I would love a future Sibelius to have voice recognition commands. How great would it be to reduce the need for the mouse and just voice commands like;
"Input minim E flat"; "quaver - triplet"; "E, D, C sharp - up octave" or highlight a passage and say "colour red" or "mute pass 1" or "transpose whole tone" or "copy and paste to violin 2" or "swap voices" etc...
Other useful commands could be, "page up /down"; "go to bar xxx / hit point xxx"; "zoom out / in / 89%"; "play/ stop/ metronome on" or even to open up options buried within the ribbon such as "open Edit instruments" or "open audio engine options" or "advanced filter - filter dynamics" etc...
I think this would speed up workflow to a large degree and would be very popular. I wonder how feasible this would be (maybe not for Sib 8 which I guess is imminent) - I guess it would be a bit of extra work for the developers, especially when translating into various languages but I think this would be really worth it in the long term, I know if a product offered comprehensive voice commands to help speed up workflow, I'd buy it.
What do others think about its use and feasibility?
I think there are far too many commands needed for this to be a practical proposition. Music is far more complex in its notation than words.
"Go down three staves to the second clarinet staff and change the E flat to an E natural then copy the bar to the first flute and transpose it up an octave."
I don't think so somehow!
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Derek Bourgeois, Dorset UK
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel Xeon@3.47 Ghz - 24GB RAM - NVidia Quadro 5000 with 6143 graphics memory - 3 TB hard disks (of which 2 TB SSD), Sibelius 7.1.3, Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition plus full percussion library. East West QL Symphonic Orchestra and Choirs. Sibelius 7 Sounds. M-Box.
Well obviously you would still use the mouse in conjunction for instance choosing a passage or bar and you'd have to streamline the language to be used for certain commands - when you type what you've written above in your example, without pause, of course it wouldn't work!!
Having played with the voice control on my phone, I would not be an early adopter of a voice-controlled Sibelius.
My guess is that this technology is at least a decade (probably more) away from being good enough to be taken seriously for a working UI. I also think it won't make it into an application like Sibelius for a good few years after it's been proven to work flawlessly.
And I mean flawlessly: when we talk we expect to be heard and understood first time, every time, without changing our speech pattern, or talking louder than normal or over-enunciating. If we have to repeat things endlessly, stop the computer from doing the wrong things, or undo the wrong thing after it's been done (all of which happens with my phone) it'll get turned off in ten minutes in a work environment.
I'm not against the idea in principle, though. I can't see much use in my general work preparing music for publication ("Nudge the 'mezzo-piano subito' in bar 33 of the second bassoon part up about a quarter space. No a bit further than that.") I can easily imagine using it to call parts up ("Open flute 2") and navigating pages/bars.
But don't forget that some things are quicker to do than to say.
Just my thoughts...
Jeremy
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music editor/engraver
Sibelius 7.1.3 | iMac 3.2GHz i3 | OS X Version 10.6.8 Snow Leopard
I think given Sibelius's development team were all sacked because Avid's in the proverbial, there's no point fantasising about what we'd all like in future version of Sibelius.
I use a mouse as little as possible in Sibelius, working where I can with just a keyboard (and a MIDI keyboard). Where I do find the mouse useful is for placing the cursor where I want to start working. In the same way I find it quicker to use a mouse for that than to (with Keyboard) Goto bar number and then jump up and down staves and voices, I'd probably find it quicker to use my mouse than say "Flutes Bar Eighty Six Third Beat Second Quaver Voice Two".
And just think of how many languages Sibelius would need to interpret!
There are also dozens of English language dialects around the world let alone in the UK, many of which are very different from each other.
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Derek Bourgeois, Dorset UK
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel Xeon@3.47 Ghz - 24GB RAM - NVidia Quadro 5000 with 6143 graphics memory - 3 TB hard disks (of which 2 TB SSD), Sibelius 7.1.3, Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition plus full percussion library. East West QL Symphonic Orchestra and Choirs. Sibelius 7 Sounds. M-Box.
In reality, the only quickly implementable voice commands would be ones that mimic keyboard shortcuts. Why bother, when we have keyboard shortcuts that do the job perfectly well (and can't be misheard!) ?
