- NumPad 2.0 for iPhone has dedicated Sibelius mode
- Sound on Sound: “Sibelius 6 once again raises the bar”
- Hypermusic Prologue revisited
- Changing music font in an existing score
- Sibelius 6 is a Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence 2009 winner
- Focus Set and Focus Families plug-ins make Focus on Staves more powerful
- Using Logic Pro’s virtual instruments with Sibelius 6
- Designorati: “Sibelius 6 is close to perfect”
- Howard Goodall wins Emmy for soundtrack to Into The Storm
- Love the one you’re with
Power Tools
Page direction
You can now view pages arranged vertically rather than in a row. This makes many scores easier to read on screen, as it there’s less visual jump from the end of one page to the start of the next. Another option shows pages individually rather than grouped into pairs, depending on whether you’ll be printing separate sheets or joining them together.
Filters and Find
Filters, which let you select and edit particular objects, have proved a popular feature – so we’ve added lots more of them! There are new quick filters to select rests, Technique text, any staff text, any system text, the new comments and repeat bars, instrument changes, grace notes, hidden objects, rehearsal marks, symbols and pedal lines. Plus we’ve improved various other quick filters, too.
What’s more, there are many new options on the Advanced Filter and Find dialogs. Select chords with (say) more than two, or up to five noteheads, or specific note types (e.g. grace-note, cross, slash). Locate written or sounding pitches, pitches in a range (e.g. between C4 and G4), or spelled a particular way (e.g. F# rather than Gb).
You can also select ranges of note values, and notes/rests in specific off-beat positions, such as syncopated notes. Find text in any text style, and perform case insensitive text searches. And if that’s not enough, you can even locate particular symbols, particular clef changes, and multiple types of line at once.
Plug-ins
Sibelius 6 includes a host of new plug-ins to help with your composing, arranging and student work, including:
- 11 advanced melodic and rhythmic transformations, such as re-ordering notes cyclically or randomly, retrograding pitches independently of rhythms, and stretching/squashing intervals
- Extend a bar by inserting a note or rest
- Notate dynamics automatically using Live Playback velocities from Flexi-time input or a MIDI file
- Check Palestrina-style counterpoint (using Fux’s first species rules).
The ManuScript language used to create plug-ins has also been extended, and can now use dynamic parts, new features such as Magnetic Layout and Versions, date and time, RTF file export, and much more.
Documentation
Sibelius’s documentation is fully updated and now available on-screen from the Help menu, or downloadable from this web site, for easy access wherever you are. This includes the Handbook, Reference, Upgrading to Sibelius 6 instructions and ManuScript plug-in language details. The Handbook has five new project-based tutorials, ideal for new Sibelius users such as students. But you also get the Upgrading instructions as a printed booklet with your upgrade, detailing all the new features, and you can buy the printed Reference book as an optional extra.
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