Avid Sibelius 8 First Reviews

I am just learning this program - as I work with another engineer and musician that is a pro at using Sibelius - I can see now - it's totally AMAZING and I am sure I'll be spending lots of time learning this AWESOME Software.

THANKS Sweetwater.
HALLELUJAH !!!!!!

I will preface my remarks by noting that I'm a 66 year old baby boomer who has been handwriting charts since my teenage years and admit that my musical knowledge and skills far exceed my proficiency on a computer.
I first tried the 30 day demo of this software to ensure that it would do what I needed it to do. I already have Progression software, but that's designed and limited to guitar notation for the most part. I've never seen the need for tab notation and don't see the point. I learned how to play guitar the old fashioned way....by learning to read and play from actual sheet music.
I needed something to do lead sheets, band arrangements, etc. The trial version I received was version 7.5. While a much younger user may pick up the learning curve much more quickly than I can, after some trial and error (and frustration) I began to learn the ins and outs of this program. There are tutorials available on YouTube that may help a beginner but I loath the extremely slow pace at which these tutorials run. I may be a novice but I'm not a moron. There are also forums out there that may help but much of the information found there is outdated because it was written for previous versions of this product. After my 30 day trial expired I purchased the full version and found out that it's already been bumped from version 7.5 to version 8. This program has more features than I'll probably ever use but now that I've learned the basics (and the quirks) I find it fairly easy to use for the basic tasks. There is no "help" tab at the top of the screen so you're on your own to figure out some of the more challenging tasks. This is why I cannot give it a full five star rating. Overall, however, the finished pages that I print out look very professional and easy to read. Just like learning to play a musical instrument, this software requires practice, practice and more practice before one feels comfortable using it and gains speed in navigating through it.

Sibelius First 8 is not as user-friendly or intuitive as I expected. But maybe it's just a long learning curve. There are more limitations than expected and I'm wondering if I'll have to upgrade to the $600 version. But I'm only doing lead sheets ....

sibelius 7 is the most tedious software I have ever experienced - I need it for a class I'm taking ..... what should take a few minutes takes hours .... do not buy this product

Major Fail this software on Mac.

Strike One: WHEN it works, it's kind of cool. I couldn't get it working at first, had to get some help with Sweetwater taking over, after that it never worked again, on either of my Macs. Buggy As Heck.

Strike Two: It has this AVID software that runs ALL THE TIME and constantly requires you to log into it. No. Nope. And Heck to the No. Use iLok or per Machine control like, oh, Toontrack, Spectrosonic, etc.

Strike Three: No way to return buggy software so you have to rely on help. Sweetwater got it working temporarily once. But coordinating with them means being home when they are open. So it takes me about an hour to get it up and running. Wow.

So its unusable for me. Waste of money.

I was told this product would combine Vienna Symphonic Library with the Notation, but it doesn't work and between Avid, VSL, and Ilio and Sweetwater - we couldn't get it to work... No refunds apparently for products that don't work.