


For anyone who prefers using a keyboard or guitar to notation, these beautiful new windows are ideal. Simply click on the keys or frets to input notes and chords – or ‘play’ your computer’s QWERTY keys just like a piano!

But they’re not just for inputting. Select any note/chord, and the keyboard or fretboard shows how it’s played. And when you play the score back, you can follow the music on the keyboard or fretboard, too – even if it’s written for other instruments.

Keyboard
* Click keys or ‘play’ your computer keyboard to input
* Colors show voices
* Scroll through octaves
* Drag to resize
* Choose which staves’ music to show when playing


Guitar
* Click frets to input notes & chords
* Acoustic, maple or rosewood neck in 3 sizes
* 6-string guitar or 4/5-string bass
* Choose which staff’s music to show when playing

Chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams can now be created quicker than ever from your computer keyboard, MIDI keyboard or MIDI guitar. They also feature many enhancements and extra notations, including guitar scale diagrams.
Inputting

To create a chord, just type it on your computer keyboard, or play it on your MIDI instrument. Chords can appear as a chord symbol, a guitar diagram (in a choice of voicings), or both together – they’re all now treated as the same kind of object.

When typing chords in, there’s no need to use special characters – Sibelius 6 automatically converts them for you. For example, if you type ‘Cmaj7’, Sibelius will display it as Cma7, CM7, Cmaj7 or any other convention you like. You can even rewrite chord symbols in different ways, such as turn C half-dim into the equivalent Cmin7(b5).

Customize what to type or play on your MIDI keyboard/guitar to get this chord

Library

Sibelius’s built-in chord library is easier than ever, including over 600 chord types. It produces suitable guitar voicings for any chord, plus you can design your own diagrams, which are added to the library for future use. You can even send your customized library to other people.
Guitar scale diagrams

Guitar scale diagramSibelius now lets you create these special diagrams which show how to play a scale, lick or riff. Hundreds of diagrams are included for 25 different scales. But you can also add your own ones to the library using white or black circles, squares or diamonds as dots, with optional text inside (for fingerings or note names). You can also number frets, and add letters to the strings.
Advanced options

As usual, there are many subtle options for more advanced users. As well as a huge choice of conventions for writing chord extensions, you can use different ones for root notes - English, German, Scandinavian or Solfege. Draw guitar diagrams and scales vertically or horizontally, and change any diagram’s size. Even normal diagrams can use special dot shapes, with optional text inside.


Slurs

Sibelius now has the most beautiful and controllable slurs of any program. Not only is their default design and position even better in all kinds of situations, but you can adjust their shape using no fewer than six handles, and alter their thickness individually.

New Engraving Rules options also let you control the default height and shoulder for different slur lengths.

Sibelius now adds cautionary accidentals all by itself wherever they’re needed, so you’ll get fewer wrong notes in performance. It should do just what you want by default, but as usual we’ve included various options you can tweak: these include where to use cautionary accidentals (e.g. up to the end of the next bar, between different octaves or voices, or when tying notes between systems), and whether to draw them in parentheses.

Repeat bars

You can now add 1-, 2- and 4-bar repeats from the Keypad, which now play back just like anything else. Multiple repeat bars can also be automatically numbered (without using a plug-in), so performers won’t lose their place.


Jazz articulations and slashes

Scoops, falls, doits and plops can now be added to notes quickly from the Keypad – no need to use symbols. Like other articulations, they are automatically positioned and transpose with the notes, but you can also move them individually. Jazz articulations even play back on suitable MIDI devices (e.g. Garritan Jazz and Big Band).

Slashes now stay put when the rest of the music transposes, making rhythm charts quicker to produce. Other jazz improvements include enhanced chord symbols, which you can input faster than ever from your computer or MIDI keyboard).

Modern notations

Stemlets
Sibelius now includes optional stemlets (‘half-stems’) for rests in beamed groups. You can either use stemlets throughout the score, or add them to individual rests from the Keypad. There are various other improvements and options for beamed rests too, even without stemlets.

Feathered beams
Sibelius 6 also has automatic ‘feathered’ beams, for showing brief accels/rits. Again you choose them from the Keypad, and they even work on two-note tremolos.

Extreme tuplet
In addition to Schoenberg-style Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme lines, you can now create extreme tuplets with ratios between 1:4 and 4:1 (previously limited to 1:2 and 2:1), which is useful for special cases.


Other notations

Wiggly arpeggio lines can be added to spread chords instantly, straight from the Keypad. They’re attached to notes, so room is automatically allowed for them, and they transpose with the notes too. Use a normal wiggly line, or one with an up- or down-pointing arrow.

You can now make ties break across time signatures (see picture), by being drawn behind them. In fact, you can make any object go in front of or behind any other, like in many drawing programs. This is particularly useful for putting imported graphics in front of or behind staves.

Articulations are positioned better than ever – among various improvements, they’re automatically drawn inside or outside slurs or tuplets depending on the situation, with a host of subtle new options. You can also reposition multiple articulations on the same note individually rather than all at once.

Finally, Sibelius 6 includes over 40 new instruments, including several unusual trumpets and flutes, and many General MIDI instruments from Rock Organ to Tinkle Bell, plus improvements to existing instruments.

Sell your scores around the world

Only with Sibelius: The brand new SibeliusMusic.com makes it even easier for you to earn an income from electronic sales of your scores around the world. Or you can just share and exchange scores with fellow musicians and Sibelius users.


Sing in music!

People have been asking for years about inputting music from a microphone – and AudioScore lets you do just that! Developed by Neuratron, creators of PhotoScore, AudioScore lets you input music into Sibelius simply by singing or playing an instrument, then hit a button to put the results into Sibelius.

Plus more amazing new features…

* View pages arranged vertically rather than in a row
* Optional stemlets (‘half-stems’) for rests in beamed groups
* Quick filters to select rests, Technique text, any staff text, and more
* Notate dynamics automatically using Live Playback velocities