Appmuse

Update 2022.04: Went from 3 stars to 4, thanks to the awesome developer team, see their response below. I‘m now using the app on the regular and it really works well for sketching out compositions on the go, especially since I discovered Panorama mode in the menu. Well done! Some small things I‘ve noted: when adding chord symbols, I like to use tab to move to the correct beat in a bar. however when i do that, i create multiple empty chord objects, that get in the way when I want to keep editing the score. when I start to enter text in the search field (top left), the x symbol to delete what I‘ve written is very pixelated Keep up the good work! —————- I‘m very enthusiastic about this new app. Both the numpad and pencil input method seem to be very promising ways to input notes fast on iPad. However, serious bugs persist. - When trying to tilt accidentals with the pencil, they don‘t visually appear until after releasing the note. The same feature works with the numpad, this is probably a bug. - Not possible to copy/paste a passage. This a very unfortunate omission in my opinion. - When selecting a passage, it‘s not possible to move all pitches in bulk, only the first one of the selection gets moved. This seems to be a bug. There is - I couldn‘t find out how to set default system breaks. There seems to be an equivalent menu to the desktop ribbon, but selecting it doesn‘t do anything. Show more

The app 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 the app—which is to be expected. Show more

I’ve had and been using Sibelius for months now and this is absolutely ridiculous, this has crashed for me so many times its uncalled for and the best thing about Sibelius is that it doesn’t save your work!!! I spent 2 hours writing a composition for it to just disappear. I’d like a refund for my subscription this is horrible! Show more

It is like they made the worst possible decision at every turn, and it is incredibly buggy. There are much better options!

I’ve been looking forward to the day where I can pull out my iPhone and notate music on the fly. Understandably, the iPhone doesn’t have the same processing power as a MacBook Pro, but I was hoping I could at least get project started on here and take it to the desktop for polishing and refining. There are many instances of crashes that occur when selecting time signatures, key signatures, and other important elements of music composition. These major bugs rent the app unusable and easily thwart creative flow. I remain optimistic that Avid will work it out in the future and look forward to updating this review accordingly. Show more

It’s too buggy on the iPhone to be of any use. On the iPad it not much better.

I have it on my iPhone and now on my iPad, doesn’t work on either of them, I click on it and it freezes or it just stares at me, any reason why? Show more

Long time Sibelius user - 15yrs. Upgraded to Sibelius Ultimate last year and LOVE it. No regrets. This app was just a bonus, in my mind, so I didn’t expect it to have the sounds, formatting capabilities, or ease of expression/articulation/etc. the desktop has. But I’d hoped it would be enough to at least lay down pitches, values, and parts while on the road with an iPad and apple pencil. That hope did NOT pan out. The pencil function is virtually useless. It’s finicky and extremely limited. Small things, like the fact that you can’t move the keypad window, mean that you have to move back and forth, to the bottom corner and back, in order to change the function of your pencil so you can even select the note you just entered to adjust the value or placement ?‍♀️. The finger commands are inconsistent with what’s described in the reference manual and generally don’t work well. It may be better with a keyboard, but there’s no real crossover of commands between desktop and keyboard-less touch screen, so it’s like learning an entirely new composition app. Even once I got a little more proficient, what takes me 2 secs on desktop takes 15-20 secs on this app. And that over an ENTIRE piece? No thanks. It’s just not worth it, right now. Holding out for a better, more fine-tuned Avid app. (My dream is someday they’ll have a “writing to notes” function. Who knows?) But, in the meantime, I’ll be sticking with Sibelius for desktop (which is a fabulous program) and the quirky-yet-functional Symphony Pro 6 for my tablet & pencil combo. Peace. Show more

Sibelius has been my go-to for notation since the early days. I was looking forward to jotting down my ideas in the night on my iPad without heading over to the desktop computer. I am disappointed. The sound library and instruments are severely depleted. The fonts seem to be limited to “General MIDI,” not the full-bodied orchestral sound I’m accustomed to. This also creates an issue for the playback of scores I open on the iPad that I created on the desktop. It takes numerous tries just to find the right menu item to figure out what the next step should be. Tackling note entry is a bit awkward and unintuitive. This is coming from someone who is accustomed to clicking notes in one-by-one with a mouse - Which is an option here, but the pencil should work more successfully here than it does. I just spent twenty minutes trying to figure out how to set the metronome mark. I got all the commands in order but whoosh, the options scrolled too fast. I gave up. I am dreaming of a time when this app will become really, really good. Hope it’s soon. Show more

I use sibelius on my MacBook Pro as a music educator and professional composer and giving musician. And I love the computer version of Sibelius. When I saw the app I thought how cool would that be! Sibelius in my pocket!!!! I have had it for a week and haven’t been able to get it to do anything other than freeze and crash. What good is a tool if it never works. Sorry avid, but I can’t use your app and I can’t recommend it either. That’s why I’ve given it a rating of one star. A for effort, but F for it being unuseable. Show more

I have been a Sibelius user for 10 years now. I compose fore wind ensemble, chamber groups and marching band. The e passive sound library on the desktop version is great, however the lite sound library for this mobile version is seriously lacking. I opened one of my files from the desktop version only to find that less than a third of the score plays back. It is missing critical instruments in percussion, low brass, and low woodwinds. I will use this app much more if I can hear the playback entirely. Show more

