Cost of Life w/ Sibelius

TroyK · #1 12-16-2008, 02:51 PM

I've been using the cheap version of Finale for several years now. It was about $50 when I bought, I think it's closer to $80 now. But, every year upgrade cost about 1/2 that and backwards compatibility is such that you can't really afford to lag too much if you collaborate with others, which of course is largely the point.

There isn't really a entry level equivilant to Sibelius, which is one of the reasons that I went with Finale PrintMusic to begin with. I can't honestly qualify for the Student/Educator price of Sibelius, but just because I'm kind of sick of dealing with Finale, I'm considering buying a full version. I use it for composing/arranging.

My question for Sibelius users is what is your annual cost of ownership? How do upgrades work? What do they cost. Did you migrate from Sibelius 4 to 5 and what was the cost/hassle factor of doing so. How do they manage forward and backward compatibility of your charts?

I know that most people have come to prefer Sibelius from a usage standpoint and I'm just going to accept that to be the case, but I'd like to understand cost of ownership beyond purchase price.

Thanks,

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #2 12-16-2008, 03:27 PM

I just upgraded from Sibelius 3 to 5 this year, and the cost was $65 (I waited until there was a blowout). When I switched from F*****, it cost me $195 as a "crossgrade". So my total over the last 6 years of Sibelius usage has been $260. There's an option on every Sibelius menu to save a file so as to be readable by an earlier version if Sibelius. As I believe I've mentioned, I was more fluent at Sibelius after 2-3 weeks than I was at F***** after 15 years. I highly recommend it.

-Sam- · #3 12-16-2008, 03:42 PM

I originall bought Sibelius 3 as a high school student, and now have the offer to upgrade for about $150 AU, however i vastly prefer the navigation and playback systems in 3 to 5 and as such wont upgrade until i like the next system.

TroyK · #4 12-22-2008, 11:16 AM

I bit the bullet and ordered Sibelius 5 from Sweetwater. As I said, I've been using the PrintMusic version of Finale for about 4 years now. I've been mostly happy with it, with a few quirky exceptions, but enough of you and local friends have said my life with Sibelius will be easier and I was getting tired of the upgrade and registration hassles that are perennial with Finale. I've got some 2009 plans that will make my ability to notate compositions and score arrangements important to me. So, thanks for your responses and I'll reply to someone else's Sibelius vs Finale thread some day when I've got an opinion.

Now, just a word about Sweetwater.com. I've only a few transactions with them, but I am astounded at the level of personal care and attention that I get from them. I pre-ordered a Zoom recorder a few years ago and was assigned a representative, who I've been able to deal with again each time I've dealt with them, even as years go on. I found a lower price on the software in this case, called my guy and he worked with me on price and shipping until the difference was negligable and I am much more comfortable dealing on-line with someone I've had a good experience. If you start to need some sound equipment of some kind, I highly recommend checking out Sweetwater.com if you don't have a local source or just need to save a little money.

TroyK · #5 02-15-2009, 09:48 PM

I gotta tell you, so far, I'm the one person that finds Sibelius a pain in the ass out of the box.

I can see how it would be great for orchestras, but I just want to create a Gmaj7 chord symbol on a lead sheet, display it like a chord symbol, not a "how to finger this for guitar dummies" chord and have it recognize and play it and God forbid, if I decide to transpose it to another key, it can move it because it's not treating it as text.

Do I have to treat every lead sheet like a big band score to put chords and notes on a lead sheet like a normal guy?

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #6 02-16-2009, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyK

I gotta tell you, so far, I'm the one person that finds Sibelius a pain in the ass out of the box.

I can see how it would be great for orchestras, but I just want to create a Gmaj7 chord symbol on a lead sheet, display it like a chord symbol, not a "how to finger this for guitar dummies" chord and have it recognize and play it and God forbid, if I decide to transpose it to another key, it can move it because it's not treating it as text.

For chords, simply click on the first measure you want to insert a chord symbol, and hit Control - K; This will allow you to enter the ext of the chord symbol above the measure, and shouldn't bring up anything but a chord symbol (i.e. - no "chump changes" guitar boxes). Once you're done with the first symbol, use the space bar to move forward to the next place you want to add a symbol. If you like the triangle for "ma7", you can use the shift-6 symbol, and it will come up. If you like the Ø symbol for "mi7b5", you can get that with shift-alt-O. Like anything, it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you're into it, it becomes second nature. Doesn't your version have tutorials with it about these basic functions?

