Scoring Express for Sibelius – Chamber
$69.99
Scoring Express is a collection of professional templates, libraries, fonts, manuscript papers, and plug-ins for Sibelius Ultimate — based on the same templates used every day at NYC Music Services.
Sold By: Notation Central
Scoring Express is a collection of high-quality, professional templates for Sibelius Ultimate — based on the same templates used at NYC Music Services, an industry-leading music preparer.
Each Scoring Express package is much more than just the templates. It contains manuscript papers, house styles, high-quality music and text fonts, and plug-ins — all installed in one go, so you can get started right away.
The settings in Scoring Express files are the result of decades of experience preparing music notation at the highest level. Embedded throughout each file are carefully considered parameters that refine positioning, placement, and design. They reflect the expert advice and tips you’ll find on the Scoring Notes blog.
Drawing on our knowledge of the ins and outs of Sibelius, we have made use of some of the more obscure features and settings and baked them right into the Scoring Express defaults so that you don’t have to spend time fiddling with them. Each file also includes loads of additional symbols, lines, and text styles that extend Sibelius’s default capabilities in many ways.
Plus, Scoring Express takes full advantage of the Norfolk and Pori fonts that not only bring a unique beauty to your music, but deliver unique features as well, like the angled slash chord (ASC) symbols.
What’s the difference between downloading the Norfolk or Pori fonts and purchasing Scoring Express?
| Feature | Norfolk / Pori fonts only | Scoring Express |
|---|---|---|
| Fonts | Norfolk and Pori are separate items | All Norfolk, Pori, and other high quality music and text fonts included with every purchase; more than 40 in all |
| Installation | Manual | Automatic installer. No separate font download or installation necessary |
| Templates | No | At least 9 different templates included |
| House Styles | 1 basic per font | Yes: One per template, plus a parts house style |
| Manuscript Papers | No | Yes: One per template |
| Plug-ins | No | Yes |
| Custom features | Limited | Many extra symbols, lines, hierarchical text styles, engraving rules, positioning settings and note spacing rule |
| Example files | No | Yes |
| Support | No | Yes |
| Price | $20.00 (suggested contribution) | $69.99 - $79.99 |
All Scoring Express for Sibelius installations come with these fonts: the Norfolk and Pori fonts, plus the Figurato figured bass font, and the Academico, Archivo & Archivo Narrow, Arimo, Gothic A1, P052, Petaluma Script, and Tinos text fonts. Several useful plug-ins are also included to help you quickly get results.
Scoring Express for Sibelius — Chamber includes nine professional Sibelius templates for stand-alone use, plus corresponding Manuscript Papers and House Styles for each, in addition to a Parts House Style that can be easily imported into any part.
Documentation
Scoring Express for Sibelius – Usage, features, and tips
Scoring Express for Sibelius User Guide
Angled slash chord (ASC) fonts
Theatre & Studio — Additional documentation
Position Rehearsal Marks plug-in
Compatibility
Scoring Express is built for the latest versions of Sibelius Ultimate, Dorico Pro, and Finale.
Minimum supported versions (Scoring Express version 1.7):
- Sibelius Ultimate 2023.11
- Dorico Pro 5.1.60
- Finale 27.3
Use with earlier versions or, with the mid-tier products like Sibelius Artist or Dorico Elements, is not recommended nor supported.
Version 1.6 for Sibelius is also included for legacy purposes, but will no longer be updated. For best results with Scoring Express version 1.6, use Sibelius Ultimate 2022.5 through 2023.8; however, it should work with all Sibelius Ultimate versions dating back to 2020.3.
Version 1.7 for Dorico will open on earlier versions of Dorico, but some features may not work as intended.
Scoring Express templates and manuscript papers are designed for North American page sizes, but they will look just fine switching to the nearest ISO equivalent (i.e., A4) with a quick toggle in:
Sibelius – Layout > Document Setup > Size;
Dorico – Library > Layout Options… > Page Setup
Finale – Document > Page Format > Score… and Document > Page Format > Parts…
In Finale, be sure to go to the Page Layout Tool and Redefine Pages for the score and/or parts you wish to reformat to your new page size.
Depending on your tastes, in certain circumstances you may prefer adjusting the staff size by a fraction of a millimeter or two in either direction as well.
Version History
October 31, 2024: Version 1.7 for Dorico and Sibelius.
June 17, 2023: Version 1.6 — no version change or change to the template files, but all installers updated to install Project Templates directly for Dorico 5 in addition to Dorico 4
May 17, 2023: Version 1.6
June 13, 2022: Version 1.5
February 15, 2021: Version 1.2
December 26, 2020: Version 1.1
December 12, 2020: Version 1.0
Scoring Express for Sibelius detailed version history
Scoring Express for Dorico detailed version history
Scoring Express for Finale detailed version history
License
Can I use Scoring Express on more than one computer?
Yes! A purchase entitles one person (you) to use it on one computer at a time, on as many computers that you personally use. Unless you have extra limbs, that should suffice nicely.
Can my buddy who shares my computer use Scoring Express?
No! Well, there’s no way to technically prevent it. But please ask your buddy to purchase his own copy.
My buddy wants to use my copy of Scoring Express. Can I send it to him?
No! He should purchase his own copy. Let’s all be buddies!
Can I change the default Scoring Express files — customize, modify styles, add instruments, etc.?
Yes! That’s the beauty of it — it’s totally customizable for your own use. You can change it straight away or keep the original handy and duplicate it for your own use. If you need to, you can always re-install the default Scoring Express files again.
