As some of you may know, I use Finale for everything. I decided to give Sibelius a try (the demo) and I'm already impressed. However, I have a few questions:

1) How does one move staves (or at least make the staff size smaller)? I mean, there are times when I try to write for instruments and the staves are so large that the dynamics are colliding with the staves and it doesn't look too neat.
2) Is there any way to move systems of staves around? e.g. In Finale, each staff system is separated so that one can just drag them - I tried Sibelius today and I came across a problem in which two (large) orchestral systems were colliding (needless to say, making the notation illegible).

Thanks. :)

im not sure what you mean. i only use sibelius 6 for writing music and i dont have that problem. when you click on a section of staff for an instrument you can drag it whereever you need it. what version is the demo?

It's Sibelius 6.

Yeah, i get that dynamics colliding with notes/staves/everything thing all the time.
Usually through random clicking and dragging you can drag staves apart so there is more room between them.

higlight all your work, click layout, press on optimize space

higlight all your work, click layout, press on optimize space

Already tried that. I can drag the staves in the middle of the score, but I can't drag the top and bottom staves for some reason.

(Nonetheless, I'm extremely impressed with how fast notation is compared to Finale.)

(Nonetheless, I'm extremely impressed with how fast notation is compared to Finale.)

Can you explain a bit how is it faster the notation process? Or anyone that have both, Finale and Sibelius. I got curious to know.

Can you explain a bit how is it faster the notation process? Or anyone that have both, Finale and Sibelius. I got curious to know.

There are three ways to notate on Sibelius:

1) Point-and-click
2) MIDI Keyboard
3) Alphabetic Entry

Finale has 1 and 2, but doesn't have 3, and this method is what makes Sibelius so much faster - all you need to do is highlight a measure of a staff, type in the note name, and Sibelius puts it in for you. If the note is C#, and say that you're in D major, it's automatically a C#. If you need a C natural at any point, just go down to the bottom right, click a natural, and type "C" and you get a C natural. This method can also be used for all accidentals, articulations, and ties. Everything is done by keyboard and one doesn't have to search around to find something (i.e. Finale).

Even better, if you type in "C" and it's not the correct octave, use Ctrl (I think it's "Apple" on Mac) + up or down and you can move the note down or up an octave. If you take the Ctrl off, like in Finale, the note moves up and down.

Slurs are also so much faster - type "S" after highlighting a note and press the spacebar to extend the slur to the next note and stop until you're done. You can change how the slur looks by dragging it if you want, like in Finale.

Dynamics - probably my favorite part of using Sibelius, especially since I don't have to deal with trying to move dynamics around in Finale so the score looks nice. Just do Ctrl + E, click under the note, and hold Ctrl while typing in "p" for piano, for example. No key velocity stuff, and everything is programmed right in, from ppp to sf. This also applies to dynamic changes (cresc., dim.).

Then for the cresc. and dim. hairpins (the < and > things), just click "H" for cresc. and Shift + H for dim. Then press the spacebar to extend it (just like with slurs).

Plus, with the Magnetic Entry (I think that's what it's called) in Sibelius 6, everything lines up so that nothing collides.

I haven't messed with tempo changes/markings yet; I'll probably try those tonight.

Oh, that is pretty nice! I should give it a try to the demo someday to see how it works for me.

Thanks!

ugh! and here i am still having a hard time getting use to finale.

Finale was designed by computer scientist that liked music. Sibelius was designed by musicians that liked computers.

Not once have I been sorry that I made the switch to Sibelius. The overall product feels cleaner than Finale.

So reading this, I downloaded the demo myself.

I haven't tried anything fancy with Sibelius yet but....So far its better than Finale. Are there any more Sibelius users here who can help me make the decision?

Tempo markings are easy - Create > Text > Metronome Marking, then press CTRL + 8, 4, 2, 1 (8 for eighth note, 4 for quarter, etc.) then press = [number] and the tempo is automatically there! (No more dealing with the whole Create Expression > Playback > Tempo - Quarter Note > Set to Value: [number] deal! :D ) Another thing I really like about tempo is Sibelius 6's Live Tempo feature - try it.

I couldn't figure out how to change keys in Sibelius - and I just thought, since "k" starts "key signature," maybe that's the shortcut. Guess what - it is. As is with "t" for "time signature." :)

Repeats and first, second, and third endings work nicely (without having to deal with the programming details).

I think I'll buy this at least before my sophomore college year.

i love sibelius.
i used to love finale but i can write wntire transpositions in an afternnon if i have to quickly and easily

Sibelius is indeed a very fine program, arguably the best notation software currently available, but I feel that it's approximately 2 times too expensive. If it was like $250-300 instead of $500, then I would more strongly consider purchasing it.

I believe I would not make anywhere near enough use of it for it to be worth spending $500.

edit: ^ Looks like we have found ourselves a spambot. :eek:

What are the best/worst features of both programs though? I downloaded the demo and I can pretty much tell it kicks finale's ass 5000 times over, but still want to know. :P If anyone here has the full version though, does it come with all of the garritan instruments that finale does? Because when I was reading the list of sounds it comes with, I was under the impression that most of them were NOT garritan...

One problem I DID have with the demo though, is that the loud beeping noise that has been annoying the shit out of me since the '07 finale version, happens on sibelus when I use the finale garritan instruments. Does anyone with the full version still have that problem?

