540: New features and fixes in Sibelius 5.1

Sibelius 5.1 includes a large number of small fixes and improvements. The most important changes are as follows:

Input maps

• Use all the extra buttons, faders and rotary controls on your M-Audio keyboard to control the Playback window and the Mixer in Sibelius
• Simply choose the appropriate input map on the Input Devices page of Preferences

Playback improvements

• Choose a default playback configuration to speed up start-up
• Sort and rename devices in Playback Devices
• Better playback of rolls and other unpitched percussion effects
• Improved pitch bend and glissando playback in Kontakt Player 2
• Support for loading and saving VST presets
• Use any MIDI device without a sound set by setting up a Manual Sound Set, including program and bank numbers to use for each channel, and the ability to change a staff's channel in the Mixer

Mixer improvements

• Display program names instead of sound IDs: simply set Display to Program names on the Playback page of Preferences
• New "test" button to audition chosen sound
• New pan slider for virtual instrument outputs (for e.g. VSL Vienna Instruments)
• Change a staff's MIDI channel directly via the Mixer when that device uses a manual sound set

MusicXML support

• Now supports MusicXML 2.0
• Imports compressed (.mxl) files
• Better layout support (e.g. system layout, object positioning, blank pages, multirests)
• Better instrument detection
• Imports unpitched percussion, nested tuplets, page-attached text, notehead shapes, hidden objects, chord diagrams, tab staves that use capos, and more
• Bugs relating to incorrect bar lengths fixed

Mac OS X support

• Spotlight support now included: find Sibelius files by any text contained within them
• Quick Look support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard now included: look inside Sibelius scores directly via the Finder without opening them

Windows Vista support

• Now fully supports new Aero look and feel
• No longer necessary to use Run as Administrator to register Sibelius

Other fixes and improvements

For a complete list of fixes and improvements in Sibelius 5.1, click here (180K, PDF).