So, once I do that, can I send those files to my buddy?
You can share score files with anyone you like, and these files may inherently contain many settings derived from Scoring Express. But please encourage your buddies to purchase their own copies of Scoring Express so that they get the full benefit of the package and easy compatibility with your files — including all the fonts, house styles, and manuscript papers that come with Scoring Express.
Specs
| Operating System | Mac, Windows |
|---|---|
| Platform | Sibelius |
Kevin Kern (verified owner) –
I just fired up the solo piano template in Chamber and whipped up 9 solo piano transcriptions for a recording I’ll be releasing later this year. While my market is comprised of home based enthusiasts, not the pro players, even having to change the document size to Letter from Custom 9×12 so that customers can print them up on their home printers, doesn’t appear to have compromised the stellar output that even I can notice with my limited vision. The whole idea of seeing piano music that looks so dramatically better right out of the box is inspiring me to create more music for my fans to play. Thanks for a great product.
Philip Covitz (verified owner) –
I have been using Sibelius to create piano transcriptions of out-of-print scores for several years now, and always thought they looked pretty good using the fonts and styles that come with the software. I was honestly skeptical that switching to Scoring Express would make any noticeable improvement; I assumed the differences would be too subtle to notice. But I did a little reading/research and decided to give them a try and… turned out, I was wrong.
The differences may be, indeed, quite subtle to an untrained eye like my own, but taken all together they make a huge impact on the overall look and feel of my scores, even if I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why. My scores look more substantial, more solid; “inkier”– more like they were printed from an engraver’s plate than from a laser printer. I never realized how cold, plain, and sterile my scores looked before. Now they look and feel like I bought them from an old style printing house. It’s all I can do to keep myself from redoing all my previous scores and printing them again.
Combined with NYC Music Services printing services, I’ve been able to take what was once an idle pastime and elevate it into a rewarding and worthwhile hobby. And customer service has always been very helpful and responsive. Thank you, Philip Rothman and NYCMS!
Claus Hierluksch (verified owner) –
I was always annoyed how Sibelius treated the layout part of the engraving process. It’s not userfriendly at all!
So I was delighted to see the release of Scoring Express – and as I’m a chamber music guy, I was happy that the chamber music templates were under the first release.
It just looks fantastic! Installation is smooth and easy and everything is explained in detail.
And best thing: Questions via emails were answered right away, extremly friendly and in detail!
What else can one wish for?
I cannot wait for the next quality material released by notation central!
Simon Cook (verified owner) –
Scoring Express offers us a convenient way of getting scores looking great. If you’re not satisfied with the look of the fonts and templates that come with Sibelius, this is certainly worth checking out. The package aims to take full advantage of Sibelius’ improved capabilities for importing scores from MIDI and .xml, and that’s where the suite of 8 bundled plugins comes in handy:
* Transfer Score Info
* Reset Spacing in Score and Parts
* Change Dynamics
* Replace Line Style
* Replace Symbol
* Swap or Replace Text Styles
* Position Rehearsal Marks
* Bar number hidden
It’s educational to look closely at the settings in the templates to see the well-informed choices made. For instance, despite using Sibelius for many years I’d never realised it’s possible to set Preferences to have bar numbers “Hide at rehearsal marks”, until I observed that behaviour in an SE template. If I’d knows I could have saved hours wasted repositioning rehearsal marks to avoid collisions. You can of course take the SE templates as a starting point and adapt them to your specific needs.
Using SE gives the same sense of guilt as eating a ready meal. If you had taken the time and trouble, you could perfectly well have assembled the ingredients and cooked the meal yourself, though it might come out lumpy or burned. There is nothing in these packages that you could not install, calibrate or learn to do for yourself, though it is jolly handy to have it done for you by experts. As such some might balk at the price, which is high enough that I for one would have to think twice before ordering several of these packages.
Another caveat for non-US users is that all these templates default to US Letter size paper. This is close enough to A4 for it not to be a deal breaker, but it is advisable to adjust the paper sizes in both scores and parts before setting out to avoid mishap. Give them a new name so they are not erased by future SE updates. If you’re thorough enough about this to want to adjust all the bundled templates, manuscript papers and house styles, it is quite a big job. It would be easier to resize them as and when you need them, but I know I would often forget. It would be nice if SE included a plugin to take care of this chore!
So stick with home cooking, or pay an expert chef? Your call.
Charles Albert (verified owner) –
These templates are an absolute steal for the price. I would have paid triple the amount when you consider the many years of expertise that went into every setting and all the extras that come with it. It’s embarrassing to think that in school and in my early professional career I put out scores before that looked the way they did 😀
I was blown away by how easy everything was to install — all the fonts, templates, etc etc came in without a hitch. Something I have really liked doing so far is just looking around the settings and seeing how the files are adjusted and trick out Sibelius features in ways I never knew about. Then I can apply them to my own scores even if I don’t always use the SE templates for every project.
Something else not to be overlooked is the house styles. These are based on the templates and are automatically installed as far as I could see. You can import them into a current score you have and you don’t need to start with a template. IMO the documentation could even do a better job of describing this and playing up this aspect because that in itself is such an amazing help. You don’t need to start from a template.
Total game-changer — please make more and I will buy them!!!
Karl Whelan –
There’s always something about the look of my scores that disappoints me. I imported one of the house styles from this collection into one of my scores and one into the parts and they were instantly elevated. I have spent many hours in the past trying to get my music looking just half as good as this! The slurs from up stem to down stem notes is a nice touch (at least assume this is one of the things you changed as they have vanished) Thank you!!!