I have to upgrade Sibelius - go standalone or subscription?

[timwat]

I've been using Sibelius 6 for about 11 years. It's survived all of the OS upgrades up until...Catalina.

 

Now that I'm on this new MBP, Sib 6 Edu is in the no-fly zone.

 

Okay, after 11 years, I don't mind upgrading. But I see that now there are two options for qualified educators - standalone for $299 or subscription for $99 a year...until they raise the price eventually.

 

What are you guys doing for notation software these days? Has anyone had to upgrade recently and make this choice? I tend to keep things for a long time (11 years on Sib 6) if they're working. So it suggests coughing up the $300 for standalone is the wiser choice.

 

But curious if I'm missing something.

 

Tim

[Joe Muscara]

I like MuseScore, but I understand your investment of time and skills in Sibelius. However, you can try MuseScore and it's always free to use and see if it works for you. (In fact, last time I looked, most notation apps have free versions and trials to decide before you buy.)

[ElmerJFudd]

Hey, Tim.

 

The subscription thing has its merits. If you"d like to always have access to their latest software build, yeah - it"s cheaper to pay the $99 now and have it. However, you"re going to keep this Mac Book for at least 5 years right? And the features they may add to Sibelius at this point are like bloat ware for a notation app. Mostly they are keeping up with changes Apple make to their OS and hardware. If you pay the $299 you have it on this Mac Book for the life of the computer and there will be an upgrade path/price for you next time around. The difference in cost over time is something you can calculate for your needs.

 

I also have a lot of time invested and familiarity with this application - fast enough with it that I have no interest in Musescore. For a quick thing in the cloud I can get around Noteflight fairly painlessly.

[Mike Davis]

Please forgive the digression, but is your new MBP an M1 with Big Sur? And if so, what are you using for an audio interface? I"m ready to go shopping ;-)

 

Oh, and I went to Musescore and like it just fine. My needs have gotten simpler in that area over the last couple of years. But I also invested a lot of time with Sibelius, so I understand you wanting to stay with it.

 

Good luck on finding the right solution!

[timwat]

Hey, Mike,

 

No, it's a 16" on Catalina. I was tempted to go M1, but because it's my daily driver for work I wasn't willing to risk any surprises midstream of a very demanding teaching schedule. Sorry, I can't help you there. Next upgrade, I'm presuming by then Apple will have industrial-strength M1 in their flagship laptops with several years of stability behind them - that's when I'll probably feel comfortable pulling the trigger for my daily driver.

 

Elmer - Some great points about subscription and always being up to date. I hadn't considered that. And you're absolutely correct - I'm a "long in the tooth, slow to upgrade" kind of guy - with both computers and automobiles. I guess I learned that from my dad's example, was rarely about newest / shiniest / flashiest.

 

Joe - Years ago I migrated from Finale to Sibelius, which at the time was the smart money move as Finale was so unfriendly. Perhaps things have changed. But I have so many years invested in Sibelius (admittedly, using prolly 10% of its features), that it has become an essential part of my writing / composing workflow. And what I've found is when Sib doesn't boot anymore, I don't compose anymore. Stupid, I know, but it feels like "painter without his brushes" kind of thing. So while I don't doubt Musescore is a wonderful product, I don't know if I'm up for migrating.

 

And who knows, maybe the new version of Sib will look so different than Sib 6 that I still feel like I gotta learn a new program LOL. I hope not.

[ElmerJFudd]

Since it"s an Intel Mac, no worry about running Rosetta or needing Avid to update Sibelius for M1 issues at a later date. Today"s version of Sibelius runs and with the purchase I think you get updates for the year.

[Mighty Motif Max]

I'm a Finale user (also a 16" on Catalina) and I haven't tried Sibelius since Version 7. But I use MuseScore as well. Either are easier than Sibelius IMO. But it's up to you on whether you want to keep paying every year but also get upgrades, or to have one solid version you use.

[tfort]

Have you considered having a look at the free trial of Dorico? The educational/academic crossgrade price discount is quite substantial. Dorico seems to be leading the pack these days.

[Franz Schiller]

Since I wasn't already invested with any notation software, I went with Dorico a few years ago; it's terrific.

