Avid Sibelius First

There’s a satisfying symmetry to Avid’s expanding product portfolio. Through acquisitions of Digidesign, M-Audio and Pinnacle Systems it has become the dominant force for video and audio production in both professional and amateur spheres. In 2006, it acquired Sibelius Systems, publisher of the best software available for producing professional music scores. There isn’t currently much of a market for amateur notation software, but Sibelius First might just change that.

Sibelius First is conceptually simple: take Sibelius 6, remove various advanced and ancillary features and slash the price from £506 to £110 exc VAT. There are no additional handholding features for casual users other than some basic templates to get them started – it’s simply Sibelius 6 on a diet.

This is as it should be. Musical score production isn’t the sort of activity that casual users flirt with. Sibelius First will appeal to university students (who are likely to have used the full version at secondary school), jazz bandleaders, choral arrangers and other musicians who have the same high expectations as professionals, but just not the same budget.

Music notation is full of idiosyncratic rules, and it’s fair that Sibelius First assumes a certain degree of musical literacy. However, it’s much more than the musical equivalent of a word processor, with a lot of intelligence built into the software as to how these idiosyncrasies are managed. It excels at handling page layouts, giving lots of space for complicated passages and adjusting everything to fill pages neatly.

A new feature in Sibelius 6 we’re delighted to find in this version is Magnetic Layout, where vertically aligned markings repel each other to avoid collisions. This ensures automatic formatting of scores is extremely reliable and, for the rare occasions when the layout could be better, simply dragging objects with the mouse provides a quick fix.

Note input via the computer keyboard and mouse is extremely efficient, thanks to smart use of keyboard shortcuts. It’s also possible to record using a MIDI keyboard, and the software can import MIDI files, read scanned-in scores and even pitch-track a monophonic recording – the notation equivalents of format conversion, OCR and speech recognition.

It’s easy to generate parts for each performer to read from too. These parts can be formatted independently of the score, but they remain linked so that content-based changes to one are reflected in the other. It’s also possible to hide notes in one or the other, which is useful for providing cues to help performers find their place. However, the ability to include small cue notes is missing.