Have you ever thought that it's the Garritan instrument patches that's causing you the problem? Have you tried reinstalling them? Does the beeping occur in Sibelius when using the Kontakt patches that Sibelius comes with?

I figured that was the problem, but reinstalling them didn't solve the problem. Updating the audio drivers never worked on my PC either, and it's impossible to find audio drivers for a mac, so I have no idea if that would solve the problem on my macbook. The beeping noise only happens with the garritan instruments though, no matter what program it is. (this happened in finale, sibelius AND garageband.)

edit: ^ Looks like we have found ourselves a spambot. :eek:
This coming from someone who used to have a referral link in their signature. =P

Anyway, I don't quite see how stating my opinion about some software makes me a spambot.

Old post is old, but I might as well reply if I can provide future help.

1) How does one move staves (or at least make the staff size smaller)? I mean, there are times when I try to write for instruments and the staves are so large that the dynamics are colliding with the staves and it doesn't look too neat.
It's difficult to explain via text but...
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3480/sibstaff1.jpg
To make the vertical distance between staves greater, click on a measure on the lower of the two staves so that it highlights it individually.
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/3751/sibstaff2.jpg
At this point click the measure with your cursor and drag it up or down. The space between other staves (more than just the two) will remain the same, however you now have more room between the two problematic staves. NOTE: The act of widening the gap only works on a per page basis, if you need to have more room over several pages, you'll have to do this on each page.

Alternatively, if you're dealing with 12+ instruments in a score and you can't deal with 15 pages of Portrait (i.e. pages aren't sideways), there's a way to shrink all of the staves, font, symbols, and text to fit more onto a page and clear up some room between staves. Here's how to do it:

I'm using Sibelius 3.0 (my preferred version as I don't like the default "instant click on measure add notes in undesired spots" feature of later versions) but later versions should have a similar setup. Go to the "Layout" menu dropdown at the top of the screen and scroll to "Document Setup..." ( Ctrl+D ). Here you get to choose changing your score from Portrait to Landscape and other miscellaneous things. The 2 important setting on that window are the Portrait/Landscape switcher and "Staff Size". Mine is by default set to Millimeters (Inches and Points are the other options at the top), and the default "Staff Size" in Millimeters is "7". There's a preview to the right of the page. If you diminish the Staff Size (from say 7mm to 6.1mm) there will be a noticeable difference in the number of measures that fit on a page and how much more room you have to work with. This feature is great when dealing with 10+ instruments in Landscape.


2) Is there any way to move systems of staves around? e.g. In Finale, each staff system is separated so that one can just drag them - I tried Sibelius today and I came across a problem in which two (large) orchestral systems were colliding (needless to say, making the notation illegible).

Thanks. :)
I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean... mainly because I don't use that terminology a lot. Are you saying something like "the String system is colliding with the Brass system above it?" or something like "I want the Trombone to be directly below the Flute in the score"?

In a score of multiple families (ie. Strings, Brass, Woodwind, Percussion) if there is interference or visual overlap between two of those system because of how much text/dynamics/slurs/whatever are between them, you can use the "make the vertical distance between staves greater" trick I explained above to move them apart.

If you want to move instruments around without losing what has already been written: go to "Layout" and then "Instruments and Staves..." ( I ). The right-most column shows the instruments present in the score. Highlight the one you want to move and then Move either Up or Down (center column buttons).

This coming from someone who used to have a referral link in their signature. =P

Anyway, I don't quite see how stating my opinion about some software makes me a spambot.

Oh, not you. There used to be a spambot above that post advertising a site where you could buy sibelius. :lol:

This coming from someone who used to have a referral link in their signature. =P

Anyway, I don't quite see how stating my opinion about some software makes me a spambot.

I deleted the spam post. He wasn't talking about you. See spoiler.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/3899/selection085.jpg

I seem to be the only one that tried Sibelius (at least a little) and still likes Finale better. Maybe I should look at it more in depth in the future, though. As for hotkeys on Finale, they actually work similarly to Sibelius', but aren't quite as straightforward.

Back again on the whole Finale v. Sibelius deal.

I've now used Sibelius for a while - and personally, I'm finding that for things that require extremely precise detail (e.g. education worksheets), I prefer Finale - but then again, I really haven't gone too far with learning Sibelius' page functions. I personally prefer the look of Sibelius' notation (upon printing) to Finale's.

@BigZenigata: For the second question, I was referring to... say that you have a piano piece. A "system" refers to basically one line of the music. For example, see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRO05WcNDk . I would say that the video opens with two "systems" of notation.

Oh, not you. There used to be a spambot above that post advertising a site where you could buy sibelius. :lol:


I deleted the spam post. He wasn't talking about you. See spoiler.

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/3899/selection085.jpg

Durrr, sorry, my mistake.

I seem to be the only one that tried Sibelius (at least a little) and still likes Finale better. Maybe I should look at it more in depth in the future, though. As for hotkeys on Finale, they actually work similarly to Sibelius', but aren't quite as straightforward.

Way back when, I too tried Sibelius and Finale, and I also liked Finale a bit more. I'm gonna download the Sibelius demo again though, since everyone's singing its praises right now. =)
Finale lovers should speak up!