 

Honestly, I actually do most of the notating in Staffpad, and then export an XML file to Dorico for cleanup and engraving. Staffpad has been upgraded and is now available on iPad, by the way.

[ElmerJFudd]

Also if it"s a factor - there"s 40gb sample set with Sibelius - I suspect the version of Garritan Orchestra that comes with Finale is similar. Not a factor in notation, but very nice to have when listening back and checking your score for errors, as well as exporting audio with your notation for the non-readers you work with.

[jarrell]

I went with the 3 year upgrade package, rather than subscription. I figure by the time this runs out (another year for me), Sibelius will support Apple Silicon, and as Sibelius is pretty full featured already, I may be set for years. I will probably switch to Dorico at some point, assuming they keep up their development.

 

One thing to take note of: if you buy the standalone package, and plan to upgrade (buy another standalone package) after that one runs out, you must buy the upgrade before your time period runs out. If you don't, they will charge you the full retail price to upgrade, as if you are a new user (i.e. $599 instead of $299).

 

I have two sites to recommend for music notation software:

 

Scoring Notes

 

This used to be Sibelius Blog years ago; now they cover all notation software packages, and have good articles and reviews. The editor of the site has a music preparation firm:

 

NYC Music Services

 

...that offers various resources, including fonts and templates. In particular they offer fonts that allow newer versions of Sibelius (2018.11 and higher) to correctly display slash chords, and are free (donation requested).

[Rally]

I don't know how many of the software features you require to produce the charts you need, but Steinberg's Dorico SE is free. I found the UI quick and easy and more enjoyable than MuseScore.

[tfort]

[align:left][/align]I follow @doricoofficial on Twitter. They retweeted the start of this thread from @GregClarkMusic this morning:

 

â-

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): Lifetime Finale user. Started in 7th grade, somewhere around 2000-2001.

 

I am *pretty good* at Finale. I've led PD sessions on Finale and SmartMusic. Attended seminars. Composed and arranged and created all kinds of things.

 

In December, I bought @doricoofficial 3.5. Oh. My.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): I'm still a little slow to the shortcuts, but I can't even tell you the difference.

 

I finished a commission for a high school band this week in Finale. I had a somewhat tight timeframe, so I didn't want to learn new software and write at the same time.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): So I finished the music and sent "rough draft" parts to the school, with the understanding that I would send a more polished version later on, after running it through Dorico.

 

What did the farmer say when he walked past 3 holes in the ground?

 

Well, well, well.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): I exported the xml from Finale and plugged it in to Dorico and just... I just can't. The playback is SO BEAUTIFUL. The dynamics, the accelerandi, the PERCUSSION ACTUALLY SOUNDS RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): But then I looked at my score, customized instrumentation (3 Fl, Ob, 3 C, 2 AS, TS, BS, 3 tpt, 2 tbn, euph, tuba, 4 percussion), and decided it would be nice to clean up the score by finding how Dorico goes about condensing a large score.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): 5 clicks. It took 5 clicks to take a score from having 25 lines to a perfectly condensed, easily read score. Stems flipped. Unisons and divisis and a2's all marked for the conductor.

 

I just

 

I can't.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): Last thing: percussion writing is actually intuitive. For the first time. Ever.

 

In Finale, I would set up 4 percussion parts, the have to CTRL+K, edit settings to map my percussion and pray to god that they all lived in the same midi map.

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): In Dorico, you just say, "I want a person with these 3 instruments in their hands", then put the parts into the score and by the time you get to their part all this can happen.

 

No additional work on my part. Just... I want to cry. It's beautiful. https://twitter.com/GregClarkMusic/status/1360002410425552899/photo/1

 

Greg Clark (@GregClarkMusic): No, I am not a Steinberg employee. But my GOD if you use music notation software you owe it to yourself to see what all the fuss is about.

[Al Quinn]

I used Finale for about ten years. Out of frustration I switched to Sibelius for about ten years. Out of frustration again I switched to Dorico a few years ago. FWIW, Dorico has been the best experience of the three for me.

[dazzjazz]

I too think you should ditch Sibelius and get Dorico - it"s soooo fabulous.

