Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 10 Nov 02:30PM (edited 10 Nov 07:00PM) Hide picture Sibelius is dead.  ProTools may follow. Long live Steinberg! With the announcement yesterday that the Sibelius development team has miraculously survived in one piece and is now safely in the employ of Steinberg in London, the campaign to persuade Avid Technology to divest itself of Sibelius has perforce come to an end.  With no development team left, it is highly unlikely anyone will have interest in buying just the source code of Sibelius.  As of now, aside from the feature-slim version 8 which was already prepared by the sacked development team for release next year, Sibelius is therefore effectively defunct. This news will of course be received with mixed feelings.  On the one hand we are delighted that Daniel Spreadbury and the last 10 of the original Sibelius development team have been retained intact to develop a new, standalone music notation application, which will without question, become the new world leader, soon to displace both Sibelius and Finale.  On the other, we are left clinging to the carcass of Sibelius, that until July 2012 had been the world's leading music scoring application, and in which we have all substantially invested financially, artistically and in learning. Once again, the consumer has lost heavily to high flying corporate avarice, where malpractice goes unpunished, while ineptitude and abject failure are incomprehensibly and staggeringly rewarded.  This is completely the wrong environment for ubiquitous resources like music scoring and recording software. I believe our concern should now be directed to preventing this from happening yet again.  Even though Steinberg is a reputable company with a first class track record in innovation and development, it too was taken over by Yamaha.  Yamaha itself of course also has impeccable credentials as innovator of MIDI and manufacturer of products of high quality, but what will happen if a company like Avid monsters them too? It is highly tempting to throw our support unquestioningly behind Steinberg's bold enterprise, but personally, I can only recommend this if at least the score file format is made open source, even if the application itself remains proprietary.  The easiest way to achieve this for now would simply be to extend the already powerful Music XML file format so as to append all the feature assets of the new application as and when they are added. If this is not going to be the case, then I consider that the long term interests of music composers and arrangers will be better served by a separate initiative to create a new open source application broadly modelled on the feature set of Sibelius, but entirely independent of any corporation. Speaking for myself, I am not willing to waste any more time and money, continually buying and learning different applications of duplicate functionality, just to do something I could already do forty years ago with pen and paper.  Paradoxically, I can still open and read my forty year old paper scores, yet I can't open scores written on a music application in the 1990's.  Scoring applications are of value to me only if I get to keep my work, and I don't have to keep starting over every time a company like Avid loses interest in its customers or goes bust. I can only hope that Steinberg will insure longevity by adopting an open format for score files, so that I can comfortably and safely participate in their new application with our friends from Sibelius. Derek Williams www.sibeliususers.org www.savesibelius.com Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 10 Nov 02:52PM (edited 10 Nov 02:52PM) Hide picture It will be interesting to see what they come up with for the "Education and composing markets". Is the team large enough to develop a new application from scratch, in the "foreseeable future"? ...... Marketing director at Steinberg – purchased by Yamaha for $28.5 million eight years ago – Frank Simmerlein, added: “Steinberg has a good standing in both the education and composing markets, but we’ve always believed that these markets and its customers deserve the best support we can give. Therefore we are more than delighted to have found the perfect team of extremely talented and experienced individuals to make this possible in the foreseeable future.” Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Chris Wimlett - 10 Nov 03:30PM Hide picture Personally, I'll be willing to take a chance on Steinberg, having been a Cubase user for over 10 years. I very much doubt that they'd develop an open source application but it will be interesting to see. Yamaha are a big company, but have a long and honourable tradition as manufacturers of musical instruments, though nothing is safe from today's plunderer capitalists (what will they do when they've picked everything clean?). There are also possible developments at Finale, as this press release shows: http://www.makemusic.com/Pressroom/Default.aspx?pid=559 The claim that Finale 2013 "will offer ... a common file format to provide a platform for future development" is interesting in light of MakeMusic's acquisition of Recordare. -- Sibelius 7.1.3, 6.2.0, Logic 9, Cubase 6, Mac OS X 10.8.2, iMac 3.06 Ghz, 4Gb RAM, Apogee Duet, Yamaha S90 Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Jim Stanley - 10 Nov 08:37PM Hide picture Were I Avid, I'd be quaking in my boots. Then again, I maintain that whoever comes