Avid® today announced the release of Sibelius 7, the newest version of the company’s flagship musical notation software. Combining a deep, sophisticated feature set with an all new task-oriented user interface — putting all of the software’s features at the user’s fingertips — Sibelius® 7 enhances music writing through intuitive and flexible workflows and improved tools for increased collaboration. Complete with a newly recorded professional-quality sampled sound library, native 64-bit performance, full MusicXML interchange support, and advanced typography and graphics features, Sibelius 7 is more powerful and versatile than ever before.

“Whether you’re a composer, arranger, copyist, publisher, instrumentalist, teacher or student, Sibelius 7 enables you to write music even more quickly and easily—no matter your level of experience,” said Chris Gahagan, Avid Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions. “Sibelius 7 offers a completely redesigned user interface and technology architecture, providing incredibly fast performance and improved workflows designed to help you create beautiful scores faster and more easily than ever.”

What’s New in Sibelius 7?

• New and exclusive professional-quality sound library – Unique to Sibelius, the new professional-quality sound library delivers stunning musical realism to scores during playback. It includes the Avid Orchestra, a specially recorded full symphony orchestra, a collection of rock and pop sounds from the Avid virtual instrument team, a 27-stop church organ from leading virtual organ creator Hauptwerk, and a selection of sounds from Sample Logic Rumble and Fanfare featuring 14-time world champion Drum and Bugle Corps, The Blue Devils.
• Completely redesigned task-oriented user interface – Optimized for single-display systems, the new user interface employs a rich graphical toolbar and dockable panels that don’t obscure the working area, putting all of the software’s features at the user’s fingertips. The redesigned mixer also allows finer control of playback than ever before, delivering more balanced mixes.
• Full MusicXML interchange – Complete MusicXML import and now export makes sharing files with hundreds of music applications, including Finale®, easier than ever.
• 64-bit performance – Sibelius 7 is the world’s first native 64-bit notation software, and has been completely rewritten to take advantage of the performance of today’s incredibly fast 64-bit hardware and operating systems.
• Powerful text, graphic and sharing options – Publisher-quality typography and graphics import/export capability delivers finished scores with professional-quality text and graphics. Publish and export demanding layouts and text-heavy scores with advanced finishing options, including direct PDF and EPS export. Also sync with or import notation from Pro Tools®, or export scores as Scorch® files, then share or publish them on the web or via Avid Scorch for iPad®.

What Customers Are Saying

“Sibelius 7 clearly demonstrates that the design team is not content to rest on their laurels,” declares Bill Holab, engraver and winner of 57 Paul Revere awards for graphic excellence in music. “They have completely revamped the interface, made it easier for novice users, yet retained all of the familiar shortcuts. On top of that, they have redesigned the display system so that we get a far more accurate view of the music onscreen, and added in extensive text features that are essential to some of the complex projects we work on, like opera vocal scores. Sibelius 7 is an intrinsic part of our production workflow and will continue to be the main tool we use to prepare high-end music publications and performance materials.”

“The striking thing about Sibelius 7 is the new user interface – the startling thing about Sibelius 7 is how much faster the new user interface allows you to work,” explains John Murdoch, music director of Lehigh Valley Presbyterian Church in Allentown, PA. “Are you arranging a score for a choral performance? Sibelius 7 makes you faster. Are you creating music for live playback with virtual instruments? Sibelius 7 makes you faster. Are you simplifying a score for Broadway musical auditions? Sibelius 7 makes you faster. And that was just my day yesterday.”

Availability and Pricing

Sibelius 7 is now available for £459 GBP / €549 EUR. Current Sibelius customers may take advantage of upgrade options of £119 GBP / €140 EUR, with multi-seat upgrade pricing from £47 GBP / €60 EUR per seat. Customers looking to crossgrade from another notation product can purchase a crossgrade for £149 GBP / €170 EUR. Avid also offers individual educator and student pricing for £219 GBP / €249 EUR. In addition, students receive four years of complimentary upgrades. This price and four years of complimentary upgrades also apply to Avid’s leading audio and video software, Pro Tools and Media Composer. Educational multi-user pricing is offered at £95 GBP / €95 EUR per seat. To learn more or to watch a video overview of Sibelius 7, visit Sibelius online. For purchasing inquiries, please visit the Sibelius Store.

This time last year, Lewis Partridge (the site’s founder) had compiled a list of around 300 rudiments based on 2 years of research into rudimental drumming culture and its history. Drummers from all over the world began to send in new rudiments to add to the list and now the encyclopedia contains over 500 sticking patterns!

In order to help you in learning and perfecting each drum rudiment, they have included easy to read examples, performance tips, free PDF sheet music and video tutorials. Lewis is also compiling a book containing all 500 drum rudiments in an educational work book style layout that will hopefully be released sometime next year!

There are currently 566 variations so far!

Do you know of any Drum Rudiments that are not listed in Lewis’ encyclopedia? Please contact Lewis and help to keep this educational resource complete and up to date.