Derek, dialects don't prevent voice recognition software, as long as the words are pronounced clearly. My wife has a heavy Nepalese accent but her phone recognises her voice perfectly fine (most of the time).
Pianoleo, I agree the keyboad shortcuts already help to speed things up a great deal and I use them all the time, far more than the mouse, but I suspect well placed and implemented voice commands could speed things up even further, enable people with certain disabilities, give your hands a rest from the mouse and keys and allow you to work whilst leaning back in your chair!! And like keyboard shortcuts, there probably wouldn't be or need to be voice commands for absolutely everything. However I think Jeremy's right in that such a well implemented voice feature is likely a long way off but I do think we'll be seeing a lot more of it the future. It would all depends how well it's implemented and used.
I use Dragon Naturally Speaking for typing emails and reports etc., but it would be cumbersome navigating the screen of a score in its present form. But I think it might be fine to input lyrics. I think I'll give that a whirl and report back.
But unless that's a major part of what you do, it wouldn't be worth the effort oh buying it.
It is very accurate though.
I have used dragon naturally speaking v9 as well. It worked fine with Sib 6. Unfortunately my lovebirds took over control of my computer so I am not using it anymore....
Also entering notes with a keyboard is much faster...
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Andrew Noah Cap
===============
The most famous unknown composer alive :-)
Working as a composer, engraver and audio-engineer.
Win7 64-Bit, Sibelius v7.1.3 - Soundlibs: Complete Composers Collection Play-Engine (including Symph Platinum Plus, Symph Choir + Ext, Goliath, Ra, Gypsy, Silk, Voices of Passion, Ministry of Rock, Stormdrums Pro, Fab Four), Garritan JABB v3
I think it would be useful for people with physical disabilities, but if you have all your fingers (even if partially) you're going to be much faster and more accurate using shortcuts and mouse.
The voice recognition software for typing reports (Dragon Naturally Speaking etc) works well but primarily as a time saver for physicians etc who don't have to type out long verbal patient reports.
Entering notes without using my Yamaha keyboard I use the right hand on the keypad and left one on the left end of the QWERTY keys. You can zip along nicely.
While they are about it, why not implement an acoustic encephalographic
device which can interpret your musical thoughts straight into a full score?
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Derek Bourgeois, Dorset UK
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel Xeon@3.47 Ghz - 24GB RAM - NVidia Quadro 5000 with 6143 graphics memory - 3 TB hard disks (of which 2 TB SSD), Sibelius 7.1.3, Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition plus full percussion library. East West QL Symphonic Orchestra and Choirs. Sibelius 7 Sounds. M-Box.
Although it's mainly aimed at gamers, it will work with any program.
It takes a bit of time to build a profile for Sibelius, but once set up it's nigh on flawless. Obviously 'go to the second clarinet, and re-spell the second semiquaver' is a bit much, but for the more complex key commands - focus on staves, switch panels on and off etc it's extremely useful - especially if you work on both mac and pc and are always forgetting which modifier keys you need for each platform. I'm building a profile now (your thread came up when I was googling about).
Give it a go - it'll definitely take you some time to get set up, but you can record commands as you go, and as you need them. It's working well for me so far.
I'm just programming it now (should be working)
Here's a couple of examples:
Example 1 - useful for remembering shortcuts for you:
1. I hold down Alt + V (turns VAC on/off) and say 'panels'
2. VAC runs the shortcut LCTRL ALT and X
3. The inspector, keypad etc turn on/off
Example 2 - useful for running user-defined macros and speeding up repetitive tasks:
1. I hold down Alt + V (turns VAC on/off)
2. I say 'cleanup'
3. VAC runs the following commands in order:
i. Filters Voice 2
ii. Filters the rests in Voice 2
iii. Deletes the rests in voice 2
I'm just adding commands as I go, and as they occur to me. It will take you a bit of reading to get set up, by my initial findings are that its a huge time-saver, especially if you struggle (like me) to remember the keyboard shortcuts for things you use only semi-regularly.
Can you get dwvac for MAC?
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Mac OS X 10.7.5, Sibelius 7.1.2, Logic Pro, 2x2.4 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48GB, EWQLSO Platinum, EWQL Goliath, EWQL RA, EWQL Stormdrum.
