Sibelius 5

tech.co.uk staff — 1204466012

For many musicians who use computers, the preferred tool of their trade is a sequencing and digital sound processing (DSP) application such as Apple's Logic Pro.

For those who prefer to produce a traditional printed score, there are score-writing applications such as Sibelius and Finale. If you're a classroom music teacher, one of these may well be a part of your daily classroom routine.

Since its initial release for Acorn Archimedes/RISC computers in 1993, Sibelius has been enthusiastically adopted by a number of schools, particularly in the secondary sector.

The Windows and Mac versions, released in 1998 and 1999 respectively, brought this UK-developed product head-to-head with MakeMusic's longer-established rival Finale, and the resulting needlematch rumbles on to this day.

So, with new versions Finale 2008 and Sibelius 5 on the starting blocks, will there be a clear winner? We'll be taking a look at MakeMusic's offering next issue; first let's consider Sibelius 5.

Easy installation

Sibelius 5 is a hefty product in every way, arriving as it does with a clearly written 156-page handbook plus a 632-page reference manual. Even if you've never worked with Sibelius before, installation and set-up is easy if you follow the handbook.

Like most score-writing packages, Sibelius enables you to input music both one note at a time using your mouse and keyboard (plus a MIDI keyboard, if you have one) or by direct transcription of your playing, if you have a reasonable keyboard technique - though you don't need to be a virtuoso by any means.

By definition therefore, such a product should be judged on the ease with which you can transmit your ideas to the screen, and then to hard copy, particularly as many will rely on it for their livelihood.

First impressions of the interface are very favourable: a simple, uncluttered horizontal toolbar at the top of the screen puts most of the commands you need within easy reach of your mouse, and there are also keyboard shortcuts for many of them, greatly speeding up entry times.

Setting up a new score is made simple using a step-by-step wizard, so you're up and running in a very short time. Getting your music down on the screen is much quicker, too: this is the first Intel-compatible version of Sibelius, with a corresponding hike in the minimum system requirements, and from the first it feels like it's been turbo-charged.

Sibelius' speed and responsiveness were always impressive, even on the Acorn. This may be why it tends to appeal to musicians who need quick results, such as commercial arrangers.

Save your snippets

The switch to universal binary isn't the only change from previous versions of Sibelius: there's a whole host of new features. One of the most useful, we suspect, will prove to be the Ideas Hub.

This is a place where you can save a snippet of work - whether that's a simple melody line or a whole section of a work - for re-using later in a work.

Any saved Idea is automatically transposed into the right range for the instrumental part it is later pasted into. Sibelius 5 also comes with a large number of pre-programmed Ideas, which will mainly be of use in the education sector. Sibelius can be set to mark these preset Ideas clearly within a piece of work, so it's clear which parts of a student composition are the student's own work.

Mention should also be made of the incorporation of VST and Audio Units plug-ins - together with undoable plug-ins (yes!). In fact, the playback aspects have been greatly enhanced - due mainly, we suspect, to the company's acquisition in 2006 by Avid, owner of Native Instruments.

All in all, then, an upgrade well worth having - if only the price weren't so prohibitive.

Ambrosia Software WireTap Studio 1.0.1

1202144576

The number ‘1.0’ strikes fear into the heart of anyone who’s tinkered with new software. You never know what you’re going to get: a wonderful, indispensable item to treasure, or a piece of junk. Ambrosia Software’s WireTap Studio falls into the former camp, and arrives on the back of relatively little hype, ready to battle it out with the somewhat similar Audio Hijack Pro. But although it shares some features with its more affordable contemporary, WireTap Studio has some neat tricks of its own.

Easy to use

Essentially, WireTap Studio is a tool for recording, post-processing, managing and exporting audio. For recording, the application offers a dinky floating controller window, which expands to enable you to select up to two sources from which to record. These can be hardware- or software-based (or a combination thereof), thereby enabling you to, for example, record something from the internet and add a voice-over via your Mac’s line-in input. Preferences settings enable you to amend gain level and file format, and the entire process is extremely straightforward.

So far, so Audio Hijack, although Ambrosia Software claims to trump Rogue Amoeba’s application by offering a cleaner, simpler method of grabbing audio, which doesn’t require an application restart or the installation of Application Enhancer. But then WireTap Studio whips out its trump card: LivePreview. This enables you to fiddle about with formats and compression settings on the fly before you begin recording. Presets can be saved and accessed with ease, and it’s an amazing feeling not having to guess whether something’s going to sound good before hitting the Record button.

Once a recording’s been made, it automatically opens in an editor window, ready for further work. And this is where the application’s major concept becomes clear: Ambrosia Software has largely done for audio what Apple did for imagery in iPhoto, in that manipulation is lossless. This works because WireTap Studio automatically records a lossless master track (which means the application even covers your back if you get your initial settings wrong).

You can play back recordings and listen live as you manipulate format and compression settings. You can delete selections within the audio and add effects with the knowledge that, even after saving your changes, the original audio remains safe on your hard drive.

The clear-cut editor interface makes it a cinch to revert audio – to bring back a deleted section, for example. The only snag is, this flexibility doesn’t extend to destructive editing. You can remove selections but can’t move anything. In other words, there’s no copy and paste. On the plus side, you can add visual markers to an audio track, and a fairly comprehensive tags section enables you to name your creations.

WireTap Studio’s other main component is its library, which you use for organising recordings. It resembles a stripped-down iTunes and enables you to store audio clips in user-defined groups, listen to stored recordings, and send a recording to various devices and applications. Unlike WireTap Studio’s other components, there’s nothing particularly remarkable here, but everything works well and the interface is clear.

Fully fledged

When an application has such exciting, innovative features, it’s easy to get carried away and ignore the shortcomings, but WireTap Studio appears almost fully fledged out of the blocks. Sure, destructive editing would be a major plus, and we were slightly irked that it doesn’t work with our Mbox.

But other than that, we only found some minor interface niggles that are sure to be ironed out as the application matures. Assuming Ambrosia Software can get updates out the door on a regular basis, Audio Hijack Pro may soon find itself in second place.

All Audio editors Feeds

Sibelius 5

Easy installation

Save your snippets

Ambrosia Software WireTap Studio 1.0.1