Sibelius 5 is OUT!!!!

[simonphoenix]

That's right, I'm not entirely sure when this happened, but considering I haven't seen it in the audio news, it may have happened while we were all getting distracted with news from Apple's WWDC2007.

 

I've yet to go through it's new features myself, but here are a few...

 

It now offers a streamlined process in which just to scribble or record quick ideas called the Ideas Hub, the mixer has been reworked and now includes a master fader and a section fader that acts like a subgroup for your different instrument families, a refresh of it's built-in sounds - offering more than 150 instruments from the libraries of Garritan and M-Audio, new fonts and plugins and the biggie.... support for VST(Windows) and Audio Units(Mac)!!!!!!

 

What... No RTAS??? The only thing I can think here is development was far to along on the next release for when, Digidesign acquired it, for them to introduce RTAS this time around.

 

I have yet to determine what Digidesign support it DOES offer, if it does indeed offer any.

 

Still, on first appearances it looks to be well worth upgrading for all you Sibelius users out there.

 

http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html

[zaque]

I placed my upgrade order as soon as it came out. AU/VST support and the Ideas Hub were enough for me. The panorama view is cool, too: more like a sequencer view...with notation. Now...if only Logic has "Send to External Score Editor..."

[nikkik]

Hi!

I think David announced this in the News section? Not sure, tho.

 

Avid owns Sibelius, not Digi. Avid owns Digi also. The only real clue of this "two degrees of seperation" is the "Export to Sibelius" feature of Pro Tools 7. In my experiences with Digi, life moves very slowly (hmm...wonder if Logic users can relate to that since the Apple acquisition... ). They add only select features each version, and take care to be sure they do not break existing things. I actually like that. While the "new features" may seem a bit lacking sometimes, there also seems to be less to go completely bugger up. Yes, others will strongly disagree there

 

Sibelius 5 does look excellent IMO. I watched the new feature trailers they have on their site, and it just looks incredible. While it has been some time since Sibelius did a major upgrade, I think this one is HUGE.

 

(oh- and I would lay odds on Digi "borrowing" from Sibelius just as they have from when Avid acquired Wizoo. Only makes sense... but will also take time, as it appears the Sibelius' team was busy with this upgrade. even so, I just dont see PT having scoring that comes close to Sibelius')

[TC]

AU support ....! I just lost my last argument on why not migrate to Sibelius ...(Concerning Score functions, of course)

[simonphoenix]

I did have a quick skim through of David's news and I couldn't see it, though I only went 2 pages deep, and since I've seen no news announcements and my last trip to the Sibelius page a month ago turned up nothing, I just assumed it was recent news. And I do keep up with the pro-audio news on a basically daily basis... The downside is I have next to NO IDEA what's been happening in Real Word news.... Is john Howard still pulling madly on the reins in Australia's Government??

 

I've got to admit I haven't used Sibelius much myself lately, but the new features it adds may offer me another alternative to ways in I can work. Other than the Ideas Hub, which I've yet to check out, it's the support for VST/AU now i can work on most of the same Instruments I would in Logic all I have to do is export my arragements as MIDI and bring them into Logic for the next and final stage. And with new practical ways in which to work, comes new ideas!!

 

Anyways... I'm now on to checking out the new Sibelius features for myself....

[nikkik]

Yeah- sorry bout that, my bad! I could have sworn David had it there, but no.

Kudos to the Sibelius team tho... I could not do an upgrade from Sibelius G7 to the full ver4. So, I broke down and bought it...on Apr 23 this year. Cut-off for the free upgrade: May 1st. I called Sibelius sales, told them when I bought it, and that I could not believe I had missed the May 1st date by that little. Was really polite, just put a tiny edge of sad in my voice. The girl asked if I could hold on, and a minute or so later, she got bak on and said they would extend the free upgrade to me if I would pay $10 shipping fee. Woohooo! Really cool of them...and now I cannot wait until the first week of July, which is when I figure I will get it. They are in pressing/boxing mode now evidently, and should ship last week of June.

 

I cannot wait!!! :D

[simonphoenix]

Excellent news dude!!

 

And I knew the news had to be super-new!!

 

I've decided to hold off on my upgrade, because I'm waiting to see what Logic has to offer... I don't hold too many hopes and I have been using Sibelius ever since version 1!!!... I just thought it's user-friendliness, it's ability to customise just about everything, and it's output was incredible at the time... So much so that I chose it over Finale, though Finale at the time was THE platform to be using.

 

I had faith and belief in what Sibelius was doing, and I am glad I had the foresight to choose their path. But I don't use it often. only when I want to communicate my ideas to other musicians, and that is usually in the form of Leadsheets. So I love Sibelius' Dynamic Parts that has made arranging a much better experience. But nowadays my shift into doing more work inside my production studio means less use of printed music. And if Logic DOES come up with the goods, it may just be the most viable solution for me... sadly.

 

So in a way I want Logic to better with handling sheetmusic, I do predict the next version will be PDF based, in another way I want an excuse to keep Sibelius around.

 

So I can only wait and see... Excellent integration as an External Score Editor is something I have wanted also, so who knows. Stranger things have happened. Like Apple's shift to Intel!!....LOL