It’s ‘different’ than Sibelius, but it’s also on a whole new level.It's a fact: gamers drive the PC market. Ya might take a look at Dorico Elements and/or Pro as well. If you’re about to explore…I suggest grabbing Dorico SE (It’s free, and will also get you a peek into the HALion Sonic 7 player, and some good sounds that come with Dorico Elements). It’s not a perfect import, and some things like percussion/drum tracks it can take some practice and fiddling to get those parts ‘playing back’ properly in Sibelius. With this in mind, it might gradually become more difficult to get a 1:1 playback match to start out with, but there is no reason you can’t import the scores and get off to a fresh start with all new sounds/settings.Ĭubase can also export MIDI and XML files that can be brought into Sibelius. Sibelius is still stuck in VST2 world unless you are on a Mac, then it might do AU as well? This means windows Sibelius users can’t yet easily get HALion Sonic 7 (VST3, AU, and AAX only…high quality instruments that ship with Cubase, and can work in other hosts as well) working in Sibelius.Ĭubase can still use VST2 instruments and effects as of version 12, but will be phasing out VST2 in coming versions. In many cases you can save the state of your plugins in Sibelius and easily duplicate them over in Cubase (Not Sibelius sounds…but other VST2/AU/AAX instrument plugins that you might have), import the MIDI, and have a nearly identical ‘sounding’ setup as you left off with back in Sibelius to begin with…and further refine from there. You don’t have to do it this way…it’s just a personal preference as I’ve learned over time it’s a little easier for me and adds some flexibility to my workflow. I’ll have a folder in Cubase with tracks imported from XML files that are not even connected to ‘instruments’, and are strictly for ‘visual scoring’ and another folder with more free flowing ‘play back tracks’ that were exported by Sibelius/Finale/Etc in MIDI format (gets the keyswitches, tempo track, and other ‘translation’ information from the other scoring host).

Personally, I do both…and keep visual scoring and playback tracks separate. Yes, you can export MIDI (performance/playback data) and XML (score data) from Sibelius, then import it into Cubase Pro.

Nuendo vs cubase sound quality