Sibelius Reviews

Avid took it upon themselves to charge me for 2 months after I initially canceled my subscription, including forcing a charge-off on a credit card that had been paid off and closed for nearly two years. When trying to get the refunds to which I am rightfully entitled, Apple told me I had to reach out to Avid. Despite sending over all of the receipts, Avid has also decided that they will not refund me and are trying to send me back to Apple. Save yourself the headache and skip Sibelius, the customer service is absolute hot garbage and they will steal from you and try to harm your credit at the same time.

This is the worst music software I've ever used. I'm using an iPad Pro with pencil. I cannot select notes. According to the docs, I should be able to long press on a note to select it, or hold down near the note and "lasso" around it. EVERY THING I TRY IT JUST ADDS MORE NOTES. I can't hold down on a note and drag it to change pitch IT JUST ADDS ANOTHER NOTE. Every time I drag along the paper, the paper just moves around with the pencil or my finger. Oh, and to add a pick up measure, I have to open the search and type "Make Into Bar". I might as well go back to using my computer and typing text into Lilypond if I'm going to be typing all this stuff. And why can't I turn my pencil into an eraser to delete things by double tapping on it like I can with a drawing apps? And how do I set the time signature? When I tried to do that, it said I had to have something selected. Huh? The green bar is at the beginning of the piece. So, I guess I have to write the entire song out first, then select the whole song, then set the time signature????? I have an idea, just set the stinking time signature wherever the cursor is from that point forward--it's not that complicated. Absolutely non-intuitive interface.

I spent 2.5 hours making edits and save a couple of times along the way. I went to wrap up for the night and clicked on the arrow (not holding it down) for the drop down menu for saving, and it took me back to the file screen. There were no saved versions and I couldn’t figure out how to just get back to the file I was working on.

I opened another file, made one measures of edits, clicked saved, but when I reopened it, those changes did not save. Is this because I’m in trial mode? This is a very disappointing start in my switch from Finale.

I’m trying to figure out how to copy sheet music without having all of the extra bass lines, etc. from my own music books. all I want is an entire song on one page instead of on four pages with all the extra stuff like in my books. I can barely figure out how to get started and when I can, I end up with a whole bunch of extra rests everywhere on the page in between notes and everything else. I’ve tried finding and reading some help literature, there’s not much out there. Some actual freaking instruction would be very helpful.

I’ve used this app for about 18 years and was very satisfied for about 16, but since they have moved to charging the ridiculous amount of $20 a month $240 a year I am about ready to leave. Over the last 18 years I bough three this app programs for about $300 and would update every year often for free and then around $50 to update again. $240 every year is too high, and the way everything is autoimated and it being almost impossible to reach a human to address billing errors has me inches away form going to Finale or Dorico. Honestly this app I know you have no interest in music notation and are all about creating platforms for DJ’s so just do that.

Fonts enlarge correctly, but the window containing them has no scrollbar, so it's impossible for those of us who depend on large/accessible system fonts to read the "getting started" in a helpful way. Not being able to read the docs is a nonstarter for me, and particularly frustrating as a past pro user of desktop this app looking to resume orchestral composition as a hobby -- I'd intended to initiate a top-tier subscription after a quick look around to make sure the mobile UI would work for me, but natch :(

Like many others, I see the potential in Sibelius. There are some features particularly involving note entry that definitely help push this to the front of the line for mobile music composition.

I would recommend implementing a “toolbar” of sorts- possibly something that can be swiped aside to hide/reveal as needed. This bar could include customized additions such as “triplets”, “add bar at end”, etc. The current searching system is simply far too slow and awkward.

Most importantly though, Sibelius has now crashed twice on me and cost me MANY hours of work. Please implement an autosave feature!!! This is a huge problem and in my opinion pretty much renders Sibelius unusable as I can’t really get into a flow without fear of the inevitable crash.

I have this app on my iMac and MacBook Pro, and finally now on my iPad Pro. I was so excited about Sibelius and the mobility of the this app product on my iPad. I really like this app, but…

I was working on a Big Band piece for a couple of days while visiting the grandkids out of town. I was constantly saving my progress. On day 2, Sibelius just shut down completely, with no sign of my work anywhere. I probably had about 7 hours of work invested in this piece. That is very frustrating when you know that you are constantly saving your work and it totally disappears to never be seen again!

This is a major show stopper! If you don’t have the confidence that your work won’t be lost, then how can you invest time in this version of Sibelius ????

I do think Sibelius has potential once the bugs are worked out. Don’t go spending days on charts without taking screenshots. I took one screenshot, and it was of only the first page of my work. I had complicated drum parts, guitar parts, and of course horn parts as well. So, 4 pages vaporized.

Bummer!!!

I love the ease of Sibelius! It’s exactly what I need to transcribe and transpose…but constantly what gets in the way of my efficiency is incessant CRASHES. I’ll be moving quickly and if I fail to highlight an object say to add text Sibelius will always crash often before my first save thus requiring me to start all the way over again and go write this review. Sibelius will certainly be what musicians use on a tablet it just requires some TLC. Thanks!

