Features
Write music quickly and easily
Sibelius (formerly Sibelius | First—learn more) features an intuitive task-based interface that leads you through the entire score creation process, so you can jump right in and start composing music immediately. Enter notes from the onscreen notation, keyboard, or fretboard windows, or from your MIDI or computer keyboard. Sibelius takes care of all note layout, orientation, and rest details for you.
Build up your composition
With support for up to 16 instrument parts (staves), you can create rich, multilayered compositions. But it’s not just about notes. Add chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams by simply playing a chord on a MIDI device or typing suffix elements. Turn guitar tab into notation and back again. And easily add lyrics, titles, text, and graphics to round out your score.
Create beautiful scores fast
Spend more time writing music instead of fixing it. As you write, Magnetic Layout automatically gives everything just the right amount of space and avoids collisions to produce beautiful results, cutting writing time in half. And Dynamic Parts can automatically create and update separate instrumental parts whenever you change your score.
Turn music into scores
Sibelius comes with two companion applications that enable you to turn recorded, performed, printed, and handwritten music into notation. With AudioScore Lite, you can input notes by singing or playing a monophonic instrument through a microphone. With PhotoScore & NotateMe Lite, you can turn printed, PDF, and JPEG sheet music into editable scores—and even handwrite music.
Hear your music in stunning detail
With the included 10 GB sound library of high-quality sampled instruments, you can play back compositions to hear how it would sound with full instrumentation. The Espressivo feature adds a more humanistic feel, so your score sounds the way you intended it to be heard. You can also use VST and AU virtual instruments and effects.
Get inspired
Got writer’s block? No need to fret. Check out the Score Starter and Ideas Hub to kick-start your creativity. Get started fast with 40 genre-specific Score Starter templates. And gain further inspiration with the Ideas Hub, featuring 300 library ideas at your disposal to rev up your creative flow. You can even capture your own ideas for future use.
Share your work
Easily share up to 20 scores online using Sibelius | Cloud Sharing and invite others to view and play your music. Want to share more scores? Expand your storage with an Avid Cloud Premium Plan. You can also collaborate through MusicXML, print scores, and export your music as MIDI or PDF files.
Practice and perform with your iPad
Got an iPad? Export your score for Avid Scorch, an iOS app that transforms your iPad into an interactive music stand and score library for practice and performance. With Avid Scorch on your iPad, you can view scores and adapt them to your instrument by transposing the music, changing instruments, or even converting to and from guitar tab.
Get updates and help when you need it
Sibelius is available through a low-cost monthly or annual subscription, or you can purchase a perpetual license and own the software outright. Both include access to all new Sibelius releases and Standard support throughout your active subscription or renewable 1-Year Software Updates + Support Plan (included with perpetual license purchases).
Go further with Sibelius | Ultimate
Need more advanced notation and layout capabilities? Sibelius | Ultimate is ideal for professional composers, arrangers, copyists, engravers, and educators, offering more notation tools, instrument sounds, unlimited staves, typography tools, and the ability to customize just about every element of your score.
Move up to Sibelius | Ultimate
Here are some of the key advantages that Sibelius | Ultimate offers over Sibelius:
- An exclusive, professional-quality 36 GB sound library
- Advanced text and typography features
- Extended graphics export, including EPS and SVG files
- Fully flexible Magnetic Layout collision avoidance
- Live Tempo for "conducting" tempo playback
- Version tracking and comparison
- Unlimited staves
- Timeline window for quickly navigating your score
- Ability to extract instrumental parts as separate files, plus many other features for orchestral/band music
- Features for creating worksheets and exercises
- “Arrange” feature to help with arranging and orchestration
- Over 140 plug-ins that do useful things, with many more available for download from the web
- 1,700 worksheets for teaching music in the classroom (Sibelius | Ultimate for Education only)
- Ability to export your score as an MP3 file
- Many more notations, including special symbols and formats for unusual instruments
- Fully editable instruments, lines, symbols, and other notations
- Publishing features to make your scores look completely professional