K,
Thanks for sharing this. I still have Sib 6 and never purchased to Sib 7.
Given my level of involvement and the accessibility, I'm going to stick with
Sib 6 and let it do its thing as well as it can.
I hope your path is less rocky than it appears, and that our stalwart hero
Daniel Spreadberry polishes Steinberg's product to a superior engraving
tool.
Dave Carlson
Oregonian, woodworker, Engineer, Musician, and pioneer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Gibbs" <kevjazz@xxxxxx>
To: <sib-access@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2015 09:46 AM
Subject: [sib-access] To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade? A Notation Software
Update | NewMusicBox
The future of notation looks bleak for all of us, not just us.
http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/to-upgrade-or-not-to-upgrade-a-notation-software-update/
TO UPGRADE OR NOT TO UPGRADE? A NOTATION SOFTWARE UPDATE
There have been big changes in the notation software market in recent years,
and a lot of people are confused about what is going on and what the future
might hold. Sibelius is dead, and Finale has been sold off? No more updates?
Where did I put my old electric eraser and Pelican pens? As a professional
engraver, I use this software 12 hours a day and am deeply invested in the
state of things.
In April, Avid released a new version of Sibelius, loosely called Sibelius 8
although they are shying away from version numbers now. This is the first
major upgrade of Sibelius with no new engraving features.
Yes, that is correct. No new engraving features. But if you use a computer
that has a touch screen, you can now use a digital pen to annotate and mark
up a score, in the same way you’d use a pen/pencil to mark up a printed
copy.
Some of the common tablet/smartphone gestures will work on touch screens,
you can navigate with the pen, and do rudimentary editing.
Despite this dearth of overall improvements, Avid has decided to maximize
their income stream, so this new version starts a draconian licensing
program where you pay a lot more for constant upgrades that may be of little
use to those of us who focus on notation. Or you can purchase a perpetual
license, but you must still pay a fee every year to continue receiving
updates.
Just want to know if you should upgrade? Feel free to skip ahead.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Notation software has changed our industry in countless ways. It eliminated
some methods of music typography (e.g. the Music Typewriter and the Korean
“Stamping” method). It has lowered the cost of music preparation and eased
the ability to make changes to existing materials, provided professional
tools to novices, and lowered the total fees paid for commissions which also
typically included additional remuneration for copying costs since composers
took over some of the tasks of materials preparation. This last item has
often resulted in composers doing more of the work while being paid less.
However, I think we have grown a bit complacent and forgotten how fragile
the software industry is. Professional music notation with computers came to
prominence in the late ‘80s when SCORE was released and publishers found
that it was well suited to many different types of music, plus it had a good
system to create scores and extract parts. It also had excellent guitar
tablature notation, which made it ideal for companies such as Hal Leonard.
SCORE’s strength was that it found a way to divide all of the myriad
notational elements and organize them into categories of items, which
allowed for easy manipulation. It’s a primitive program with musical
intelligence, and it’s primarily graphic based. If you have a 900-page score
and insert a few bars at the beginning, there is no automatic update; you
have to manually adjust things throughout, including page numbers, bar
numbers, and layout. It was not particularly composer friendly, so it was
mainly adopted by professional
engravers and copyists. Some publishers used it in house—a few still do.
Score (version 3)
Shortly after that, Finale came along. It was slow and cumbersome, but it
had a Mac and Windows version (SCORE only runs under DOS) and seemed more
user friendly because it had a graphic interface with menus and tools to
perform common tasks.
Finale 2014
For many years, those two programs formed the basis for converting the
industry to computerized typography. However, in 1998, twin brothers Ben and
Jonathan Finn released a Windows version of their unique program called
Sibelius. It was designed with the idea that we should have a “word
processor” for music notation, which would also serve as a professional
tool. They studied what SCORE and Finale did, improved on it, and talked to
many professionals to gain a deeper understanding of the needs of the
industry. The paradigm they developed—a program that is easy enough that a
novice can use it, yet structured in a way that a professional can come
along later and improve the quality of the notation, the look, and the
layout—is still its most compelling, powerful feature. Try doing the same
operations in Finale or SCORE and the work hours double or triple.
Sibelius 7
Sales of Sibelius and Finale are strong, particularly in the education
market, and generate enough revenue that the companies that own these
products (Avid for Sibelius, and MakeMusic for Finale) can afford to
continue development and add features, support existing users, and maintain
the software. Yet there have been big changes in these two companies.
