ProTools 8 with Sibelius Powered Score Editor

I do not have DigiDesign's ProTools, though I've often thought about checking it out. Many professionals use it; my impression is that it has more users among studio people, whereas Logic is most used by musicians who also produce. In any case, as DigiDesign has long been owned by Sibelius' new boss Avid, it was to be expected that something would happen in order to get things together.

Thus, a Sibelius powered score editor in ProTools 8 has been announced. Of course, a key advantage is the immediate connection between MIDI in ProTools and the internal (and now Sibelius powered) score editor. As a Logic user, I envy ProTools users as they can now rely on a decent notation view of everything they do in their audio production environment. You can export to the native Sibelius format for further editing. ReWire integration goes without saying.

Yet this does not make me go over to ProTools. On the one hand, ProTools only works with DigiDesign or M-Audio hardware, which is a real limitation not only for people like me who own other stuff (I have Apogee gear; Ensemble and Duet). On the other hand, the cool new score editor of ProTools is not cool enough to substitute Sibelius (obvious; otherwise Avid would sell less Sibelius copies). If one needs a score from which musicians can play, one still has to finish the score in Sibelius: the ProTools score editor does not allow for dynamics, slurs, not to mention parts and other sophisticated features.

As I have argued elsewhere, the real desideratum is an integration which makes a "ping pong" editing between notation and audio production possible. This mission is not accomplished until a notation software like Sibelius can be used as external notation editor from within the audio production software. Sibelius itself has to be the tool to view and edit notation from within ProTools or Logic. If this will ever become reality with Sibelius, I am afraid, it will be done with the audio software from the same company. Maybe this will be the moment to go over to ProTools...