Sibelius 6

It came to my attention today that Sibelius 6 was announced 9 days ago.  It was not unexpected seeing as they usually release a new version every other year, and I was writing a similar blog post about Sibelius 5 two years ago, but the past two years have flown, it seeming like no time at all since I upgraded last time.

The feature list on paper looks fairly strong, with Magnetic Layout being the main feature, and Revisions also looking very useful (although the comments could turn out to be the Ideas Hub of Sibelius 6 – barely used).  I actually came up with the idea of a Revisions-type feature when doing my AS composition exam, and I know that I will find it easier to keep track of files with it.  Also there are plenty of features with sound (the AVID family helping out here, and ReWire looking like the answer to several people’s needs), but I cannot see myself using these, as I use Sibelius as a notation programme, with no need for complex, life-like sounds.  The piano and guitar screens seem just a little bit pointless, and I have tried similar features to conducting your own score and singing music in, with Finale family products, and it is not very efficient.  It also seems to me that the majority of new engraving tools could previously be “faked” or utilised via plugins, for example, inserting cautionary accidentals.

Whilst there is undoubted improvement in each Sibelius version, it does seem now that the majority of the new features are “power toys”, only to be used by a small minority of Sibelius users.  And whilst some of the more mainstream features, such as the Ideas Hub in Sibelius 5, and the comments in Revisions in Sibelius 6, appear useful at first, I never find myself using them.  Equally, whilst I found Panorama in Sibelius 5 and Magnetic Layout in Sibelius 6 useful, these features alone are not worth upgrading for.

For me, with the introduction of Dynamic Parts in Sibelius 4, Sibelius became the perfect notational package.  It was simple to imput notes, text and other symbols.  Easy to manipulate what had been imputted, and easy to arrange the layout of a score so that it looked professional.  Dynamic Parts meant that parts needed almost no work, and they could all be printed with just one press of a button.  At the time, whilst there were still small niggles that annoyed occasionally, I wondered what “killer feature” Sibelius would come up with for versions 5 and 6.

Thus far they have not impressed me, whilst being useful steps forward, none will revolutionise the way I notate music, such as Dynamic Parts did.  I have absolutely no interest in the sound toys and some of the more gimmiky ideas put forward (has anyone actually used the Ideas Hub?).  There are a couple of features I would love to see included, such as a feature (or plugin) which alerts the user to a layout clash after scanning the score, as clashes will still undoubtedly happen with the new system, or an option to export all parts and a score as separate Scorch files, in one button click, as at present one has to extract all the parts first, before exporting them all individually.  I would also love to see a book about the art of music engraving, telling the user whether to put, for example, the tempo text or the espression text nearer the note.  I, for one, would find that very useful.

But, I expect that we all have our own wishlist, and that is Sibelius’ problem.  The “backbone” of their product is perfect, and has been since Sibelius 4.  They now have to develop the product in a new way, and as a result of their aquisition by AVID, they have spent a lot of time, effort and resources on the audio side of scores.  They have also put in main features that would appear to a wide demographic, but are a bit thin for all of them (such as the Ideas Hub).  I’m sure that they will generate plenty of sales with this new version, but the question has to be asked: what will be the “killer feature” in Sibelius 7, and will it be a “must buy” for the average musician, as Sibelius 4 was and, I would argue, Sibelius 5 and 6 are not.