Even if you’ve discovered the setting in Sibelius to display numbers on every bar in the parts, you’re left with positioning options ranging from bad to mediocre. Let’s fix this, once and for all.
magnetic layout
Better Sibelius slurs for opposite stem direction on outer notes
In thinking of ways to spend fewer hours in Sibelius adjusting slurs that encompass the opposite stem direction on outer notes, I happened upon the settings in Engraving Rules, and experimented in search of better defaults.
Create tacet al fine in Sibelius
When a player has finished playing for the remainder of a piece, this is indicated “tacet al fine”. Learn how to consolidate remaining multirests in a part and display this instruction in Sibelius.
Sibelius 8.6 released with magnetic glissandi lines
Sibelius 8.6 is available, and its new engraving feature is magnetic glissandi lines — lines that snap to both their start and end note, updating their positions if the notes change. Other improvements and fixes are included in this update.
Bug with rests in multiple voices in parts affects earlier files opened in Sibelius 8.5
If you work in Sibelius 8.5.1 and open files created in earlier Sibelius versions in which rests were manually moved to avoid notes, be aware that the position of those rests has shifted in the parts for your file, with no warning.
Sibelius plug-in: Position Rehearsal Marks
A brief overview of Bob Zawalich’s new plug-in, which can center rehearsal marks at the start of a system horizontally over the clef.
Finale 2014 features leaked in music retailer catalog
Update — November 4, 2013: MakeMusic has released Finale 2014. The Cologne, Germany-based music retailer Music Store Professional recently published a catalog of products for sale. Buried on page 420 of the catalog were some details about the upcoming version of Finale 2014, which has not yet been released nor officially announced by MakeMusic. As […]
Tape Op Magazine “can’t imagine life without” Magnetic Layout
The November/December issue of Tape Op Magazine contains a review of Sibelius 6 from contributing writer Dave Hidek, who shares his experiences of using the software to write a large-scale piece for full orchestra, with a deadline of a read-through by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in February of this year. Dave writes that the feature […]
The story of Sibelius 6: part 4
This is the fourth and final post in a series about the development of Sibelius 6. The previous parts are here, here and here. In the previous posts I’ve explained how we went about tackling two of our threemajor goals for Sibelius 6. In this final part I want to talk about our third, and […]
Kirk Hamilton: “Magnetic Layout will save untold hours of my life”
Back in January I posted about San Francisco-based composer/singer/songwriter/all-round-talented musician Kirk Hamilton’s new album, The Exited Door, for which Kirk used Sibelius to score many of the songs. Kirk kindly sent me a copy of the album, which I would thoroughly recommend you pick up from CD Baby. Kirk recently posted on his blog, Murfins […]