SIBELIUS > Sibelius 5

If you haven't heard of this program, you should check it out--especially if you are a songwriter, musician, producer or, well, you get the point. Sibelius is music notation software. It's not a DAW where you record your ideas, but an application that allows you to document every note and lyric of your musical ideas...publishing, basically. LIST PRICE: PROFESSIONAL $599.00; EDUCATIONAL $329.00 WEBSITE: SIBELIUS If you haven't heard of this program, you should check it out--especially if you are a songwriter, musician, producer or, well, you get the point. Sibelius is music notation software. It's not a DAW where you record your ideas, but an application that allows you to document every note and lyric of your musical ideas...publishing, basically. And with the included Lite version of PhotoScore, you can also scan music in too. Since Sibelius has been around for a while, we'll just stick to the new features. One of the coolest new features is the new Panorama view. Page layout is a thing of the past in this mode. You can freely move about your composition without worrying about what page or stave you're on, or getting sheets mixed up. The Magic Margin Indicator will always tell you where you are in the composition. Think of it as GPS for your project, so you can get lost in your music. And with the price of 24" LCD monitors coming down out of the stratosphere, this feature could be more than you ever imagined. Trust me. Creating and working with your own ideas is made even easier by the advent of the Idea Hub. This tool allows you to store and organize all your musical ideas as if they were loops in a library. Now when you have a new idea in the middle of a song, you can store that treasure away for later use without skipping a beat. Also on the feature list is the ability to use your VST/AU instruments during playback. Sibelius will allow you to use multiple instances of any instrument you have installed on your system as the playback sounds. Your computer is the limit with this one, so if you've got the processing power, be prepared to get creative. The creative team behind Sibelius has also included some excellent sound banks as well--if you're more interested in getting right to work. With release 5, Sibelius is now Universal Binary compliant, which means all the Intel-Mac composers can join the fun. The options available to you as a composer using Sibelius are staggering, but the simplicity at your fingertips is amazing. With a quick look through the manual, it won't be long before you are creating your next masterpiece.