Ive been doing it with a colleague for 30 years now. Im not a real pianist, but I play piano. My colleague is a concert pianist. We both had sibelius, and collaborated on loads of projects. Some scores would read perfectly, and each version of sibelius got better and better, but the killer is editing. Sibelius is not a DAW, even though the current versions are much more capable. Editing wrong notes the recognition missed is not an easy or quick task, so often we would export from sileblius, onto cubase’s score editor, that is actually quite good, and I’d sit there for ages putting them right, and then that would go back 8nto sibelius where he would make cubase’s correct notes look right, which cubase never quite managed, ready for printing or slapping onto pads. Properly engraved scores, and the common piano, melody and chord ones, often misread badly, because the way they look good and make sense, seems to be alien to the software. Little treble clef sections in the bass part, or written comments like “Play as triplets” often confuse, and slurs and ties in multi note parts get mangled. Its often common for the note positions to be stretched apart a bit to give clarity to complicated bits, and sibelius often puts them in wrong place in time. My colleague is now blisteringly fast in sibelius, so he can play in and edit his own reading quicker than scanning and lots of editing. I now dont use sibelius at all, he sends me cubase files or occasionally midi files for my bit. I have not even used cubase 13’s scoring apart from just displaying the cubase midi data, which ive got ok with reading ‘raw’.
When i need a score inputting to cubase for me, its easier by far to email the music to my colleague, and get a cubase file back in a couple of hours, done. Costs me a drink at some point. If i scan it and edit it, the time involved is huge by comparison.