TroyK · #7 02-16-2009, 07:22 AM

But does it recognize it as text or the chord that it is? If I change the key will it follow? And to play back the chords, I had to click "recognize chord symbols" but then it built 2 more lines of stave to score the chords.

I need to spend more time with the tutorials, but I lost patience with Jamie Cullum telling me how each it was to make full string section orchestrations.

There are a couple of things that I usually am doing:

1) building a lead sheet for a composition or
2) creating a quick lead sheet for something like ... whatever ... Boby and Soul that I will them move quickly to the singer's key and then genererate a Bb and Eb equavilant so that she can look like a muscian when she hands the appropriate chart (in her key) to the appropriate horn player.

I'm sure it will be fine, but I wanted to burn my house down last night. It just seems like it's geared towards orchestrations. I'm taking the day and going skiing. I'm sure everything will be fine when I get back. We just need some time apart.

Sam Sherry · #8 02-16-2009, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyK

I gotta tell you, so far, I'm the one person that finds Sibelius a pain in the ass out of the box.

You have company here.

I tried both F*** and S***. They're both much harder to use than Encore.

Unfortunately, GVox doesn't seem to be able to get their act together. They were supposed to have a major update out for the fall . . . of 2007. Vapor-ware!

TroyK · #9 02-16-2009, 08:33 AM

Someone just needs to explain how jazz musicians work to these people. A "lead sheet" doesn't mean that I want to chose and notate the piano player's voicings for him/her. It means that maybe that part will be played by a pianist or a guitarist on any given night or maybe neither.

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #10 02-16-2009, 09:36 AM

Troy - once you enter a chord symbol, it automatically transposes whenever you transpose the music; you don't need to enter any notes for the chord symbols to appear, and if you transpose parts, the symbols automatically transpose to the key of the horn.

TroyK · #11 02-16-2009, 10:03 AM

Okay, thanks Chris. I'll take a few deep breaths and give Jamie Callum another chance to explain it all to me. I was probably getting cocky thinking I could just read the quick guide and go.

Wilbyman · #12 02-16-2009, 10:05 AM

My problem with Sibelius is that every chart I make comes out small as fly s#$t. You can increase the space between the systems but all the notes and chord symbols are still tiny. I play with a guy in his late 70's...it's nice that he has Bird stories from NYC yada yada but he can't see these small-azz Sibelius charts for anything. Plz help.

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #13 02-16-2009, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wilbyman

My problem with Sibelius is that every chart I make comes out small as fly s#$t. You can increase the space between the systems but all the notes and chord symbols are still tiny. I play with a guy in his late 70's...it's nice that he has Bird stories from NYC yada yada but he can't see these small-azz Sibelius charts for anything. Plz help.

Assuming your copy of Sibelius is a legal/registered one, you can get just about any question you may have about the program answered at their Help Center page. in addition to a ton of FAQ-type threads, you can ask specific questions on the chat page (linked to on the HC page) that will be answered by the very people who created the program and other very knowledgeable and nerdy users. Usually, I don't have to wait long at all to find an answer on the chat page (it's kinda like a primitive version of TB for Sibelius questions).

About the chord symbols, once you have created a lead sheet, do the following:

- Select all;
- Go to the edit menu and select "filter", then "chord symbols"
- Once these are all highlighted as above, simply increase the font size to make them all bigger.

I'm sure there's probably a way to do something similar with the music fonts, but I've never tried to do it. Maybe try the HC chat for that?

Wilbyman · #14 02-16-2009, 12:33 PM

Thanks Chris. I mos def have a legit copy of Sibelius.

Kam · #15 02-19-2009, 11:51 PM

I own both S****** and F*****....S****** is great once you get the shortcut keystrokes down. Its point and click interface can be a little clunky on its own though. The midi/usb keyboard entry is far superior to F***** in my opinion.

TroyK · #16 03-27-2009, 05:59 PM

I won't turn this into a "Life with Sibelius" thread, though I think that might be a good thread for us to have, but I am getting along better with it now.

At this point, I've found some things that I like better about it than Finale and it's got a few annoying quirks to it as well. Of course, I'm still learning, but at least I feel like I can create a lead sheet now. I see some good potential with it too that I didn't see in Finale, but in fairness I wasn't using full version Finale.

I will say, though that the learning curve was steeper than advertised. I've been scoring music with various software for maybe 5 years now and have at earlier times in my life actually programmed mainframe and object oriented software. So, I'm not a technophobe, but I had to devout a good 24 hours of dedicated study on this to get baseline functional with it.

But, I've got some nice charts made up for a new composition now, so I'm happy.