MuseScore 4.2 sports many new guitar notation and playback features like bends and alternate string tunings, and a new sample library. Improvements in score/part synchronization, harp pedal diagrams, arpeggios, ties, Braille, MusicXML import, sharing, and more round out this update.
MuseScore 4.1 includes the ability to customize ornaments, harp pedaling, guitar capo, better dynamics, an upgrade to the playback engine, new auxiliary channel strips in the mixer, and performance improvements.
A review of Odla, a hardware controller for MuseScore and Dorico, that aims for “music you can touch” by directly modeling the five-line staff itself.
Using an iPad as a score reader in performance is great, but its backlight looks weird from the audience. Fortunately, there are tools and settings on your iPad that can help, in apps like forScore and Newzik.
You can customize your color scheme in Sibelius in lots of ways — including making it resemble another software product entirely, if you like.
Sibelius 2020.9 is available with enhancements to the Focus on Staves feature, enabling new layout and formatting workflows for scores and parts. There are other improvements to MIDI and MusicXML importing, ManuScript, and accessibility.
Sibelius 2020.6 brings a more sophisticated method of importing MusicXML files directly into a pre-existing template. There are new options for changing the default colors, along with other updates in the areas of accessibility, ties, exporting, and more.
Sibelius 2020.3 is out with true support for L.V. “laissez vibrer” ties for the first time as well as improvements in many areas such as house styles, accessibility, and automatic staff spacing.
At the 2020 NAMM Show, we spoke with Avid’s Sam Butler and Sarah Rossy about the Sibelius development process and the emphasis on adding support for accessibility in recent updates.
Sibelius 2020.1, released to coincide with the opening of the 2020 NAMM Show, introduces automatic staff spacing, dashed and dotted ties, ties into notes, new house styles, accessibility improvements, and more.