I’m pleased to announce that Sibelius 7.1.3 is now available.
The main focus of this maintenance update is to ensure compatibility with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and to provide as many stability improvements and fixes as possible, to leave the program in the best possible shape as the new development team ramps up to continue its development.
Perhaps the biggest improvement in Sibelius 7.1.3 is support for the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display: if you’re lucky enough to have one of these amazing computers, you will benefit from the sharpest and most detailed on-screen score display possible. All of the graphics in the ribbon and the Backstage (behind the purple File tab) have also been redrawn at twice the resolution, so they too look beautiful on the new high-resolution display. Take a look at this image to see the difference (Retina Display on top, normal display below).
Other important improvements in this update include:
- Fixes for some common crashes, including when closing a score if Use virtual instruments and effects is switched off in Audio Engine Options, a crash that occur when editing lots of lyrics or chord symbols in the same session, a crash when exporting MusicXML files where a special “normal” barline is present in the score, and a crash when trying to print to some printers on Windows, among several others.
- Keyboard navigation in the Quick Start window has been improved, including making it possible to type Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command–F (Mac) to move the focus into the search box on the Recent and New Score pages. Once you’ve entered a search term, hit Tab to move the focus into the thumbnail area below, and hit Return to open the chosen score.
- Synchronization of attached audio and video files is now much improved on Mac. For optimal results, use uncompressed audio (e.g. AIFF or WAV rather than MP3) or video, since this allows the time position in the attached file to be returned and set with much greater accuracy.
- Audio files exported from Sibelius no longer include a beat’s silence at the start of the file.
- A number of issues with MusicXML export have been addressed.
- A subtle problem whereby lyric hyphens were always a little too far to the right relative to their expected position of being centered between two syllables has been fixed.
- The wildcards feature has been improved with the addition of a \$NumPages\ wildcard, which shows an estimate (correct more often than not!) of the total number of pages in the score, useful for creating text such as “Page x of y”. Because pagination of Sibelius scores is dynamic, the total number of pages in the score may appear to change from time to time as you work on your score. Don’t be alarmed: when you print your score, or export a PDF, the total page count will always be correct.
- A number of small improvements have been made to the built-in ManuScript scripting language, to improve support for accessibility, give greater access to repeats playback, and to hide and show empty staves.
If you want to find out more, a complete list of fixes and improvements is available at the Sibelius web site.
To download the update, go to File > Help within Sibelius and click Check For Updates, or alternatively click here.
If you haven’t yet taken the plunge and upgraded to Sibelius 7, now’s a good time: at the moment, you can save 25% on the price of the upgrade. You can try Sibelius 7 free for 30 days by downloading the trial version, which has also been updated to Sibelius 7.1.3.
Enjoy!
Stephen Farrell
Daniel,
Thanks again for your wonderful work. You are truly the class act of this industry. I still shake my head in disbelief at the recent decisions from Avid management.
All the best in your future endeavours.
Steve
Jon Ford
Excellent update. I have just purchased Sibelius 7 from version 6, but when I click ‘About Sibelius’ you can not get rid of that dialog box. You have to force quite the app in Mountain Lion.
Daniel Spreadbury
You should find that hitting Esc or simply clicking anywhere on the About box will close it. (You can’t use the red “traffic light” close button in the top left-hand corner of the window, though.)
Peter
Actually for me the download links for both Windows and Mac installers of the update don’t work. They give me “not found” error.
Stan Martin
Thank you Daniel, Avid is clueless. You have been a class act!!!!
Graham
Sibelius is still “Simply the best”
Hannes
Thank you for this “last” update!
Don’t forget that your team would have more than enough backers through crowdfunding for a new start…
Nicholas Cooper
I was very satisfied with Sibelius V6, but decided to upgrade to V7, when I opened a file in V7 which was created in V6 I found that I could not then open that file in V6. In short I do not like V7 !!!!!! and regret so much buying V7. I used V6 just to suit my needs and was used to it, but V7 I found was a pain. It seems like a new learning curve. Take my advice STAY WITH V6
Daniel Spreadbury
Nicholas, when you save a file in any version of Sibelius, it is saved using the file format of that version of Sibelius, which means that it can no longer be opened directly by any previous version of the program. However, Sibelius has always included an ability to export a score in a format that can be opened by previous versions. So use File > Export > Previous Version in Sibelius 7 to export a score in, say, Sibelius 6 format if need be.
Luigi
What?!?! Sibelius won’t be developed anymore by the original London team? Why?? I’m so sorry!
Nicholas Cooper
Hello Daniel, many thanks for your quick reply and solution to my problem which I have tried, and it works fine, this has restored my confidence with Sib V7.
Best wishes.
xiamo
When will the development the”Numbered musical notation”musical notation system.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_musical_notation)
Taufa Uatahausi
Helllo Daniel
thank for this update..dont forget your team would have more than enough backers through crowdfunding for a new start…thank you..
Massimo
I have the same issue as Peter: after my System ID is validated and I am redirected to the 7.1.3 Update Page (in Italian), when I click on the Windows link (“Sibelius712b77Update.exe”), I got the error message: “Not Found. Sorry that page doesn’t exist”. It seems the Download server cannot be reached.
Daniel Spreadbury
Massimo, try this direct link.
Massimo
Thanks Daniel, the direct link (for the 7.1.3 version) worked. Also, looking at URL path it pointed to, I found out what the problem was: the Italian version of the 7.1.3 update page contains the wrong executable name “Sibelius712b77Update.exe” in the URL path. I manually corrected it to “Sibelius713b77Update.exe” and it worked. You may want to ask AVID to fix the page. I found out the French page is also affected, while the UK, German and Spanish are correct.
Thanks again, Massimo.
tristan norton
trying to import an xml file of a piano score and when it imports it shows up with an altered layout and little symbols in place of the note heads. this happens when importing both a sib file and an xml file.