up with a reasonably-priced tablet app for Android and iPhone that will sketch out basic notation and be a vehicle for displaying, changing, and marking up music produced by a more robust desktop application will rule the world. -- Jim Stanley Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Andy G - 10 Nov 09:15PM Hide picture Avid 'monster' Yamaha? That'll be the day! Let Yamaha buy Sibelius and place it in the Steinberg family! :) -- PC: [email protected],4GB RAM. XP Pro SP2. Terratec/M-Audio cards. Sib 6.2. Macbook Pro: OS 10.6.8. Terratec external card. Sib 7.1.2 Web: www.andrew-gilbert.com Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Neil Sands - 10 Nov 09:51PM Hide picture > Paradoxically, I can still open and read my forty year old paper scores, yet I can't open scores written on a music application in the 1990's. People keep saying things like this, but it's muddle-headed. It sounds like it means something but it doesn't. The more meaningful comparison is between paper scores and scores printed by computers onto paper, and of course they're both as readable as each other decades later. Not only that, but you can't open your forty-year-old paper scores and transpose them down a tone in an instant, like you can with scores on computer (if you can still open them, of course). Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 10 Nov 11:52PM (edited 10 Nov 11:54PM) Hide picture > The more meaningful comparison is between paper scores and scores printed by computers onto paper, and of course they're both as readable as each other decades later. > This point was of course already self evident, but underlines the fact that that security and longevity in digitally formatted scores remains illusory. Your life output must therefore still be rendered to reams and reams of paper that you take with you from place to place, hoping never to fall victim to a house fire, lost luggage, flood, tornado, or heaven forbid, malicious damage. -- Derek Williams www.derekwilliams.net Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 11 Nov 12:09AM Hide picture Or to PDF files, with an efficient backup strategy. I'm afraid you're falling into the trap that has bedevilled the whole "Campaign". Over-stating your case, and thus weakening it. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 11 Nov 03:58AM Hide picture > Or to PDF files, with an efficient backup strategy. > > I'm afraid you're falling into the trap that has bedevilled the whole "Campaign". Over-stating your case, and thus weakening it. If you think PDF files solve the problem, then I'm afraid you're falling into the trap of oversimplifying the situation. -- Derek Williams www.derekwilliams.net Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Andrew Moschou - 11 Nov 04:51AM Hide picture > > Or to PDF files, with an efficient backup strategy. > > > > I'm afraid you're falling into the trap that has bedevilled the whole "Campaign". Over-stating your case, and thus weakening it. > > If you think PDF files solve the problem, then I'm afraid you're falling into the trap of oversimplifying the situation. * With the efficient backup strategy, it's a different story. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Bob Porter - 11 Nov 05:01AM Hide picture Yet stacks of manuscript paper with blotches on them have absolutly no value. (Well maybe if Bach put them there) We all have those things laying around. There needs to be some way to give those blotches life. Every age has some way to do that. I'm not seeing any open source platform any time soon that will be great. Why? For the same reason most musicians and composers don't give their music away. Folks need to make a living. -- Bob Porter Sibelius 7.1.3,i3 2.4 ghz,W7 64 bit,8GB 1060,laptop Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 11 Nov 09:26AM Hide picture > > Or to PDF files, with an efficient backup strategy. > > > > I'm afraid you're falling into the trap that has bedevilled the whole "Campaign". Over-stating your case, and thus weakening it. > > If you think PDF files solve the problem, then I'm afraid you're falling into the trap of oversimplifying the situation. >>>>>>>>>>> Explain, please? Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 11 Nov 09:46AM (edited 11 Nov 09:48AM) Hide picture > > Paradoxically, I can still open and read my forty year old paper scores, yet I can't open scores written on a music application in the 1990's. > > People keep saying things like this, but it's muddle-headed. It sounds like it means something but it doesn't. The more meaningful comparison is between paper scores and scores printed by computers onto paper, and of course they're both as readable as each other decades later. > > Not only that, but you can't open your forty-year-old paper scores and transpose them down a tone in an instant, like you can with scores on computer (if you can still open them, of course). There is of course another æsthetic issue. Manuscripts by the great composers of the past have a considerable market value because the handwriting belongs to the composer. However important a contemporary composer may become in the future, I can't see an anonymous computer file of whatever sort on a disk becoming valuable, even if the composer himself created it. This applies as much to books as it does to music. Not that I'd want to go back, but of course all computer programs are obsolescent the moment they are created. That's the price we pay for the