[stoken6]

@Tim, if you're invested in Sibelius, would the "standard" version (what used to be called "Sibelius Student", and is now called "Sibelius") be sufficient? Or do you need the pro-grade features of what used to be called "Sibelius" and is now called "Sibelius Ultimate"? The pricing you mentioned is for the latter, so you could save a lot by switching to the former. https://www.avid.com/sibelius/comparison

 

Cheers, Mike

[EricBarker]

Another Musescore switcher here. I started out on Finale 4.0 (back in '95?), have switched back and forth to Sibelius for a number of versions. Honestly, Musescore isn't perfect either, but somehow I feel I can jump in faster and don't stress over finding things as much. I too am doing more charts and simpler things than I used to, but I dunno, they've got a really good product. I haven't upgraded Sibelius for a number of years now because of it. But I understand the need to continue.

[timwat]

I'm very tempted by the Dorico testimonials, and don't doubt it probably presents a wonderful "user experience" upgrade. I experienced the same thing back in February 2010 (!) when I switched from Finale to Sibelius - I'm looking at my old Sweetwater receipt LOL

 

But 11 years later, I now have 740 items in my scores folder. And from what I can tell there's no direct way to import Sibelius files into Dorico - MusicXML seems to be good but not great, at least from what I could quickly gather from online anecdotes.

 

Mike - I'm not sure if Sib "standard" would work for me or not - I need to take a close look at the difference in feature set. I don't compose for large ensembles, but it has been nice to be able to write consolidated charts with all the horns, and then print individual parts out for certain ensembles I've worked in. Not sure if 'standard' would let me do that or not.

 

I guess I'm not too shy of making an investment in a somewhat expensive upgrade. If I'm going to do this, I'd rather not be pennywise and pound-foolish, as the old people used to say (shit - i guess that makes me an old person now). But I also don't think I can afford to orphan all my old work either.

[BernMeister]

I'm very tempted by the Dorico testimonials, and don't doubt it probably presents a wonderful "user experience" upgrade. I experienced the same thing back in February 2010 (!) when I switched from Finale to Sibelius - I'm looking at my old Sweetwater receipt LOL

 

But 11 years later, I now have 740 items in my scores folder. And from what I can tell there's no direct way to import Sibelius files into Dorico - MusicXML seems to be good but not great, at least from what I could quickly gather from online anecdotes.

 

Mike - I'm not sure if Sib "standard" would work for me or not - I need to take a close look at the difference in feature set. I don't compose for large ensembles, but it has been nice to be able to write consolidated charts with all the horns, and then print individual parts out for certain ensembles I've worked in. Not sure if 'standard' would let me do that or not.

 

I guess I'm not too shy of making an investment in a somewhat expensive upgrade. If I'm going to do this, I'd rather not be pennywise and pound-foolish, as the old people used to say (shit - i guess that makes me an old person now). But I also don't think I can afford to orphan all my old work either.

 

If you qualify for an educational discount, upgrading would surely be worth your while. Regardless, especially given the number of existing files you have, I'd say upgrade and stay the course.

 

There's a lot that's been added to Sibelius since v6. Some info can be read here:

 

https://www.avidblogs.com/whats-new-in-sibelius/

 

http://resources.avid.com/SupportFiles/Sibelius/2020.6/Whats_New_in_Sibelius.pdf

[RABid]

I would definitely go the purchase route. If you only use it half as long as you did the last version you will still come out better purchasing it. It is scoring software. Not like updates and new features are critical. Save your subscription allowance for toys with sounds and frequent updates.

[stoken6]

Mike - I'm not sure if Sib "standard" would work for me or not - I need to take a close look at the difference in feature set. I don't compose for large ensembles, but it has been nice to be able to write consolidated charts with all the horns, and then print individual parts out for certain ensembles I've worked in. Not sure if 'standard' would let me do that or not.

Tim, I'm an old-timer (started with the original, original Sibelius on a computer most USAians won't have heard of). In those days, there was an "extract parts" feature, which would turn a multi-player score into lots of single-player parts.