In order to help you in learning and perfecting these drum rudiments, there are easy to read sheet music examples, performance tips, free PDF sheet music and video tutorials included for each rudimental pattern.

Also if you are a beginner or find this large list a bit overwhelming, check out the Beginner’s Guide To Rudiments.

The site features a large alphabetical list of rudiments already including easy to read examples, performance tips, free PDF sheet music and video tutorials. The large list of rudiments is also broken down into three categories – PAS Rudiments, Hybrid Rudiments and Other Rudiments.

Calling all Drum Teachers!

“The Rudiment Encyclopedia will be a constant work in progress. I am gradually working through all the rudiments I know and I hope this will eventually become a free online guide to every known rudimental pattern ever!

If you know of a rudiment that is not listed in this encyclopedia, please contact me and help me to keep this educational resource complete.”

You can visit the Rudimental Encyclopedia at www.ninjadrummist.com/drum-education/rudiment-encyclopedia/

RiffBook has come about because so many musicians have lost some of their best works because they couldn’t remember that neat riff that they’ve played the day before. Eventually musicians began taping their sessions, only to end up with a dubious pile of unlabeled tapes with little hope of finding anything again. With RiffBook, musicians can quickly record a piece of music using their computer’s built-in microphone or, with the Professional Edition, record a video with their computer’s iSight camera. With RiffBook, it is not about getting pristine, production-quality recordings; it’s about capturing the moment quickly without the hassles of equipment setup.

Transcriptions and tablature may be entered by dragging and dropping notes onto the staff. Text notes can be added to for just about any purpose such as describing performance notes or to include song lyrics. External document files from other programs may also be linked to a riff. When a file is linked with RiffBook, RiffBook makes an “Open” button that allows for quick opening of the file with the application that created it. This is great for linking files such as Logic Pro recording sessions where with one click, the document opens in Logic Pro. Using linked files in RiffBook, all of a musician’s work can be brought together and organized in one place.

RiffBook is great for storing and cataloging riffs that a musician really likes, but has no use for yet in a song. Over time, the riff library in RiffBook will grow so that later, during the songwriting process, RiffBook can be used to search for riffs that meet certain criteria such as chord progression or style. The riff library can also be browsed in order to generate song ideas. Riffs can be organized into song folders within RiffBook in order to group them and to designate them as being already used. This management of in-process work allows musicians to keep track of where they are in the songwriting process.

RiffBook is available in two editions: Standard and Professional. The Professional Edition adds the ability to record video riffs and provides a handy metronome feature. RiffBook Standard is priced at $49.99 while the Professional Edition is $79.99. A full-featured, 30-day demo is available for download at www.alienapparatus.com/RiffBook.html.

Alien Apparatus Company, Inc. has been providing show control systems and on-stage products to musicians since 2003. Alien Apparatus Company’s mission is to develop innovative solutions for live music performance, making shows more spectacular, easier, and more fun!

“Ideal Vacation: Music for Life” gives users a diverse template of rock, pop, country, latin and world music. “High Tech World: Kinetic Tracks” is a production music powerhouse for making modern music soundtracks. Both The “Ideal Vacation: Music for Life” and “High Tech World: Kinetic Tracks” Theme Packs will be available this month (Sept. ’06) and will retail for $99.95 (MSRP).

Sony Media Software is also offering users a free Cinescore 1.0a update that provides interface and key command improvements, giving users the ability to customize the Theme Chooser window, quickly access themes based on specified sort criteria and easier navigation\while editing. Cinescore users can also now preview their music in the Video Preview window.

For more information, visit their web site at www.sonycreativesoftware.com.

Sheets of Sound for Guitar Vol II is a natural evolution of Sheets of Sound Vol I. It continues along much of the same harmonic and rhythmic path while putting more emphasis on real world examples and delving into asymetrical, odd-meter groupings and artist studies. The artist studies are inspired by Pat Metheny, George Benson, Frank Gambale, Rusty Cooley, Pat Martino and John Coltrane and are very exciting to learn and perform.

Traditional guitar methods focus on playing the instrument horizontally across the fingerboard. By contrast, Sheets of Sound for Guitar focuses on playing the instrument in a more natural vertical orientation. In doing so, a more straightforward and horn-like voice is attained.

The book is a compendium of melodic and harmonic devices featuring the following:

• Tab and standard notation
• Amazing Chops (works for Fusion, Metal, Jazz, etc)
• Arpeggio Scales
• Waterfalls
• Sweep Picking to die for
• Studies inspired by George Benson, John Coltrane, Frank Gambale, Pat Martino, Shawn Lane, Mike Brecker, Rusty Cooley, McCoy Tyner, Rudolphe Kreutzer
• Forward Motion Pentatonics
• Long form swept Pentatonics
• 4ths patterns
• Odd Meter meters/rhythms

For more information, visit their web site at www.sheetsofsound.net.