rapid technological advances we are making. Libraries spent a huge amount of time and money putting everything onto microfiche, and within a couple of decades computer technology has rendered all that effort worthless. Derek -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Gordon Thornett - 11 Nov 10:08PM Hide picture However much we deplore what has happened, I can't help feeling that all this gloom and doom is a little overplayed. Sibelius is an excellent notation programme, it still works, and we still have a brilliant group of people who are willing and able to provide advice and technical assistance on this message board. What is the big threat to this? Is it that new operating systems in years to come will render this software unusable? Is it anticipated that files that we've got stored on our computers will become unplayable or unreadable? If so, I suppose we've got something to worry about. If it's just that we're stuck with Sibelius 7, or a possible version 8, that seems of little consequence. I'm very happy with the current version (which I'm still learning), and expect to remain so into the distant future. -- www.newcarols.com Freelance music therapist and occasional composer. Sibelius 7.13, GPO4, iMac3.06GHz, Evolution MK-149, MacBook Pro Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Nigel Keay - 11 Nov 10:18PM Hide picture > Is it that new operating systems in years to come will render this software unusable? Is it anticipated that files that we've got stored on our computers will become unplayable or unreadable? If so, I suppose we've got something to worry about. > Yes, yes. -- Sibelius 7.1.3, OS X 10.7.2, 4 Gig RAM i5 Mac Mini. www.nigelkeay.com www.contemporaryviola.com Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 11 Nov 10:20PM (edited 11 Nov 10:24PM) Hide picture > Is it that new operating systems in years to come will render this software unusable? > Indeed it is. Currently, I have to keep three Mac and two Windows computers running different operating systems in order to be able to access large numbers of specialised files created under older operating systems. One day these machines will fail, and their contents along with them. While PDF's are indeed a means of 'immortalising' scores of my works, they are little better than a scan of a handwritten score, other than that they can sometimes be rendered (with varying reliability) back into MusicXML using PhotoScore or PDF2Music. But therein lies the issue. The problems of software companies like Avid become my problem when I have to continually pay for new software, and waste time I'll never get back attempting to transcribe from one format to another. There has got to be better data security than this. An open source solution is more likely to provide longevity because it is not tied to the profit driven corporates, which drag us all down with them when they go bankrupt. -- Derek Williams www.derekwilliams.net Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 12 Nov 09:25AM Hide picture > There has got to be better data security than this. An open source solution is more likely to provide longevity because it is not tied to the profit driven corporates, which drag us all down with them when they go bankrupt. > > > -- This is truly the nub of the matter. There has to be a universal file format which will be able to stand the test of time. -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mats - 12 Nov 09:59AM Hide picture AFAIK there is no such language/format. MusicXML will never be it either since it relies on a rendering engine to format the (somewhat) structured information. Music is (graphically) art work, and only very complex languages like PostScript can represent it. Not even open source projects like Lilypond can represent a final edition well. Is it a major problem? Not really. A fair number of people seems very happy with the awful scans of old music at ISMLP... I think there will be acceptance 50 years from now of your current Sibelius output, including typos and an errata as appendix. ;) Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 12 Nov 11:06AM Hide picture > Indeed it is. Currently, I have to keep three Mac and two Windows computers running different operating systems in order to be able to access large numbers of specialised files created under older operating systems. One day these machines will fail, and their contents along with them. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Let's not over-dramatise the situation. The contents IN DIRECTLY EDITABLE FORM may fail. Your saved printouts, on paper or as PDF won't. OK, all your backups could disappear simultaneously, or your house might burn down. But that has always been a risk. The possibility of a MusicXML version, while not perfect, is a big plus point over traditional manuscript. