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Managing a Library of Scores
This page provides information on how to create and manage a library of scores that you will integrate with Sibelius Cloud.
Creating a Library
To get started using your scores with Sibelius Cloud, you must first gather your scores into a suitable format.
We support native Sibelius files (.sib and .sco). We also support MusicXML (.xml and .mxl) and PDF (.pdf) files.
Your scores may be hosted on your web server or you may upload them to us directly ([more details])
Deciding on a Format
The decision is a simple trade-off between the time taken to get the score into one of the supported formats and the time taken to edit it subsequently.
It's also important to consider the experience that you want to present to your end users: Some features are not available in PDF-based files - for example, playback. That's because the PDF doesn't contain any playback data from which Sibelius Cloud can generate audio.
It's fine to use a variety of score formats, depending on your needs. You may for example have a large catalogue of scores in PDF format from before the days that computerised music notation apps came to be, and it may simply be too time consuming to re-input these scores in Sibelius. As a first step, you may choose to publish those scores directly as PDFs. As it becomes clearer which of your scores are the most popular with your users, you may wish to transfer that score to Sibelius, so that you can provide a richer user experience.
Using Sibelius
Sibelius Cloud Publishing, as you might expect, supports native Sibelius files (.sib and .sco). You can use Sibelius as normal to create your scores, which you can then publish to the Internet using Sibelius Cloud Publishing
Using Other Music Notation Applications
Sibelius Cloud supports MusicXML, allowing you to use other notation applications such as Finale, MuseScore or Notion to create scores that you may then publish online using Sibelius Cloud.
It's possible to either use MusicXML directly as an input format, but depending on the results you achieve you may wish to edit the file in Sibelius beforehand and then publish the resulting .sib file instead.
Don't forget that Sibelius includes batch processing plug-ins for converting whole folders of scores at once, which can really help in taking the legwork out of the process.
MIDI
You may also convert MIDI files (.mid) to publish scores in Sibelius Cloud, since you can open the MIDI file directly in Sibelius and subsequently save it as a native Sibelius file.
MIDI files contain only information about the sound of the music - not its notation. It's likely therefore that you'll find you need to clean up your score in Sibelius before it's ready for publishing.
PDFs
Many publishers have extensive back catalogues as a library of PDFs. You may publish your PDFs directly to Sibelius Cloud.
There are some disadvantages to publishing using PDF: since the PDF contains no musical data, playback and transposition features are unavailable.
For the best user experience, we do recommend transferring your PDF scores into Sibelius - of course this may not be practical (especially if you have thousands of scores in your library!), but a methodical approach to converting your scores from PDF can pay dividends in score sales.
Storing and referencing your library
Sibelius Cloud allows you to store your scores on your own web server or to upload them directly using the API.
The choice of which method to choose depends on your existing infrastructure and how you prefer to manage your scores.
Uploading scores directly
In this model, you upload your scores directly to Sibelius Cloud using the API. This is the simplest way to get started with Sibelius Cloud.
Scores are uploaded as a binary file, and you can specify the media type of the file you are uploading. The media type is used to determine how the score is processed by Sibelius Cloud.
Relevant API methods include:
Storing scores on your own web server
In this model, you store your scores on your own web server and provide Sibelius Cloud with the URL to the score file you wish to refer to.
The URL may be a plain HTTPS URL, or it may be a URL that requires authentication. In both cases, the URL must be accessible to Sibelius Cloud so that it can download the score file and process it as requested.
If using an authenticated URL, you must provide the credentials in the URL itself, for example as a signed URL. Many cloud providers offer this feature, such as Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage.
For alternative methods of authentication, please make a feature request.
Relevant API methods include:
Media types
It's important you serve your score files with the correct media type.
See score_media_type for more information.
TIP
The terms "media type" and "MIME type" are often used interchangeably. The term "media type" is used in the HTTP standard, while "MIME type" is used in the context of e-mail.