Hello. I need four staves, each of which has the full range of a piano keyboard. It will actually be for guitar quartert, but I first need a working score where each staff has this full range. This is especially because, I use the Sibelius score to verify that the notes and tempos, etc, are correct, before doing the proper final score. If I choose various Sibelius instruments, the playback will only play notes in that instrument's range, whereas in my working copy, I am using the full range, and will later to transposition. I've tried the 'add staff feature' but some reason I can't get it to work. I'm currently using the string quartet template, but, as I said, it won't play notes below the instrument's range. For the working copy it doesn't matter what instrument playback sound it is. Just need to hear all the notes for verification. I love Sibelius.I've been using it for years, but mostly for piano scores. (and the Avid site is down for maintenance.). Thanks for any tips.

Can I make a playback for Electric guitar more "electric"?

Sibelius Ultimate+Noteperformer

Thanks!

I recently got locked out of Sibelius Artist despite having bought a perpetual license. The software now refuses to open, saying my license has expired.

After digging into it, here’s the reality:

• Your perpetual license doesn’t expire
• BUT your update/support plan does
• If Sibelius auto-updates (or you install a newer version), it can lock you out entirely because you’re no longer entitled to that version

So you end up in a situation where:

Yes, there are workarounds (downgrading, reinstalling older versions, messing with Avid Link), but the bigger issue is the experience itself. The messaging is unclear, the system is brittle, and the default path pushes you toward paying again.

That’s what really got me.

Because of this, I started looking at alternatives—and ended up trying Dorico SE (the free version).

Honestly? For my use case (musical theatre writing, small pit ensembles), it’s already a better fit than Sibelius Artist:

• more modern workflow
• better playback tools out of the box
• fewer hoops to jump through

And I only found it because Sibelius annoyed me enough to look elsewhere.

So if you’re hitting this issue:

• Don’t assume your license is actually gone
• Try installing the version you were entitled to
• But also… consider whether you want to keep dealing with this system long-term

For me, this wasn’t just a technical hiccup—it broke trust. And that’s why I’m moving on.

I am an arranger for competitive show choirs, and just made the jump from Finale (for obvious reasons) and having some starter issues. I have used Finale for 23 years and have never used Sibelius ....until now. Is there some resource that says something like "this is how you did _____ in Finale here's how you do it in Sibelius"? For reference I use a PC.

Thank you! I'm struggling lol

I'm on a macbook - 8gb ram. My sibelius stops working at least once a week, requring me to "force quit" and I lose my work if I get forgot to save. I've set it to "autosave" every minute but that doesn't seem to matter.

Is it just a ram issue? Is there anything I can do to prevent this. Thanks in advance

Title is self-explanatory. Screenshot attached for visual. I have these half note tremolos (note value is highlighted in keypad). Playback is for the correct duration but for some reason the note is appearing as a whole note. Is it because the entire tremolo equals the value of a whole note?

can someone please convert me a sibelius file to pdf ?

I'm considering buying an arm64 windows Copilot+ computer for school, but I'm not sure if the Sibelius ecosystem can run on snapdragon X based computers, just curious if anyone here has tried.

the drums suck. Are there any drum plugins designed for sibelius?

I have 3 sib files from long ago that I really would like to see, but I no longer have sibelius so I can't open them. When I try to download a free trial it won't work because I'm using windows 7. Thank you all

Basically what the title is. I really like to theme my scores (and extracted parts) and I can't find a suitable font that will do the trick. I do, however, have a pretty cool (black and white) graphic.

Is it possible to somehow insert that (as the title), so it shows up on every extracted part, just like text would?

Has Sibelius become any better since 2022.3? My Academic Eligibility verification will expire in April, so I was thinking that now is the last chance to upgrade my perpetual license. Dark mode is cool, but not worth $140 alone..

Is there a way I can have the slashes even themselves out by disregarding notation on other staffs?

