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:

• 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)
• Input chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams via MIDI keyboard or MIDI guitar (new in Sibelius 6)
• Beautiful on-screen Keyboard and Fretboard windows, for input and playback (new in Sibelius 6)
• Scanning printed music
• High-quality Sibelius Sounds Essentials sounds
• Create audio files and CDs of your music
• VST and Audio Unit support
• 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, quintuplets and other 'tuplets', guitar chord 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
Beams, cross-staff (in keyboard music)
Brackets & braces	Fixed	Customizable
Change transposition of tranposing instruments
Cue (small) notes
Dotted notes	Single dot only	Single / double / triple dotted
Guitar chord diagrams
Guitar tab	Basic only	Full
Instruments	Common instruments only, with fixed number of staves	Full customizable range
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
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
Create audio files & CDs
Edit MIDI data
High-quality Sibelius Sounds Essentials sounds (and extra sounds available separately)
Supports VST and Audio Units for playback
MIDI devices supported	General MIDI only	Many types & custom types
Playback markings on specified repeats
Playback of hairpins, rits & accel	Fixed	Adjustable
Record & play MIDI data ("Live playback")
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
Import MusicXML files
Join scores together
Keyboard shortcuts	Fixed	Customizable
Menus	Fixed	Customizable
Note input options (various)
Paper & desk textures	Fixed	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
Swap voices
Undo/Redo history
Viewing options for page margins, note colors, full screen, etc.

 

Publishing	Sibelius Student	Sibelius 6
Advanced layout features
Edit staff types
Edit text styles
Engraving rules, edit hundreds of
House Style import/export
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