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Sibelius is to written music what Word is to writing. Classical, jazz and pop musicians alike use it to produce and publish sheet music, and it's a useful composing and arranging tool.
G7 is a special edition for guitarists and songwriters, offering a tablature (fretboard) view and chord diagrams as well as the standard music staves. It fits song words to the beat and comes with a good e-book on guitars. You also get a set of Kontakt sound samples that let you reproduce the sound of various guitars.
There's a choice of input methods. You can scan in music and G7 will make a fair stab at playing it, even suggesting fingering. Or you can use the PC keyboard, which is useful for editing. The easiest way is to use a Midi keyboard or fretboard, which essentially send G7 digital playing instructions.
We used the Midi output from Roland's UA-20 guitar synthesiser and GA-7 pickup, which we will review next month.
Don't expect too much, because G7 has a very tricky job to do. It can mistake a stroked chord for an arpeggio (chord notes played in sequence) and it tends to miss out notes if you don't give them equal weight. But it is worth persevering with, because it works if you take care and fine-tune your settings.
You can add any number of instruments to a score and G7 will put in drums and harmony. Work can be saved as audio or Midi, preserving nuances that may not translate to the page, or as Sibelius' own Scorch format, which lets you collaborate with musicians over the web.
Contact: Sibelius 0800 458 3111
www.sibelius.com
System requirements:
- Windows 98 or later
- 700MHz Pentium III or better
- 256MB Ram
- 450MB disk space
All Audio Recording, Editing & Mixing
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