Existing users, 
 Sibelius - 5.0music notation: notate, edit, play back, publish music |
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Information Related to Version:
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Product Description:
At Sibelius, we believe notation software should be a joy to use, not a frustration. If you thought it was impossible for an advanced scorewriter to be easy to use, think again: you'll be astonished by Sibelius's intuitive design and uncompromising quality.
And our latest version, Sibelius 4, is another giant leap forwards for notation software, with three ground-breaking features, unique among notation products, that will change the way you work with music: Dynamic Parts keeps instrumental parts in the same file as the score, and keeps both score and parts up-to-date as you edit; attach a digital video to your score and compose to picture, with the video in perfect synchronization to the score's playback; and use the Worksheet Creator to generate teaching materials in moments, choosing from the more than 1700 ready-made worksheets and other resources.
What's new in this version:
Sibelius 5 represents the latest advance in the world’s favorite music software. We’ve listened to what Sibelius users have been asking for, and have spent many months adding fantastic enhancements for writing music, the latest technologies such as VST & Audio Units, and completely new features, such as the Ideas Hub.
Operating System Requirements:
This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:
- Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
Additional Requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
- Mac OS X 10.3.9
- Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.0
- Mac OS X 10.1
- Mac OS X 10.5 PPC
- Mac OS X 10.2
- Mac OS X 10.5 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.3
- Mac OS Classic
Screenshots:
Download Links:
Download Sibelius Version 5.0 (File Size: info)
Download Links:
Download Sibelius Current Version (File Size: 94.5M)
Your Installed Versions:
Feedback Summary:
| Version 5.0: | |||||
| Overall Rating: |   (3.0) |
Features: | (4.0) |
Support: | (3.0) |
| Ease of Use: | (4.0) |
Quality / Stability: | (1.0) |
Price: | (3.0) |
Key to Types of Feedback:
Reviews 
Troubleshooting 
Usage Tips 
Developer Notes 
Commentary 
Featured Reviews
Sibelius Support - Version: 5.2, 5/24/2008 06:49PM PST
(5 of 6 users found this comment useful)
zimbop
Most Recent Replies: View All 1 Replies
- Sibelius Support
Speed/graphics problems - Version: 5.1, 2/29/2008 09:45AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
hkim
This version is still very slow in entering notes and performing many graphically-related tasks, i.e., selecting notes, entering notes. This happens with the GPO not being used as well. Though support personnel tell me a G4 is a slower computer to run this on, that should not be since I also do photoshop work that taxes the CPU even more than any music notation software should! In short, there appear to be programming issues that have not been resolved as of yet.
Though Sibelius potentially offers much for music notation, it does not bode well for OSX software to have such a problematic version as this. I suspect this software works better in Windows than OSX, despite their attempt to re-write the code for OSX. Does this thing even support openGL!?
Though Sibelius potentially offers much for music notation, it does not bode well for OSX software to have such a problematic version as this. I suspect this software works better in Windows than OSX, despite their attempt to re-write the code for OSX. Does this thing even support openGL!?
Not ready for prime time - Version: 5.0, 7/15/2007 11:30AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
dshertz
I am a long time user of Sibelius 4 and a software engineer. When I installed Sibelius 5 I had nothing but problems. The installation was not very well integrated: there was a .net upgrade which had to be run separately. Plus it was suggested that files should be copied from Sibelius 4 to Sibelius 5. Later the installation guide suggest that these files may not work because of software changes. Since the job of an installation program is to copy and install the correct files, one gets the impression that the installer was very hastily done.
The principle flaw was the removal of means to edit sound set plus no guide on how to create these in the new XML format. So if you were using an external synth, (I'm using Motif Rack) suddenly you old work is now unplayable. Tech support has offered the ususal banality of a fix will be ready "Real Soon, Now." Much of the functionality in the play menu is greyed out or unresponsive. (The manual only mentions that menus have been 'removed' but offers no recourse as how to replace this functionality).
My recommendation is to wait six months to a year and look for positive reviews before buying this 'upgrade'.
The principle flaw was the removal of means to edit sound set plus no guide on how to create these in the new XML format. So if you were using an external synth, (I'm using Motif Rack) suddenly you old work is now unplayable. Tech support has offered the ususal banality of a fix will be ready "Real Soon, Now." Much of the functionality in the play menu is greyed out or unresponsive. (The manual only mentions that menus have been 'removed' but offers no recourse as how to replace this functionality).
My recommendation is to wait six months to a year and look for positive reviews before buying this 'upgrade'.
In contrast, I needed to talk to MakeMusic about an EPS issue between a previous version of Finale (2007) and Adobe Illustrator CS3. They happily spent 10 or 15 minutes troubleshooting with me and flagged up the issue which I found could be worked around easily, and was fixed by an update.
I guess this isn't a "negative" for Sibelius (I don't fancy my chances getting live Tech Support from Apple for Logic) as much as it is a plus for Finale. Either way the issue took a few more days to solve with Sibelius than I think it probably should have.
My overall impression is that the famous "ease of use" is only sustained for as long as you want to do things "the way sibelius wants to do them", and as soon as you try to use conventions outside of Sibelius sphere of comfort, it's poor and hacky. It seems to me that Sibelius is akin to "Pages" and Finale is more like "InDesign". You'll be up and running quickly in Sibelius, and if you don't want to make anything too challenging you'll probably be OK.