reference.book Page 25 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
1.4 Flexi-time
Our recommended Flexi-time options are the default values, as follows: Adjust rhythms on, Minimum note value sixteenth-note (semiquaver), Flexibility of tempo set to Low, Staccato and Tenuto on with thresholds of 35% and 110% respectively. For tuplets, set 3 to Simple or Moderate, maybe 6 as well, and the others to None unless you’re into playing things like septuplets.
Recording transposing pitch In the Note Input page of File Preferences (in the Sibelius menu on Mac), switch on the Input written pitches option if you’re recording by playing the written notes from a transposing score; otherwise, Sibelius assumes you’re playing notes at sounding pitch.
Spelling of accidentals As with step-time input, Sibelius guesses how you want to “spell” black notes (e.g. as F# or Gb), but you can alter the spelling of any note or selection of notes afterwards just by hitting Return (on the main keyboard), or by using one of the accidental plug-ins ( 6.1 Working with plug-ins).
Voices As you record, by default Sibelius splits the notes into two voices if necessary (e.g. if you play polyphonic music such as a fugue). In most cases this is desirable, but if you are inputting onto a single staff or monophonic instrument you may prefer to force Sibelius to notate the music in a single voice or a specified voice. You can change this setting in the Notes Flexi-time Options dialog (see above). Although Sibelius generally makes good decisions about how to split the music you play into separate voices, you may need to go back and edit certain passages to make the notation more closely fit your intentions. You could, for example, filter out the bottom note in voice 1 chords ( 5.7 Filters and Find) and then, say, swap them into voice 2 by typing Alt+2 or 2 – see Splitting voices in 2.36 Voices for more details.
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Inputting
Fixed split point. (Note that in Sibelius, middle C is called C4 – which may be different from how it is described in other music programs.) Tuplets: for each of the tuplets listed, you can set Sibelius to detect None/Simple/Moderate/ Complex ones. A “simple” triplet (say) means one with three equal notes. For tuplets such as a quarter note (crotchet) followed by an eighth note (quaver), use Moderate, and for tuplets with rests or dotted rhythms, use Complex. MIDI Messages options: Keep program/bank messages adds any program and bank changes to the score using Sibelius’s MIDI message text format. These messages are automatically hidden. Keep controller messages similarly adds all controller messages (such as pitch bend, sustain pedal, channel volume, etc.) and hides them in the score. Keep other messages similarly adds any other MIDI messages to the score.