Pretty sure I pay for the subscription but am stuck in Sibelius First. I have spent hours trying to get the app to work properly. Customer service just keeps telling me to do various fixes over and over. I send them screenshots of my questions and they don’t let me know if something is wrong or if it’s just a clunky app. So it works but not very well for the price. Show more

Update 11/19: Updated stars from 1 to 4. I’m very pleased with the update yesterday. It is much easier to input music with Step-Time midi input. I am running into an issue where if my midi keyboard disconnects from the iPad with Sibelius open, I have to open and close the app, and turn the keyboard off and on several times before Sibelius will recognize that it’s connected. I love the new feature that makes a selection into an irregular measure. Makes my life so much easier when I forget to set the piece up with a pick up note. Developers-please note: I am still dealing with the lyric bug mentioned below. In typing one verse of lyrics tonight, it switched into shortcut mode at least 5 times when hitting either space or dash. The problem seems to be worse if the keypad menu is open, but it’s not exclusive to being open. Also seemed more likely to happen if I was typing quicker as opposed to slower. Original Review 10-17-21 Quick Summary: Will continue to use Symphony Pro for input away from the computer. Lack of MIDI input and the offered inputs being slower(not to mention the Apple Pencil tilting being hard to navigate) means it is much faster to deal with importing an XML file to my computer(lack of XML import on ipad means I can’t import it to Sibelius on ipad). Overall happy with the addition of ipad to what can run Sibelius, it’s just not to the point where it’s a solution for me. Long review: I was super excited to see Sibelius was now available on ipad. Unfortunately the workflow is a major turn off. I found input using the Apple Pencil to be extremely slow without a keyboard. The tilt gestures are not easy to perform if you hold your Apple Pencil like a pencil nor can I figure out any easy way to determine when it switches values. It was a little better if I used the keyboard shortcuts for note values-but still significantly slower than input with a midi keyboard and keypad. After laboriously putting in all the notes to a 12 measure piece, I tried to add lyrics. Somehow one of the keys used in typing lyrics repeatedly bumped me out of lyric input and all my typing started editing the rest of my score. This didn’t just happen once, I couldn’t finish putting in the lyrics. Not sure why sometimes the space bar moves between notes and sometimes will remove you from lyric entry. There also seems to be a problem moving past a rest in lyric mode. What I need to see to increase my ratings: 1. MIDI keyboard input- my whole world revolves around midi input-this is why I use Symphony Pro for input when I can’t be at my computer. 2. Music XML import-at least if you aren’t going to give us MIDI Keyboard support let us have this. Again, I’m using Symphony Pro for MIDI Input-but that’s about all I want to do using it. It would nice to be able to import that file into Sibelius on my ipad. 3. Ability to put in lyrics without it randomly ending the lyric line and switching to shortcuts. Show more

I am very glad to see Sibelius on iOS, however, until it can access fonts from the system, this app is completely useless to me as all my Sibelius files use music fonts which the app can’t display. I am able to install music fonts on my iPhone. I am able to use those music fonts in pages on my iPhone, but not in Sibelius, an actual notation app! Show more

I’m a Sibelius user for many years ago and I always do my charts on my Mac then when I’m going to the gig just send my chart via airdrop and opened in Avid Scorch to play. I read that there’s no more support for that app. THE POINT IS MAKE A PLAY MODE TO USE MY CHART ON THIS VERSION LIKE SCORCH PLEASE IS AWFUL TO TURN PAGES SCROLLING LIKE THE MAC VERSION. I LIKE SCORCH A LOT. Show more

When there is drawing mode, it would be awesome!

I’ve been using Sibelius for over 20 years i’m so excited to finally have a version for iPad. I love having to option of leaving my laptop and still being able to work on scores. This 1st version is a GREAT start and I’m looking forward to additional features being added in the future. My top feature requests are 1. Support for parts 2. Transpose feature 3. I’d like to be able to select multiple bars (horizontally) in the same instrument similarly to how multiple bars can be selected vertically in the current version. 4. A “performance” or “music stand” mode more suited for use in live performance scenarios (… since Scorch for iPad has been retired.) 5. .xml import and export. 6. A few more input options for working with chord symbols. (I do a lot of Jazz and Pop charts.) 7. Support for input from a MIDI keyboard. 8. Annnnnd eventually … True support for written notation with Apple Pencil similar to Notate Me, StaffPad or Notion for iPad. I REALLY like the current note input interface in this version. I think it’s pretty convenient but there are times when the quickest way to jot an idea is to be able to just write it. Again, thanks for the great work! Show more

I’m a desktop Ultimate user so I know Sibelius pretty well. It’s great that you can open native scores on iOS but the mobile version has two glaring problems; 1) there’s no support for MIDI input so you can’t use a keyboard for any kind of entry like you can in so many other programs (even garage band supports MIDI)—huge omission; and 2) the pencil entry is utterly unusable. Trying to change the note, duration and accidentals all by tilting the pencil in different directions is just insane. No real composer would ever consider learning this method for note entry. Combined with problem #1, it makes actually writing in the app almost unthinkable. I guess you could still use it to read done scores, do some transposing or copying and pasting, but for anything else, it’s worthless. Show more

It crashes consistently after only using it for minutes at a time.

Best of the best????