Customer Reviews

Sibelius First - Music Notation Software

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My wife is a songwriter and was able to quickly and easily learn this software and use it to compose a choir piece. It's obviously not as powerful as the full version, but definitely is a better value. The Sibelius forums are very helpful for whatever you can't figure out.

Notation software that is relatively easy and intuitive to use. Not as powerful as Finale Print Music, but infinitely more useful with a much lower frustration factor.

I use SharpEye music scanning software to scan printed music and open the scanned music files in Sibelius First for editing and playback. I can then learn my vocal parts without being able to sight sing. The combination of SharpEye and First works great for my application.

The music scanning feature of Sibelius First does not allow separation of parts (for example, separation of baritone and bass lines appearing on the same staff of a sheet of printed music), which makes scanning under Siblius First unusable for my application. Music scanning under Finale Print Music was a complete waste of time and error-filled. Music scanning with SharpEye is very accurate, can be easily edited, and allows automated separation of parts.

Before buying Sibelius One I downloaded a trial version as well as a trial version of Finale Print Music and used both to work on producing a score for a piece of music for solo piano that I had composed and which was in MIDI form. Sibelius was the clear winner, it had a more pleasing user interface and I was able to figure out how to do everything I needed to do either by reading the manual or by searching the Web. I have not noticed any essential features that are lacking from Sibelius One, so far I have been able to do everything I need to produce a professional looking score which can I have already posted on the sibeliusmusic web site.

Perhaps the only reason to buy this software is that the competition is just as bad. Yes, any software takes time to learn, but this is over-the-edge frustrating and difficult. The manual sometimes helps -- if you can find what you need to know, what in itself is challenging since it is over 600 pages long, which right away says something about the software. And the music I try to write with it is really quite simple, usually just single lines and relatively short. I gave up trying to do a slur over several notes -- could not find that function anywhere, although it must exist. Trying to begin a line with a repeat symbol and then a quarter and eighth rest, the software insisted on either shortening the length of the measure or overlapping the repeat with the rests. Again I just gave up. I will write in the repeats by hand -- much simpler than struggling with badly designed software for hours and hours. Life is too short for that.

Every single basic notation item I've tried to address has caused me to hit a wall. Nothing in this program does what you think it will. For example, I just clicked text, then clicked above the stave...and the text cursor went below the stave. The program will insert rests when they were not requested, will not line up text with each note easily, and the program seems to hate the mouse. I could go on and on, and while I realize the notation is tied to an inner system of meter and rules for music and whatnot, the surface level inputting sucks. I've tried this program many times expecting better things and have wasted at least 6 hours on basic basic notating things, with almost 100% frustration.

Wish it was never created, although some mad scientist will have fun with all its options. For me, the learning curve is too steep.

I'm a relatively tech-savvy guy. I work with all sorts of programs from Illustrator, Photoshop & Final Cut. I needed something to use to score out music. This seemed like a reasonable option.

Let me be clear. I have never been more frustrated with any software. Ever. It is the most un-user-friendly software I have used and doesn't hold to any remotest realm of common sense. For the past 20 minutes, I've been trying to put in a whole note. A single whole note. 20 minutes. Still not done. Again, I'm not inept at this type of thing. I've been over and through the manual. Again, let me be clear. This is the worst and most frustrating software I have ever used. Luckily it's on my computer (which I love) or I would have thrown it out the window months ago.