AVID Sibelius Ultimate Perpetual

What Sibelius Ultimate Is For

Sibelius Ultimate is music notation software designed to write, hear, correct, and publish scores of any level, from lead sheets to full conductor scores. It is aimed at composers, arrangers, copyists, and educators who want to produce readable, consistent, and print-ready scores while maintaining precise control over engraving, parts extraction, and rehearsal preparation. Thanks to intelligent import (MIDI, MusicXML, Sibelius files) and playback with sampled sounds, it naturally integrates into a music production and education environment.

Main Features

Compose Quickly with Natural Input

Sibelius simplifies daily writing: the tool automatically manages stem directions, spacing, rests, and alignment of notation elements. You can enter notes from the on-screen Keypad, a MIDI keyboard, the computer keyboard, or draw/write on a tablet with a stylus. To develop your ideas, loop playback facilitates improvisation and motif refinement, while adding chord symbols, lyrics, articulations, expression texts, and graphic elements allows you to finely detail the musical intent.

Accelerated Orchestration and Arrangement

The Arrange feature helps quickly create new parts from existing material: choose an orchestration style and Sibelius generates additional parts from your sources. To save time in polyphonic writing, you can "explode" chords across multiple instruments or, conversely, group several parts into one with a single click. Intelligent Import allows opening or integrating a MIDI, MusicXML, or Sibelius file into a new or existing score, automatically assigning notation, instrumentation, techniques, and articulations to preserve intent and reduce edits.

Professional Engraving and Dynamic Parts

Sibelius creates separate parts as soon as the score is created and updates them automatically with each change, a major advantage for rehearsal preparation and copying work. Advanced engraving tools and multi-editing speed up corrections: creating ties, crescendos, slurs, and staff lines across multiple instruments, grouped editing of barlines, lyrics, and technique texts. Intelligent spacing maintains clean readability even on dense conductor scores, for print- and publish-ready scores.

Realistic Playback and Sound Libraries

To validate your writing without waiting for a recording, Sibelius includes a sampled sound library (Desktop) allowing you to listen to your orchestrations with convincing detail. You can also use compatible third-party sound libraries to tailor the sound to your aesthetic (orchestral mockups, film music, pop arrangements, etc.). On mobile, a dedicated sound library is included for efficient work on the go.

Plugins and Automations to Go Further

The software includes over 140 plugins on Desktop, designed to speed up complex notation, layout, processing, text, and engraving tasks. This "toolbox" approach saves valuable time on finishing touches and repetitive operations, especially useful in publishing, copying, or educational material production contexts.

Cloud Sharing, Proofreading, and Collaboration

With Sibelius Cloud Sharing, you can present your scores online so they can be viewed, downloaded, and played from any device. Sharing facilitates concert preparation, proofreading, error spotting, and performer feedback. Review mode locks the score to prevent accidental changes while allowing collaborators to add comments and annotations.

A Robust Tool for Teaching and Creating Materials

Sibelius Ultimate is also designed for pedagogy: it helps teach notation, composition, and theory, and offers ready-to-use content to save time in lesson preparation. The Worksheet Creator provides a wide range of resources (sheets, projects, exercises, songs) tailored to teachers' and students' needs.

Publishing and Editorial Preparation

For publishing, Sibelius offers desktop publishing-style tools, with an Inspector allowing precise adjustment of text appearance (spacing, alignment, scaling) and standardization of formatting via hierarchical styles. You can produce PDFs intended for printing or export an audio version of your score for distribution and pre-listening.

Technical specifications

Type

Full software

Downloadable

Yes

Access to new versions and standard support	via subscription or a renewable 1-year "Software Updates + Support" plan (included with new perpetual licenses)	Intelligent Import	import of MIDI, MusicXML, and Sibelius files into new or existing scores
Desktop	macOS and Windows	Review Mode	score locking with annotations and comments enabled
Mobile	iPad and iPhone (Sibelius tools adapted for mobile work)	Desktop included sounds	36 GB of sampled sounds
Availability	Android and Chromebook	Mobile included sounds	900 MB of sampled sounds
Continuity	seamless transition between Desktop and mobile	Compatibility	ability to use third-party sound libraries
Storage/sharing	support for iOS-compatible cloud services (examples: iCloud, Dropbox)	Included plugins (Desktop)	more than 140
Intended for	composition, arrangement, publishing of scores and parts of any size and complexity	Shortcuts	customizable on Desktop
Education	creation of notation sheets, exercises, and educational materials	Sibelius Cloud Sharing	viewing, downloading, and playback via browser
Note values	from 512th (up to 7 beams) to long (double whole note)	Included personal cloud space	1 GB
Voices per staff	4	Collaboration	private sharing for proofreading and performance preparation
Guitar	customizable chord symbols, full guitar tablature (Desktop), basic guitar tablature (Mobile), guitar chord diagrams	macOS	10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 11.0, 12
Formatting	full measure formats, customizable beam/rest groupings, customizable braces and brackets	Windows	Windows 10, Windows 11
Line gallery	trills, ties, crescendos/decrescendos, and other lines	Memory	1 GB
Arrange	creation of orchestral parts from existing parts	Disk space	1 GB
Writing functions	"explode" chords across multiple instruments, consolidate parts with one click