Sibelius 4 Competitive Upgrade

by Sibelius

Product Features

• Dynamic Parts lays out the score for you, part by part
• Worksheet Creator frees up your time with over 1700 worksheets, projects, exercises, songs and more
• Copy & paste to Word - adding music to worksheets, essays and books was never easier
• Advanced tools like Strummer(plays guitar strumming), 12-tone Matrix(calculates all transpositions/retrogrades/inversions) and What Is Where (lists all objects in score)
• Duplicates in Staves, Add Accidentals to All Sharp and Flat Notes, Chord Symbols as Fractions (writes bass note below a line)

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000BCZ8YA
• Item model number: SCEX4
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,388 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #67 in Software > Video & Music > Software > Production Stations

Product Description

The one question people always ask is why purchase Sibelius over Finale (the other major notation package on the market). Well, it really depends on what you need from your notation software. For teachers and students, there's really no contest - Sibelius is the software you need. Sibelius is also easier to use and easier to get up and running in the beginning. Using default settings, it is also easier to create a more professional looking score. And the new score to video feature in Sibelius makes it a wise choice for film and television composers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you use another notation program, you can't go wrong with this crossgrade to Sibelius 4, November 29, 2006

By 

Robert Puff "RPM Seattle Music Preparation" (WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sibelius 4 Competitive Upgrade (CD-ROM)

Sibelius has always had a much easier learning curve than Finale, with its deep but complicated feature set and user interface. However, when Sibelius 4 came out, its feature set was compelling enough that Makemusic began borrowing the best ideas for their own updates to Finale 2006 and 2007. The organization of the preference panels, integrated parts and score in the same file, and other, more subtle features are all finding their way into Finale after being introduced in Sibelius 4.

Sibelius, with its more modern internal architecture and design philosophy, always manages to keep its user interface transparent even as the feature set became greatly expanded, so the program remains remarkably easy to use, and the "look" of the printed notation (right out of the box with no additional tweaking) is just, well... better. For serious music copyists and engravers, the Optical Beams and Ties in Sibelius 4 alone make this a superior music typesetting application.

This Sibelius crossgrade is the same price as Finale's annual upgrade to Finale 2007. If history is any indication, Makemusic will work the bugs out of their initial offering of Finale 2007 within 2 or 3 maintenance upgrades. For the same price, you can crossgrade to Sibelius where all of the implemented features work correctly right out of the box.

Other notation applications such as Encore or Mosaic may also be eligable for this crossgrade pricing.

Sibelius is ... dare I say - fun to use, and produces consistently good results at any level from novice to professional. If you are a Finale user who has been impressed by Finale's power, but turned off by its user interface, or you love the ease of use of Encore or Mosaic, but need more power, you will be very impressed with Sibelius 4. This crossgrade provides the opportunity to switch to Sibelius at an excellent value for the money.