 

At some point, Sibelius added "dynamic parts". Basically there's a continuous link between the multi-player score and the individual parts: change one, it's immediately reflected in the other, no need to go through the "extract" process.

 

Sibelius (standard, cheap) has dynamic parts. Sibelius Ultimate (expensive) has dynamic parts AND the "extract parts" feature.

 

The other big limitation is that cheap-Sibelius allows up to 16 parts. That's been enough for me (I've doubled up on instruments to squeeze a big band ensemble into 16 parts, using voices/divisi etc.), and dynamic parts allows me to print parts for each player.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Nathanael_I]

I'm very tempted by the Dorico testimonials.....And from what I can tell there's no direct way to import Sibelius files into Dorico - MusicXML seems to be good but not great, at least from what I could quickly gather from online anecdotes.

 

MusicXML will get the note data in. But that's about it. If your scores are heavily marked with playing instructions, slurs, crescendo's, horn markings, etc., you will get to re-enter all that stuff. How important is this? Probably depends on if you are making charts for other players and how much you are putting on the page vs. leaving to them.

 

I switched to Dorico shortly after it came out. It was quite usable at 2.0 for almost everything, and now at 3+, it is missing little for most uses. It is cleaner, faster, etc. I find it vastly better - and it should be. The team has 20 years of experience each, but none of the historical code debt. So it is done better everywhere that they've done anything.

 

But I'd look at it as a pile of old, and then make a pile of new. If you are actively editing those 740 scores, then staying in Sibelius is likely smart if that's all your muscle memory, etc. If that is archive, but you are making new, then you can just switch.

[Nathanael_I]

I guess I should also mention that I switched to subscription. I'm exporting a bunch of things as PDF and MIDI, and then I will let the subscription lapse. But if I want to edit those files, I can always just re-subscribe. It's super easy on the AVID portal. But once I finish this project, my computer will be AVID free again. I guess I'm a house of Steinberg and not AVID. For a while I was a house of Apple, so who knows - tools change and so do I...

[Morizzle]

Guess I could add my two cents to this as I just went for the Sibelius upgrade after going from Mac 10.8. to 10.14. First of all, I think Avid sucks for not allowing me to upgrade my Sib 7.5 to a current version. In comparison, porting my legacy versions of NI Komplete 10, Melodyne and other apps over to the new computer was super easy and cost me nothing but a little time. Avid also suck for buying Sibelius and outsorcing the staff, and for only marginally improving the product (sometimes even making it worse) with each upgrade.

 

So naturally, I thought about switching over to Dorico. I dowloaded the demo, and, to make a long story short, I had trouble figuring out the most basic stuff. I've worked with Sibelius for about 15 years so its idiosyncracies are baked into my head. Note input in Dorico stressed me out. I followed along a few tutorials, but as I have a big project coming up for that I need to be working efficiently, I'll pass on Dorico for now. I'll definitely come back the next time I upgrade my work computer.

 

My secret hope is that MuseScore will be ready for professional use in 5 years or so. A lot of my students use it and I see good things, plus its development is in the hands of a talented composer/designer now. You can check his stuff out on YouTube, his moniker is Tantacrul.

[drawback]

I would definitely go the purchase route. If you only use it half as long as you did the last version you will still come out better purchasing it. It is scoring software. Not like updates and new features are critical. Save your subscription allowance for toys with sounds and frequent updates.

 

This, in principle. Although I have no experience with notation software, I've been a forced subscriber to Adobe CC since they abandoned Creative Suite in 2011, and as much as the subsequent "updates" tout advances, I've found they are basically upgrades in automation and settings, some of them just a bloated PITA that I turn off anyway.

 

Finally, I'd had enough of paying through the teeth and after a bit of research, found the Affinity set which is every bit as good as InDesign, Illustrator & Photoshop, for a mere one-time price of $69 each, complete with free updates. The only Adobe product I have to subscribe to is Acrobat Pro, which stands alone in the marketplace for various reasons, at a cost of $16 USD a month, a far cry from the hundreds I formerly paid.

 

Tim, if you can get off the subscriber treadmill with Sibelius offering a one-time purchase, I'd say "do it."

 

RABid has it right, IMO.