Creating music in Sibelius

Sibelius gives you a powerful music creation toolset—from the Flexi-time MIDI input system and Keyboard and Fretboard windows, to the ability to input music via a microphone. With all these options, it’s easy to find a workflow that suits you.

MIDI input
Flexi-time is Sibelius software’s unique system for notating music as you play it on a MIDI keyboard in real time. There’s no need to tap a pedal or play mechanically—just play naturally with both hands, and Sibelius will follow you as you speed up or slow down.

You can even listen to the music you’ve already written as you play in more music on top.

Step-time lets you play pitches from your MIDI keyboard with one hand, and choose rhythms and articulations with the other from the keypad (see image).

Keyboard and Fretboard windows
These beautiful windows are ideal for anyone who prefers using a keyboard or guitar to notation. Simply click on the keys or frets to input notes and chords—or “play” your computer’s QWERTY keys just like a piano.

These windows aren’t just for inputting. Select any note/chord, and the keyboard or fretboard will show how it’s played. And when you play the score back, you can follow the music on the keyboard or fretboard too—even if it’s written for other instruments.

• Click keys or “play” your computer keyboard to input
• Colors show voices
• Scroll through octaves
• Drag to resize
• Choose which staves’ music to show when playing

• Click frets to input notes and chords
• Acoustic, maple, or rosewood neck in three sizes
• 6-string guitar or 4/5-string bass
• Choose which staves' music to show when playing

Mouse and keystrokes
To input without a MIDI keyboard, pick note-values and accidentals from the keypad with the mouse, and click to place them in the score. For extra speed, use the computer keyboard instead—specify pitch using the letters A to G, and rhythms from the keypad using the numeric keys. There are many other keyboard shortcuts for power users.

You can also get other markings such as clefs, slurs, and time signatures from menus; Sibelius even positions them in the right place for you.

Input music from a mic with AudioScore Lite

Developed by Neuratron, AudioScore lets you input music into Sibelius by singing or playing an instrument—then simply hitting a button.

AudioScore Lite is included with Sibelius.  An advanced version, AudioScore Ultimate (Click here to purchase - middle of page)  (which you can buy with Sibelius or separately), is also available for purchase. The Professional version lets you create an arrangement with unlimited tracks using your microphone, MIDI keyboard, or mouse; input into Sibelius in real time (Windows only); and can even help you improve your playing skills by displaying the precise tuning of each note you play.

Input music by Scanning

Sibelius includes PhotoScore Lite—the state-of-the-art program for scanning printed music. It takes just seconds to read a page, and you can then edit or transpose the music in Sibelius, play it back, extract parts, and print—just as if you’d input it yourself. It will also read music in PDF files.
The advanced version PhotoScore Ultimate (Click here to purchase - middle of page) (which you can buy with Sibelius or separately) has many extra features, such as reading handwritten music, slurs, articulations, hairpins, and text.

	PhotoScore Lite	Ultimate
Bad timing navigator	no	yes
Rescore feature	no	yes
Find and Replace feature	no	yes
Automatic scanning and reading after scanning	no	yes
Printing	no	yes
Handwritten music recognition	no	yes
Reads slurs & ties	no	yes
Reads hairpins	no	yes
Reads text (including bold, italic, etc.)	no	yes
Reads articulation marks	no	yes
Reads triplets and other tuplets	Triplets only	yes
Reads grace notes and cue notes	no	yes
Reads cross-staff notes and beams	no	yes
Reads guitar chord diagrams	no	yes
Reads 4-string guitar tab	no	yes
Reads 1-, 2- and 3- line percussion staves	no	yes
Reads double & repeat barlines	no	yes
Reads repeat endings, Coda and Segno	no	yes
Reads ornament and pedal markings	no	yes
Accidental types	3	7
Clef types	2	8
Shortest note value	(16th)	(128th)
Maximum voices per staff	2	4
Maximum staves per page	12	64
Maximum pages per score	20	400
Maximum dots per note/rest	1	3
Reads the length of irregular bars	no	yes
Transposes in PhotoScore itself	no	yes
Saves WAV/AIFF audio files	no	yes
Saves MIDI files	no	yes

AudioScore Ultimate over AudioScore Lite Comparison

AudioScore Ultimate 7 allows you to create scores from MP3s and CD tracks.Alternatively create musical notation by singing or playing into your computer using only a microphone.

Professional sound library—only in Sibelius
Step up to Sibelius 7 Sounds–only in Sibelius

Exclusive, specially recorded Avid Orchestra

An expert sound designer, who has worked with some of Hollywood’s most demanding composers, recorded one of Europe’s top orchestras to build the Avid Orchestra.

Every orchestral instrument is represented, including unusual ones such as the Wagner tuba, alto flute, heckelphone, and lithophone. We've also included several period instruments, including Baroque trumpet and oboe d’amore. There is a full complement of string instruments, including beautiful solo, chamber and full sectional samples.

Wherever possible, instruments have been recorded with a consistent set of playing techniques (including legato, détaché, staccato, tenuto, and trills), with specialist techniques for many instruments (e.g. double-tonguing for flute, mutes for brass and strings, unmeasured tremolo for strings, etc.).

The result is a stunning, high-quality orchestra comparable to those you can buy from dedicated sample developers for hundreds of dollars. And it’s all included in the box with Sibelius 7—there’s nothing extra to buy.

More than just an orchestra

In addition to hundreds of high-quality orchestral sounds, Sibelius 7 Sounds includes exclusive rock, pop, and jazz sounds from the team who developed the Pro Tools Complete Creative Collection and the Pro Tools Instrument Expansion Pack. The collection includes vintage keyboards, guitars, basses, drum kits, and more.

Make great-sounding big band scores with a full set of jazz horns, including trumpets, trombones, and saxophones, with authentic growls, plops, doits, and falls, plus a high-quality brush drum kit.

Write for a wide variety of percussion instruments, including powerful taiko drums, bata, djembe, and ewe African percussion, with the hundreds of included pitched and unpitched percussion sounds.

World-class licensed content

To match the professional quality of the included content, Sibelius 7 Sounds also features hand-selected sounds from specialized sample providers.

It includes a full 27-stop pipe organ, taken from the E.M. Skinner Organ from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Chicago, IL as sampled by Milan Digital Audio— the developers of Hauptwerk, the world’s finest virtual organ software.

And for marching band and drum corps arrangers, Sibelius 7 includes a selection of sounds from the brand new Rumble and Fanfare libraries from Sample Logic. The first sound libraries to feature the multi-time world champion drum corps, The Blue Devils, these sounds were recorded at the world-famous Skywalker Sound scoring stage in Marin County, CA.

Click here to view the Sibelius 7 Sounds User Guide