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 12 Nov 12:05PM Hide picture I don't see any inherent improbability in creating a viable universal music computer format. After all what you write on paper is just a form of code for performance which by and large has universally accepted parameters. Let's not create "Lazy horizons of impossibility". -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 12 Nov 12:23PM (edited 12 Nov 02:01PM) Hide picture > I don't see any inherent improbability in creating a viable universal music computer format. After all what you write on paper is just a form of code for performance which by and large has universally accepted parameters. > Let's not create "Lazy horizons of impossibility". > Yup! I'm all in favour of optimism! -- FAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/sibelius.html Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Marcos dos Santos - 12 Nov 05:01PM Hide picture As a Cubase user, I am very happy to see Daniel and his team moving to Steinberg/Yamaha. -- Marcos Sibelius 7.1.3, win 7 Ultimate SP1 32bits, M-Audio Fast Track Pro. Desktop: i7(950) 3.06Ghz 4GB Ram, Notebook: Dual-core T2330 1.6Ghz 2GB Ram Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mats - 12 Nov 05:09PM Hide picture Derek, it would be possible but it would be a page description language like PostScript. It would not be easy. Score has come close do describe every possibly thing, but it's not very user friendly and I don't think it communicates well with other software. What I've seen of Lilypond output I would pass on that... Open source, many opinions, inferior output. The task is not an easy one, as the open source community may think. Let's see what Steinberg comes up with. It will be a long road though. But we are not in a hurry, we have Sibelius meanwhile. I'm sure Avid will not rest either. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by James - 12 Nov 05:57PM Hide picture To create a music scoring program from scratch without violating patents and non-disclosure agreements may be challenging and definitely will take time. I don't know about you but I get work done using tools, not using the promise of tools. In the long run, competition can only benefit us users. In the short run, we work with the excellent tool we have: Sib. -- Mac OS 10.6.8 Sibelius 6.2 Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mike Lyons - 13 Nov 06:38AM Hide picture > I don't see any inherent improbability in creating a viable universal music computer format. After all what you write on paper is just a form of code for performance which by and large has universally accepted parameters. > Let's not create "Lazy horizons of impossibility". Sounds like a working title to me! ;-) -- 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, Windows 7 Pro (x64), 8GB, 450GB + 2TB HDD, Blu-Ray, Edirol SD-20, M-Audio Fast Track Pro,Sib 6.2, 7.1.3 Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by John Murdoch - 13 Nov 04:44PM Hide picture Derek, Such a universal music format already exists--it's called MusicXML. And all MusicXML amounts to is a defined set of rules for naming specific elements and attributes in an XML file. XML is a computer-industry standard, called Extensible Markup Language. It's the way in which web browsers exchange data with servers, it's the way corporation computing systems send purchase orders and payment authorizations, it's the way smart energy meters communicate with utilities. In each of those transactions there are a defined set of rules--called a "schema"--that determine what the data looks like. One of the many beauties of XML is that it's easily readable--export a MusicXML file from Sibelius 7, and open it with Notepad or another text editor. (It's probably easiest if you open it with an editor that will format the XML indentation.) It's pretty simple to read. The challenge isn't using MusicXML--it's persuading product management people to give up proprietary file formats that lock in a user to a given system. It would be terrific if Steinberg were to use MusicXML as their native file format. But given that MusicXML is now owned by MakeMusic, that's unlikely in the extreme. (For fun, I've attached the XML for a short piece of music--open it with a text editor, and you can see just how easy it is to read.) > I don't see any inherent improbability in creating a viable universal music computer format. After all what you write on paper is just a form of code for performance which by and large has universally accepted parameters. -- Sibelius 2 - 7.1 | Hauptwerk 4 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Intel i5 quad CPU, 8 GB RAM | M-Audio Fast Track C600 Keurig B60 Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 13 Nov 04:59PM Hide picture I realise that music.xml exists. I saved a Sibelius file as xml, then reopened it. The result was near gibberish, so there's a long way to go before it's good enough to become universally reliable. -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 13 Nov 05:28PM (edited 13 Nov 05:29PM) Hide picture > The result was near gibberish, so there's a long way to go before it's good enough to become universally reliable. > Derek, MusicXML has to be Imported into the destination application. It will not open satisfactorily (unless you want to read the XML code) as standalone when double-clicked from the Desktop. -- Derek Williams www.derekwilliams.net Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 13 Nov 06:04PM (edited 13 Nov 06:05PM) Hide picture I had Sibelius open, saved my file as XML, closed it, then tried to reopen the XML file with Sibelius still loaded. Here's the part of the initial result (see png). Reformatting the result made it better but it was light years away from the original. Derek -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Attachment XML disaster.PNG.png (166K) Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Williams - 13 Nov 07:02PM (edited 13 Nov 07:03PM) Hide picture Have you tried importing into Finale (or getting a friend with Finale to do it)? I get very