Sibelius 6 Update #2

Yesterday I had not quite foreseen how drastic the Sibelius 6 update workflow enhancement is. That is, today I have combined embedding Sibelius’ audio output into Logic and using Logic’s software instruments in Sibelius via MIDI and the operation system’s IAC bus (howto). Thus, an instrument which is to remain a software instrument also in production (i.e. which is not recorded by microphone or through a guitar cable) can be played back with the very same sound including all effects and automations by Logic as well as by Sibelius. Composed passages are jotted down in and controlled by Sibelius, and improvisations or rubato passages can be input directly in Logic and edited there using the piano roll/matrix. Hence an arbitrarily fine-grained distribution of voices and passages to Sibelius and Logic is now possible; notation and recording can be combined wildly and in any sequence of production.

The screenshot shows an electric piano passage in Sibelius; from bar 6 it should be played freely on a certain harmony. In the Logic window top the first 6 bars are empty, then the chords recorded there follow. Both parts are played with Logic's EVP88 in one and the same slot.

Prior to the Sibelius update there was always the critical question when work leaves the composition environment Sibelius and migrates to the music production environment Logic. I have always postponed this step further and further to be able to continue to use Sibelius’ excellent visualisation of music and its composer friendly tools as long as possible.

The drawback that the music never sounds better than Sibelius’ MIDI sounds I have put up with gnashingly. Not only that demos and layouts tax the receivers fantasy all too much: which theater or film director is capable of imagining on a MIDI vocal track how this eventually sounds when recorded by a real singer? How many of my propositions have been rejected simply because the demo sounded just too bad.? Also, this has also taxed my own fantasie. How much more vividly one can imagine the effect of a string accompaniment if the real singer is audible!

After the migration to Logic the other way round: good-sounding software instruments, effects, automation, real vocals, strings, double bass etc. - and then a new cue, shorten, lengthen, alter. This is more nicely done in Sibelius which has, prior to the update, effectively been foreclosed by the tedious importing procedure.