I have been using this app for a while now. And while I have found it a generally pleasant experience, there is one issue that really needs to be fixed. When I create a score with more than one part, like a duet, I can’t set individual key signatures. For example. If I was to make the key signature on the trombone part B flat major, it would also add the 2 flats to the key signature on the alto saxophone part. Please fix this, it really does seem like a simple feature…

I enjoy this app as a notation software, especially when the desktop matched Word so it made navigation easier.

However, this did not translate to Sibelius yet. You have a limited amount of dropdowns until you just have to search for what you’re looking for and hope you have the name exactly right.

There is limited supporting documentation to help the user beyond “getting started”. Not even google searches have answers for just the iPad’s version.

What could help:
-In-depth user documentation to help change parts, add/remove various things, and examples with pictures to show how to solve various problems in Sibelius
-Buttons for faster implementation of commonly used tools, such as adding/deleting bars and parts, navigation, etc.

In summation: Sibelius is not so clear, and has much potential to be a great app with better user documentation.

Even if you purchase it on desktop -- where it says "Includes desktop + mobile" -- there is NO 'Unlock more features' option, despite what their documentation says. As far as I can tell, I did get upgraded to the 'Artist' plan I purchased, though. I'm honestly not even sure how that happened -- and it wasn't easy to verify, either. (Possibly through installing Avid Link on the iPad...? But you would think that iPadOS wouldn't allow it to work like that -- so I really have no idea.) Please update documentation.

Ugh, had Sibelius for a couple years now and I pay the 5.99 this app artist subscription. I use it to write basic lead sheets and easy piano arrangements for my students. It’s convenient as I don’t use a desktop anymore. Now, in the middle of December some weird mercury in retrograde crap happens and I don’t have my regular access. Apple says there is nothing wrong on their end and that my subscription is still active. However, Sibelius says I’m only a this app first and I have to upgrade… when I try it states that already have it, and I am logged in on 5 devices and have to log out (it’s only on my iPad and iPhone) or my subscription expired. I’ve updated my iPad, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times, and even upgraded to the ultimate… nothing helped at all, but contribute more to the holly-jolly stress in my life. Also contacted avid, they said it’s an apple thing, contact apple, they say it’s an Avid thing… I feel like a ping pong ball right now. Mercury in retrograde ends Jan. 2nd… I don’t think I can wait that long… may check out Dorico in the meantime. this app… do your best to convince a longtime supporter to stay with you. I’m running out of patience.

I’ve been browsing for a long time and I was ready to spend money in promise of working jazz articulation features.

Only, it’s impossible to tell what Sibelius actually has to offer seeing as the important articulation marks in question are locked behind the subscription. Naturally this can be said for most other features, but frankly I just wanted to know how good or bad the playback quality would be.

It was this and overall clunkiness/occasional errors (some accents just get blatantly ignored in playback) that has me looking back into Dorico instead.

I am a long time user and had high hopes when I installed this but its not particularly functional. the functionality with apple pencil is particularly poor. I would have liked the idea of editing in a more 'traditional' pencil paper way but avid basically made the pencil into a mouse. There is also limited access features that you might want from the desktop version. no plugins, for example. they could improve it by making this primarily a tool for setting finishing touches in the layout stage since most ipads are paper sized it would be great to do that with an apple pencil (at least for parts). Also being able to mark it up like you do in score editing and being able to go back and adjust with those marks in mind would add a lot of value. Currently its like using finale notepad but expensive.

I believe this is a great product so far! It does need some adjustments to allow for it to be more useful on the day-to-day, but it has been very helpful for me so far. One thing I think would help a lot would be to have some area for custom shortcuts: either along the top next to the current buttons, maybe have a few spots that can be customized or have another layer to the keypad for shortcuts to certain commands and tools.

Sibelius is fairly good. However, I would not suggest using it for full compositions.

It can be handy to make small edits or even make small simple pieces or melodies (perhaps for trios, quartets, or a piano reduction).

It can also be fairly good for jotting down ideas, but it is always much more efficient to work on a desktop than Sibelius —which is to be expected.

I appreciate Sibelius and it is very useful for composers and editors. But it seems like the developers are charging more for the premium versions. Artist was previously free and Ultimate was previously at the price Artist is now. Understandably, company employees need food on their tables I know, but surely with so many people subscribing you could charge less?
To be fair, Sibelius makes scores look nice and tidy, and is quite helpful to me so I can play back the music I write in order to hear it.

The software is amazing, using it is easy and intuitive, but with a recent update I have been paywalled from some of my projects with features that are now part of higher plans. I understand that sibilieus needs to make money but this very annoying. I also find it frustrating how one of the only patches in the free version piano, it overall seems cash grabby. I do not find the current software as easy to use but I cant feel comfortable buying the premium version due to its price.

I am so excited to get to use Sibelius! I’ve been waiting years for a powerful, full featured notation app that would allow me to use my old this app files on my iPad (since I don’t use a laptop any longer).

Then I try to open one of those files and try to upgrade to the Artist level subscription, only to constantly get the error message “Offline - Check your internet connection and try again”

I’m most definitely not offline. So, the promise of Sibelius is botched by your inability to take my money. I hope to get to actually try your app in the future!