good transcription in that direction. I have also had the phenomenon you uploaded occuring, but usually fixable in one go by selecting the rightmost bar line of the 'disaster area' and then pressing Return. I see a barline selected in your example, presumably with that in mind. -- Derek Williams www.derekwilliams.net Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 13 Nov 07:18PM Hide picture Having been first a SCORE user for 10 years and a Sibelius user since 1998, at my age I have no intention of even bothering to get to grips with Finale. I used it once on someone else's machine for 10 minutes, and that was enough to convince me to leave well alone. I'll wait patiently for the new Steinberg program to emerge, and, if spared, use that. I understand from what I've read that the Steinberg program will be able to import music.XML In the meantime, even if Sibelius stands still for ever, it still does virtually everything I need. -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Bob Zawalich - 13 Nov 07:56PM Hide picture Typically the format on a MusicXML import is locked, and on a complex score, that may throw things into confusion. I always select all and unlock format after importing such files, and generally things look better. MusicXML is not perfect but it is certainly the best transport format we have. -- Bob Sib 1.2 - 7, Windows 7 Pro SP 1 64 bit, 4 G RAM. Year 2012. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mats - 13 Nov 11:21PM Hide picture It kind of work to import, but then you have to put in some extra work. I read a MusicXML from Finale into Sibelius. It put page numbers and headers in the most strange positions. Music was fairly accurate, some tuning (should one have to?) and it was good. I would not like to 'tune' a 1000p opera score. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Laurence Payne - 14 Nov 12:16AM Hide picture MusicXML transfers the notes (mostly) and a basic subset of the layout information. If you want the advanced layout options of an advanced score publishing program, you'll need to use that program's file format. Of course, it's trivially easy to save and transfer all the score layout perfectly. As long as you don't want it to be playable or editable. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Andrew Moschou - 14 Nov 01:21AM Hide picture It's probably not a good idea for music notation formats to use MusicXML as their native format. Thing would be faster and simpler if they each had their own, so that reading and writing could be done according to their own peculiarities. How long does it take to import/export a MusicXML file as compared to a native file? Certainly keep MusicXML as the interchange format. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Michael Good - 14 Nov 02:37AM (edited 14 Nov 02:41AM) Hide picture I have not written on this forum since joining MakeMusic a year ago, but I would like to correct some misinformation about MusicXML in this thread. The MusicXML format was designed as both an archival and an interchange format for common Western music notation. It can represent both music and formatting to a very high level of accuracy, as combinations of high fidelity exporters and importers have demonstrated for many years. Importing MusicXML into a flexible notation editor like Sibelius or Finale and retaining full formatting is the difficult step. These notation editors are designed for flexible, adaptive layout. Forcing them to use a layout from another program runs against the grain of what they were designed to do. It's technically possible, but it likely won't happen with more customer demand. Sibelius's import in particular is optimized for import from Finale's MusicXML files, which is how most customers use the feature. There usually is no point to re-importing a Sibelius-generated MusicXML file, unless one has somehow lost the original Sibelius file. Best regards, Michael Good MakeMusic, Inc. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 14 Nov 09:46AM (edited 14 Nov 09:47AM) Hide picture Nonetheless I still hope for a truly universal MusicXML format that is interchangeable successfully between all music engraving programs. It's the only way in which years of intensely hard work by an individual can be reliably preserved for future generations of composers, performers and publishers to access in an editable form. I don't believe it's beyond the capabilities of today's programmers providing that the will is there to create it, and program manufacturers to adopt it. I firmly believe it's in all their interests to do so. Derek -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Patrick O'Keefe - 14 Nov 10:55PM (edited 14 Nov 10:56PM) Hide picture > Nonetheless I still hope for a truly universal MusicXML format that is interchangeable successfully between all music engraving programs. A "truly universal" interchange language would have to recognize and encode every possible aspect of (manual) engraving. Then every music engraving product would have support all those aspects, and would have to code their export and import processes to translate between MusicXML and the product's internal format. Those are monumental tasks if you really want universality. Given that, I think Michael has done an outstanding job with MusicXML and the Dolet products. As far as I know MusicXML is still a proprietary format and is now owned by MakeMusic. Even if Michael, et al., wanted to make it universal I doubt