Sibelius (software)

History

Sibelius was originally developed by British twins Ben and Jonathan Finn for the Acorn Archimedes computer, under the name Sibelius 7. Development (done on RISC OS fully in assembly language) was started in 1986, just after the Finns left school, continuing while they were at Oxford and Cambridge universities. They were music students, and they said they wrote the program because they did not like the laborious process of writing music by hand.

The program was released to the public in April 1993 on 3.5-inch floppy disk. It required considerably less than 1 MB of memory (Sibelius 7 needed only 548 K for a 33-page symphonic score, for example), but the combination of assembly language and Acorn's RISC chip meant that it ran very quickly. No matter how long the score, changes were displayed almost instantly.

The first ever user of Sibelius was the composer and engraver Richard Emsley, who used it before its release and provided advice on music-engraving aspects of the software. The first score published using Sibelius was Antara by George Benjamin, published by Faber Music and copied by Emsley. Other early users included composer John Rutter, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, and publisher Music Sales.

Sibelius rapidly dominated the UK market, being a killer application for the niche Acorn platform. It also sold in smaller numbers in a few other countries, restricted by the availability of Acorn computers. 'Lite' versions were subsequently released; these were successful in UK schools, where Acorns were widely used.

In September 1998, the first version for Windows was released (now simply called Sibelius, and with the version number reset to 1.0). A Mac version was released a few months later. To produce these versions the software was completely rewritten in C++, while retaining most of the original's functionality and user interface with numerous enhancements.

Releasing Sibelius for more widely available computers brought it to a worldwide market, particularly the US, where Sibelius Software had opened an office in late 1996. Following the break-up of Acorn Computers shortly after Sibelius's Windows release, no further Acorn versions were developed.

In August 2006, Sibelius Software Ltd. was acquired by Avid Technology, an American manufacturer of software and hardware for audio and video production. Avid has continued publishing Sibelius as a stand-alone notation product, as well as integrating it with some of its existing software products.

In July 2012, Avid announced plans to divest its consumer businesses (not Sibelius), closed the Sibelius London office, and laid off the original development team, though then recruited a few new programmers to continue development.

Versions

Thereafter major new versions were released for both Windows and Mac approximately every 2 years, with minor versions (not listed, and mainly containing bug-fixes) in between:

Features

Sibelius's main function is to help create, edit and print musical scores. It supports virtually all music notations, enabling even the most complex of scores (such as modern orchestral music) to be reproduced to publication quality.

Further, it allows scores to be played back or turned into MIDI or audio files, e.g., to create a CD. A large range of sampled sounds and built-in sample player are included. Sibelius supports any MIDI device, and allows Virtual Studio Technology (VST) and Audio Units plug-ins to be used as playback instruments, giving Sibelius users access to third-party sample libraries, such as Vienna Symphonic Library or Mark of the Unicorn's (MOTU) Symphonic Instrument. Score playback can also be synchronised to video, or to audio software via the ReWire standard.

There are various education-specific features for Sibelius's large market of schools and universities. These include extensive built-in music teaching materials, and the ability to run and manage multiple copies of the software on a network. Discounted educational pricing is available.

The third-party Music OCR program PhotoScore can be used to scan and create a Sibelius score from printed music; a lite version of PhotoScore is bundled with the Sibelius software. Similarly, the third-party program AudioScore (with bundled lite version) can (supposedly) be used to turn singing or an acoustic instrument into a score, though many users have complained that AudioScore does not work. The AudioScore software currently holds a two-star rating on cnet.com.

The program plays a brief passage from a Jean Sibelius symphony as it starts. Each Sibelius version has used a different excerpt; e.g. Sibelius 7 appropriately uses the main theme from Sibelius's 7th Symphony.

Internet publishing

Sibelius users can publish their scores from the software via the Internet or iPads. Anyone else using software called Scorch (free for web browsers, charged for on iPads) can then view these scores, play them back, transpose them, change instruments, and print them (web browser version only). The iPad version of Scorch also includes a store containing over 250,000 scores from publishers Music Sales, Hal Leonard, and ScoreExchange.com (see below).

Scorch is used by various music publishers' web sites, and web sites of individual musicians. Publishers can license a special version of Sibelius, Sibelius Internet Edition, for commercial online publishing.

ScoreExchange.com (previously SibeliusMusic.com) is a website where any Sibelius user can upload scores they have composed, arranged or transcribed with Sibelius, so that anyone can access the music using Scorch. Some scores are sold, others are free. SibeliusMusic began in 2001, and by June 2011 had nearly 100,000 scores.

Language versions

Versions of Sibelius are available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. Earlier versions of the software also had manuals available in further languages such as Dutch.

Lite versions

'Lite' versions of Sibelius (with a smaller feature set and lower price) were released for Acorn computers from late 1993 onwards (Sibelius 7 Student, Sibelius 6 and Junior Sibelius) and more recently for Windows and Mac platforms (Sibelius Student, Sibelius Instrumental Teacher Edition and Sibelius First). A Sibelius version for guitarists and songwriters called G7 was also available for several years.

In 2012, Sibelius Student was replaced by a new version of Sibelius First.

Lite notation based on Sibelius is included in Avid's Pro Tools audio editing software.

Add-ons

Add-ons for Sibelius which are currently or have previously been available include extra sound libraries, extra plug-in features (which are free of charge, and often created by Sibelius users), full versions of the PhotoScore (scanning) and AudioScore (microphone input) software, keyboards and keyboard covers showing shortcuts, and Sibelius-branded merchandise.

A range of software for teachers and students from the same company, Sibelius Educational Suite, is not directly connected with the Sibelius program, but is often used by the same people.

Name

The software is named after the composer Jean Sibelius. Ben and Jonathan Finn, the software's original creators, said they couldn't remember why they used his name, but it was probably because Sibelius was a 'Finn' (i.e. Finnish), as well as being one of their favourite composers. The original Acorn version of the software was called Sibelius 7, but the '7' was not a version number; it was reminiscent of Sibelius's final symphony (no. 7).[1]

For the Windows and Mac versions the company began using conventional version numbers, starting with version 1. The original Acorn names Sibelius 6 and Sibelius 7 have since been re-used to denote versions 6 and 7 of Sibelius for Windows/Mac.