150+ high-quality built-in sounds

Sibelius 5 comes with Sibelius Sounds Essentials as standard – a collection of over 150 pitched and hundreds of unpitched percussion sounds, covering a wide range of orchestral, rock & pop, jazz and marching band instruments, plus the full General MIDI set. We’ve selected the sounds from top-name libraries such as Garritan Personal Orchestra, SONiVOX, Garritan Jazz & Big Band, Garritan Concert & Marching Band, M-Audio Session, and Tapspace Virtual Drumline – everything you need to start producing high-quality playback, audio files and CDs.

Kontakt Player 2

Sibelius Sounds Essentials plays back using Kontakt Player 2, the very latest version with much improved performance. It can play any number of sounds simultaneously (limited only by your computer), loads them almost instantly, and has extra built-in effects. Any other Sibelius Sounds you have (e.g. Kontakt Gold, GPO Sibelius Edition) will work better than ever, too.

Enhanced realism

You can now specify exactly how articulations, lines, tremolos and symbols play back – for example, to change the length and loudness of accents and staccatos, the speed of tremolos, or how fast chords with wiggly arpeggio lines are spread. Hairpins automatically read dynamics to work out how loud or soft they should end up, and sustained notes get continuously louder or softer along the hairpin.

Always chooses the best sounds

Our revolutionary new way of categorising sounds, called SoundWorld™, ensures that Sibelius always chooses the most suitable sound available on any device – with no need to reset them if you switch equipment. And if you want to tell Sibelius which device you prefer for particular sounds, e.g. GPO for strings and Synthogy Ivory for piano, you only need do so once – just “set and forget.”