Sibelius Student and Sibelius 6 comparison

Sibelius Student is designed for secondary/high school students to use at home, rather than for classroom use or for teachers. It has everything most students need for homework.

Sibelius 6 does more than Sibelius Student, and is designed for schools, teachers, universities, colleges, university/college students, and professionals. Educational discounts, 5-packs and site licenses are available at competitive prices.

In addition to the features of Sibelius Student, Sibelius 6 includes:

• Fully-flexible Magnetic Layout collision avoidance (new in Sibelius 6)
• Live Tempo for "conducting" tempo playback (new in Sibelius 6)
• Version tracking and comparison (new in Sibelius 6)
• ReWire support to sync Sibelius with Pro Tools and other DAWs (new in Sibelius 6)
• Beautiful on-screen Fretboard window, for input and playback (new in Sibelius 6)
• Scanning printed music
• Transcribing single-line acoustic instrument
• High-quality Sibelius Sounds Essentials sounds
• Create audio files and CDs of your music
• Unlimited staves
• Dynamic Parts (which automatically update when you edit the full score), plus many other features for orchestral/band music
• Features for creating worksheets & exercises, e.g. to put music into Microsoft Word, create scales & arpeggios
• 'Arrange' feature to help with arranging & orchestration
• Over 130 plug-ins
• Many more notations, e.g. very long & short notes, guitar scale diagrams, special symbols, unusual instruments
  Publishing features to make your scores look completely professional.

Here is a comprehensive table of the differences between the two programs. (Features which are the same in both are not listed.) Click here to see the improvements in this version of Sibelius Student.

General features	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Who's it for?	School students at home	Schools, teachers, universities, colleges, university/college students, professionals
What's it for?	Homework, composing, arranging	Teaching, learning, creating worksheets & exercises, composing, arranging
Types of music:	Simple/moderate music of up to 12 staves	Scores & parts of any size or complexity; worksheets & exercises
Available as:	Single copy only	Single copy (educational discount available), 5-pack, site license, network license
No. of computers you can install a single copy on:	1	2 (for use by same person, e.g. desktop + laptop)
User guide:	Short on-screen guide (163 pages) plus 24-page printed installation guide	Full (732 pages), on-screen only for educational copies
Technical help:	Limited	By phone, email, fax & web site

 

Notations	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Accidentals	Normal & double only	Normal, double, quarter-tones, bracketed
Articulations	Common ones only	Full set
Bar numbers	At start of system only; can't restart bar numbering	Range of formats
Barline types	Single, double, repeat only	Single, double, repeat, dotted, early music
Bars, irregular	No, except pick-up bars
Beams, cross-staff (in keyboard music)
Beam/rest groupings	Fixed	Customizable
Brackets & braces	Fixed	Customizable
Change transposition of tranposing instruments
Change transposition of tranposing instruments
Cue (small) notes
Dotted notes	Single dot only	Single / double / triple dotted
Guitar chord diagrams
Guitar scale diagrams
Guitar tab	Basic only	Full
Instruments	Common instruments only, with fixed number of staves	Full customizable range
Jazz articulations
Lines, custom
Multi-arc slurs
Multirests (required in parts)
Note values	32nd (demisemiquaver) to whole note (semibreve)	512th note (7 beams) to "long" (double breve)
Noteheads, custom
Ossia staves
Page numbers	Automatic	Customizable
Repeat bars	Automatic numbering	Customizable
Slurs	Default appearance, manual adjustment only	Fully customizable
Special symbols
Staves	Up to 12 per system	Unlimited number
Tuplets	Duplets (2:3) to nontuplets (9:8)	Any (e.g. 2, 7, 44:31, nested tuplets)

 

Playback	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Edit MIDI data
Built-in sounds	Limited - included GM soundbank	Full range of high-quality sounds in Sibelius Sounds Essentials
Live Tempo (conduct playback by tapping)	Limited - playback only	Record, edit, clear and playback Live Tempo
Playback markings on specified repeats
Playback of hairpins, rits & accel	Fixed	Adjustable
Playback of fermatas	Fixed	Adjustable
Words which affect playback (e.g. legato)	Fixed	Editable

 

Utilities	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Arrange - automatic arranging & orchestration
Auto page breaks
Copy and paste to Word and other programs
Display timecode	Single format	Customizable format
Display duration of score
Dynamic parts
Edit word menus
Explode & reduce
Filters (for editing similar objects)
Find
Focus on staves
Graphics export (for e.g. creating worksheets)
Hide markings
Highlight music
Ideas Hub	Limited to 300 presets	Capture and re-use ideas
Join scores together
Keyboard shortcuts	Fixed	Customizable
Menus	Fixed	Customizable
Note input options (various)
Paper & desk textures	Limited to 6	Over 60
Part extraction
Paste As Cue
Plug-ins (over 130 of them)
Properties window (to edit individual objects)	Limited	Full
Reinput pitches of existing notes
Rulers
Scanning printed music
Swap voices
Transcribe single-line acoustic instrument
Undo/Redo history
Versions	Save, view and print only	Save, export, edit, delete, comment , compare and create log
Viewing options for page margins, note colors, full screen, etc.

 

Publishing	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Advanced layout features
Auto layout options
Edit fonts	Limited	Full
Edit staff types
Edit text styles
Engraving rules, edit hundreds of
House Style import/export	Import only
Manuscript papers (preset score layouts)	Few; can't create your own	Many; can create your own
Note spacing rules	Fixed	Customizable
Reset position/design of objects
Set default object positions
Staff spacing	Manual adjustment only

Improvements in this version

If you are currently using the previous version of Sibelius Student, why not upgrade?
Take advantage of the following improvements:

• Magnetic Layout – automatic collision avoidance
• Use VST and Audio Units virtual instruments and effects
• Built-in GM soundbank
• Open scores with more than 12 staves in ‘read-only’ mode
• Automatic page and staff size adjustments to fit music
• Create hit points when writing to video
• Automatic chord symbol recognition
• Repeat bars that play back
• Automatic cautionary accidentals
• Many types of MIDI devices supported

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