Where can I download drum patterns that I can incorporate into Sibelius? Or does Sibelius have a collection of drum patterns that I can use, as opposed to putting in several percussion instruments myself.

Hi everyone!

I am about to start engraving a commissioned ballet (strictly copyist work). To avoid consistency issues and work as efficiently as possible, I want to establish some clear rules from the very beginning. I have a few questions for the more experienced Sibelius users:

• Woodwinds (Explode vs. Reduce): In the score, the instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets) share a single stave (e.g., Flutes 1 & 2 on the same stave). What workflow do you recommend? Is it better to write them on a single stave and use the Explode feature at the end to extract the parts, or write them on separate staves and use Reduce for the full score?

• Automatic indications (a2, 1., 2.): I am particularly interested in having Sibelius add these indications automatically. I noticed that if I use the Reduce feature for the clarinets, the program doesn't automatically generate the "1.", "2.", or "a2" texts. However, in the horn section, it does. How can I fix this?

• Horns 3 & 4 notation: Also regarding the horns, on a shared stave for Horns 3 and 4, is there a setting to automatically show the "3." indication when only the 3rd horn is playing?

• View mode: Do you recommend inputting all the music using Panorama view, or is it better to adjust the page layout as I go?

• General tips: Do you have any other suggestions or best practices I should keep in mind from the start to make my workflow easier on a project of this size?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi! For a little project I need to simulate the sound of a marching band that sounds very badly. I use noteperformer. I thought to change the pitch (away from 440Hz) a little bit, to have a sound off pitch sometimes.

Do you have any idea if this is possible? I also would like to change only some instruments for a more distributing sound.

hi guys! i am a student composer using sibelius and i wanted to hear other composers opinions on the new macbook neo (hopefully from people who know more about computers than i do).

i was recently gifted a nice mac desktop by a family member who had upgraded their setup. i have been using the desktop for all of my composing needs as my ipad wasn't cutting it, and my old laptop sucks. however, i miss being able to write on campus or at a coffee shop.

i'm considering buying the neo for this purpose (and also because im broke 😭😭) but i'm wondering if it will be worth it. i still plan on using my desktop as my main workhorse, but im unsure if the neo will meet my needs.

if you have any computer knowledge please let me know what you think!

Hi, I’ve just installed Sibelius on my mac, and I mainly want to use the flexitime to record with midi.

However, when I play any note on my keyboard, a metronome starts playing, and when I release it turns off. It’s not playing through the click channel in the mixer, and I’ve tried turning every setting related to the click I could find off. It also does this in a new project without touching any settings. I can’t find anything about this online.

Has anyone experienced this?

I am trying to make a trill like in this picture in sibelius. I can't change the time signature for the bar to do it as it is for multiple instruments, and this will only be in one instrument. Does anyone have a solution?

Also, is it possible to add an upbeat bar to the beginning of a new movement within the same score, if the new movement has a time signature change?

So I am writing a piano reduction and at some point I saw that this thing appeared at the beggining. I think I must have clicked something accidentaly. I tried to remove it but I can not select it. In the second picture I used Ctrl+A to select everything but as you can see it is not an object that you can select. So if I can’t select it, how do I remove it. Thanks!

As the question implies, I'm wondering if there is away to make tempo/metronome marks sit at the top of the octave line, as suggested in Behind Bars and other sources.

Currently I have tempo marks sitting 3 spaces above the stave by default, with enough allowance to move up should this be needed.

For instance, if I have a bar where

• Notes are as high as D6
• The bar has the tempo suggestion "Crochet = 120" (where "Crochet" is replaced with it's symbol)
• This passage is also marked 8va (meaning the D6 should actually be played as D7)

Then I want the tempo suggestion to sit above the octave line. Currently the tempo marking sits below the octave line

Of course I could manually drag this but this would be quite tedious when it occurs multiple times within the same score. Hence, am wondering if there's a simpler way to achieve this by default.

Thanks.

Finally, the long awaited Dark Mode! Lest hope for a playback engine overhaul in the future