MakeMusic would give him unlimited resources to achieve that end. I think we should be thankful for what we have. -- Patrick O'Keefe Sib 7.1.3, GPO4, Win7 x64 Pro Intel i7 930, 2.80Ghz, 6GB RAM Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mats - 14 Nov 08:34PM Hide picture Hi Michael, Would not say that. Unless you were clever enough to get the PM7(?) you could jump from PM 6.5 to ID1 and ID2 via PM7. What if a Sib6 user decides to stay with 6 until Sib10 is here, and Avid have no intention of supporting "old" Sib6 format? THEN, MusicXML would be useful, to read back into Sib as an true 'time less' archive format. I'm sure there will be no 6,7,8,9 to buy when 10 is out. You cannot buy 6 today (not that it matters, but as a point), and we are "only" at 7. Does MusicXML support vertical offset now? It didn't in the beginning, but perhaps improved now. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Matthew Fields - 15 Nov 03:02AM Hide picture This whole topic leaves me with trepidation. I've used Score (when it ran on mainframes at Stanford) and Finale (10 years) and Sibelius (12 years). And I've played with Lime and gotten heavily lectured by fools making systems that produce computerish-looking, basically illegible music notation (somebody at Coda, the predecessor to MakeMusic, did that about a bug in Finale 20 years ago, even). And I spent many decades developing an arcane pen-and-ink workflow but I no longer stock the transparent paper that forms its basis. We'll see what develops. -- Splendor in Sound! [Sib6.2,XP-SP2,3.4GHz,3Gb] Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Michael Good - 16 Nov 12:13AM (edited 16 Nov 12:14AM) Hide picture Regarding Patrick's point, while MusicXML is owned by MakeMusic, it has an open source license that is friendly to both commercial and open-source developers. Anybody can use MusicXML, or change it, without asking anyone's permission. This is one reason it has been adopted by over 160 applications to date, with more being added all the time. Mats, we should discuss MusicXML questions and details on the MusicXML mailing list rather than here. But yes, MusicXML does support vertical offsets and has for a long time. The Dolet 6 for Sibelius plug-in can't export vertical offset for system text, though. This is due to ManuScript limitations. It's a good example of the differences between what the format supports, and what export and import software supports. The MusicXML format itself is ahead of the software, though the gap keeps closing as the software improves. Best regards, Michael Good MakeMusic, Inc. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Peter McAleer - 16 Nov 08:35AM Hide picture And thanks to Michael for the MusicXML machine as I for one would be sunk without it! -- Peter McAleer: composer - choral director - teacher - Sibelius user Sibelius 7.1.2; iMac 3.1 quad + internal ssd; 12 gig memory; OS 10.8.2 Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 16 Nov 09:24AM Hide picture ' The MusicXML format itself is ahead of the software, though the gap keeps closing as the software improves. ' That sound like very good news to me. Derek -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Patrick O'Keefe - 16 Nov 11:30PM Hide picture > ' The MusicXML format itself is ahead of the software, though the gap keeps closing as the software improves. ' > > That sound like very good news to me. > However, with the loss of Daniel and his team, the prospects of great advances in Manuscript are a bit dim for the time being. Dolet and similar products (if there are any) are stuck with the current Manuscript limitation. I have no idea if the native Sibelius 7 support of MusicXML uses Manuscript or is coded at a lower level. Perhaps the new development team - once it exists - could implement support for MusicXML vertical offset, but I suspect that's not going to be the top item it's to-do list. -- Patrick O'Keefe Sib 7.1.3, GPO4, Win7 x64 Pro Intel i7 930, 2.80Ghz, 6GB RAM Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Mike Lyons - 17 Nov 08:11AM Hide picture I'm just keenly anticipating Daniel and the team coming up with an alternative. Great expectations, brothers, great expectations! -- 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, Windows 7 Pro (x64), 8GB, 450GB + 2TB HDD, Blu-Ray, Edirol SD-20, M-Audio Fast Track Pro,Sib 6.2, 7.1.3 Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Tony Wakefield - 17 Nov 09:22AM (edited 17 Nov 09:26AM) Hide picture But the alternative, again, may not be fully transferable or compatible with other softwares. Patent and copyright RULES! -- http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/tonywakefield Win XP with newish bits/bytes inside a very old box (at least all the wires are out of sight): Sibelius 6: EWQLSO (when it works): GPO4: JaBB3. Back to top | All threads

Re: Sibelius is Dead, Long Live Steinberg! Posted by Derek Bourgeois - 17 Nov 09:44AM Hide picture I do know that it is is proposed that the new software will accept MusicXML import (and will probably export it too), but as I've said elsewhere we are probably years away from seeing version 1.0 of whatever the new program may turn out to be. That's no bad thing. I'm sure it shouldn't be rushed if it's to become a world-beater. -- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit - Intel [email protected] 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. Living in UK Back to top | All threads