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The future of music notation software

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nigelkeay
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« on: September 12, 2012, 09:12:26 pm »

Is anyone here following the recent events surrounding the Avid-owned Sibelius application? Are you aware of the http://www.sibeliususers.org site?
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2012, 05:38:37 am »

Personally I will stick with Finale ;)  Far more intuitive.
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« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2012, 06:46:36 am »

I think that by now - after more than a decade, is it? - the Sibelius software should be perfected. Surely every feature required by reasonable users has been provided, and all the bugs have already been ironed out.

There should thus be no need for any further software development. All that is needed now is a simple forum in which experienced and helpful users might solve any problems inexperienced users might encounter.

There is no requirement for the continuance of a large commercial structure or "company" around it at all! The work is done and the thing finished!
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nigelkeay
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« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2012, 07:55:33 am »

It's true that with Sibelius, if there is no further development, we are left with a very usable & capable piece of software. Finished? Not really - the tuplet handling leaves things to be desired. I started off with Composers' Mosaic; twenty years ago aspects of tuplet handling were better than where Sibelius is now. Then there's the question of the OS evolving and the running of the application eventually becoming problematic. I don't know enough about programming to know what's involved there to keep it running smoothly on the latest OS, I just know that I want my Sibelius files to still be usable in ten years in case I want to change something, and there's always usually something to tweak.

"Far more intuitive" seems a grand claim, "intuitive" being the word normally associated with Sibelius fans. If our worst fears eventually come to pass we may have no choice but to find out about this first-hand. I've never used Finale, and got to Sibelius quite late...

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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2012, 09:25:24 am »

I've never used Finale, and got to Sibelius quite late...

An elderly colleague of mine - in her 80s now - uses Sibelius, and often seeks my help on it when she is stumped. I peer and peer, and eventually dispair :(  Whereas I find that even the most obscure tasks in Finale have a clear and instructive "Help" screen for them. Tuplets are simplicity - you just set 'how many' and the note-duration, and you can enter your noteheads immediately... they engrave neatly-proportioned. I was putting in some 17ths last week - all quite straightforward.  I agree that perhaps the instrument sounds (even with the new sound-palette in the latest release) are a bit parpy, and the dynamic gradations can be lumpy in marked crescendos - but these are things which only bother people who are working towards a 'virtual performance". Personally I'm using Finale as an arranger's tool, to score ensemble and orchestral parts, and print them out for performance by live musicians. (Part-printing is one of Finale's real strengths - extract and print in one operation).  In the final analysis, I agree, Finale began as a jazzbo and band-master application, and its allegiances are still in those fields. I think I began using Finale mainly because it's the favoured programme in Russia, where I live - and everyone passes around their files and parts in that format.

The only main thing I have never achieved in Finale is creating non-mensural notation, without time-sigs or barlines (except where I wish to impose an editorial barline) - for example, for writing out plainchant with stemless noteheads (which I have to do, on occasion).
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David Carter
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« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2012, 12:10:03 pm »

Sibelius has one of the most comprehensive, well written and often amusing help functions/manuals there is. Writing tuplets is as simple as typing the ratio 17:16 and press return - all very neatly proportioned. Sibelius invented one click part extraction which Finale then attempted to copy in its own way. Sibelius has on a number of occasions completely overhauled its source code to take account of ever changing technology and partner applications. Finale has retained its original source code and had to create ever more complex and counterintuitive add-ons to cope with an environment that has long since left it behind. Sibelius updates average once every two years and only introduces major additions. Finale has been tied in to flogging money annually from its user base to survive.

The loss of the London based Sibelius development team is a tragedy for Sibelius the product and Sibelius the personnel. The decision to save money by outsourcing the development to cheap eastern European labour is nonsensical on all levels it will only lead to stagnation and a slow death. Finale has openly condemned this move and offered what support they can to the Sibelius team.

The only winner is Avid's CEO whose wages have quadrupled to $4M last year. No doubt he'll go soon enough but at least he's made his fast buck.

Poor old Sibelius, what would he have thought?
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nigelkeay
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« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2012, 12:47:30 pm »

Writing tuplets is as simple as typing the ratio 17:16 and press return - all very neatly proportioned.
The point about the tuplets is not that it's not easy to get 17:16 in there in the first instance, but what happens when making a change to the tuplet ratio afterwards, having just put all those notes in. If I want to use that same note sequence and turn it into a 19:16 for example, that's where things start getting inefficient. Even in Mosaic the tuplet could be deleted and the note row would remain making it quick and easy to turn into a tuplet of another value.

Anyway, hopes of this little detail being improved are receding...

 
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David Carter
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« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2012, 01:52:53 pm »

Writing tuplets is as simple as typing the ratio 17:16 and press return - all very neatly proportioned.
The point about the tuplets is not that it's not easy to get 17:16 in there in the first instance, but what happens when making a change to the tuplet ratio afterwards, having just put all those notes in. If I want to use that same note sequence and turn it into a 19:16 for example, that's where things start getting inefficient. Even in Mosaic the tuplet could be deleted and the note row would remain making it quick and easy to turn into a tuplet of another value.

Anyway, hopes of this little detail being improved are receding...
 

you can't please all of the people all of the time. The majority of people using notation software (your keen amateurs) do want to have accurate play back which wouldn't work the way you suggest in Mosaic. There's always been a tension between good looking notation and decent play back.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2012, 01:44:36 pm »


The loss of the London based Sibelius development team is a tragedy for Sibelius the product and Sibelius the personnel. The decision to save money by outsourcing the development to cheap eastern European labour is nonsensical on all levels it will only lead to stagnation and a slow death.

Do you have reason to believe that programmers in E Europe are somehow worse than someone who happens to be sitting in Bloomsbury? ;)
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David Carter
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« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2012, 03:02:00 pm »


The loss of the London based Sibelius development team is a tragedy for Sibelius the product and Sibelius the personnel. The decision to save money by outsourcing the development to cheap eastern European labour is nonsensical on all levels it will only lead to stagnation and a slow death.

Do you have reason to believe that programmers in E Europe are somehow worse than someone who happens to be sitting in Bloomsbury? ;)

worse as in replacing the team (and particulary the person who is sibelius ) who have grown and nurtured Sibelus from it original incarnation and who are in their own right very fine musicians and composers with a team who have no experience of developing sibelius to save a few buck for the CEOs pockets why yes, I have very good reasons.
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jasonmath11
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« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2012, 10:32:47 am »

I can say this is the world's best-selling music notation software. Sibelius is the easy way to write, refine, hear, scan and print beautiful scores.
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nigelkeay
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« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2012, 04:22:54 pm »

In recent developments the core of the Sibelius London development team, dismissed by Avid, have been picked up by Steinberg, so will be interesting to see what evolves from that in terms of new notation software. From all accounts the new developers for Sibelius talked about by Avid don't seem to have materialized in Eastern Europe...  
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nigelkeay
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« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2018, 09:37:19 am »

Dorico notation software (Steinberg) has been out for a while now. I'm using it now for all new projects and enjoying the experience.
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« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2018, 12:15:51 am »

any ideas on importing the Score from Sibelius or Finale to a program that plays the piece via midi?
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nigelkeay
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« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2018, 05:28:36 am »

any ideas on importing the Score from Sibelius or Finale to a program that plays the piece via midi?
I'm finding that exporting a MusicXML from Sibelius then importing it into Dorico is working quite well. Dorico has an OK playback function. You could also create a MIDI file from Sibelius and import it into a DAW for MIDI playback.
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