MakeMusic has been sold to Peaksware/LaunchEquity Partners, and they have
moved from their longtime Minnesota location to Colorado. Many people who
were intimately familiar with the software left the company because of the
move.
Avid decided to close the primary London office where the Sibelius
development team worked, and all of the long-time programmers who knew the
code intimately were let go.
Sounds grim, doesn’t it? Add to that the fact that there have been two
releases of Sibelius with only minor or non-existent feature changes (7.5
and “8”), and it surely makes you wonder about the future.
MakeMusic has finally ended its once-a-year Finale upgrade cycle (which was
designed to generate revenue, not to benefit users). The latest version
released is 2014, and while they have announced a free 2014.5 update, it
only offers some bug fixes and minor improvements. It still suffers from an
old-fashioned ’80s-era interface that is dependent on dozens of palettes,
requires the continual clicking on tools to accomplish basic tasks, and lags
far behind Sibelius in important features like collision avoidance.
ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS?
There are new notation products on the market, but most of them focus on
tablet computing (like StaffPad). There are free programs like MuseScore and
a few others that might attract users with very limited budgets.
PreSonus’s NOTION considers itself music notation software, but I haven’t
seen anything done in the program that I would consider at a professional
level. These programs can be fun and have potential, but I can’t imagine
they will be adequate for professional engraving/copying work.
One company that hopes to upset the marketplace is Steinberg, the German
firm that manufactures Cubase and Nuendo. They took the bold step of hiring
the Sibelius team in London, and set them to work creating a new notation
program. There is a lot of potential here. They are led by a very
knowledgeable musician, Daniel Spreadbury, who was the brilliant manager for
Sibelius. And the team he’s working with has created a notation program
before, so they know the pitfalls. Since they have to compete with two very
entrenched programs with lots of momentum, they need to build something
better. They have studied some of the subtle aspects of music engraving,
talked to many professionals, and have tried to learn what most notation
programs still get wrong. I could write a very long article about this last
item; it’s an area of deep concern. For example, horizontal spacing is
poorly understood and no program has ever done it as well as plate engravers
did 100 years ago. Every music
notation program handles lyrics incorrectly (in terms of spacing), and
vertical spacing/justification is equally problematic. Steinberg is aware of
these things, and you can read about the work they are doing on Daniel’s
blog.
They have also created a new music font structure (SMuFL) and created a free
font called Bravura, loosely based on the old Not-a-Set dry-transfer
symbols, which were in turn based on Breitkopf and Hertel’s engraving tools.
Dry-transfer symbols are mass produced on transparent plastic sheets so they
can be applied to a music page by rubbing the back with a burnisher. It was
a common technique for autography that was used before computer notation
software became prevalent.
Engraving sample created with Not-a-Set
Engraving sample created with Bravura
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO NEXT?
If you use Sibelius 7, I think that’s a good version to stick with for now.
(That’s the version I use for most of my work.)
If you use Sibelius 7.5, that’s fine too. (This version added some small new
features, but it also changed the file format, so it’s annoying to share
files with people working in earlier versions.)
If you use Sibelius 6, that’s a little tougher call. It’s acceptable to work
in, but there are some limitations and it’s now several versions back. I
would recommend moving on from that version before long.
If you use any version prior to 6, I would recommend you upgrade to 7 or 7.5
before you get trapped in the version 8 licensing scheme. But act quickly,
you’ll need to buy 7/7.5 from a retailer who has existing stock since
Sibelius is no longer selling those versions.
FINALE
Finale 2014d is pretty stable and it’s the version I tend to use for most
projects. But opening old files in new versions of Finale can cause
problems, or in some cases it won’t even work. Finale’s free NotePad is
surprisingly the best choice for opening old Finale files and allows for
simple editing.
If you use a version of Finale prior to ver. 2012, it’s time to upgrade.
Notation software is absolutely essential for virtually anyone who needs to
write down a musical idea. I have about 70,000 music files on my computer,
and I’d estimate 2/3 of them are in Sibelius format, the rest in Finale and
SCORE format. I don’t foresee abandoning Sibelius or Finale any time in the
future, and I am reasonably confident the programs will remain functional
and useful, even if they don’t add any significant new features or fix the
glaring problems that remain. Perhaps Steinberg’s entry into this market
will shake things up and force some serious competition among all of the
programs. Despite all of the grim news here, I remain optimistic and
hopeful.
***
Bill Holab is the owner of Bill Holab Music, a company that publishes a
select group of composers and provides high-end engraving/typography/design
to the industry. www.billholabmusic.com
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