Hints * Listen to Sibelius’s countdown beats, and start in time with them! If you start too soon, or at a different tempo from the countdown, Sibelius will not understand what you’re up to. * If you have difficulty recording two staves of music at once, try recording them one at a time. * Play legato (smoothly). * If you want music to be notated with staccatos, make sure the Staccato option is switched on in Notes > Flexi-Time Options. If this option is switched off then playing staccato will produce short note values with rests. * People are often sloppy about placing notes simultaneously when playing a chord. If you spread chords significantly, Sibelius will write out what you played literally rather than (say) adding a vertical wiggly line. * Sibelius can pick up changes of tempo extremely quickly – one beat faster than a human can, in fact! However, if you make too violent a change of tempo Sibelius won’t understand what you mean. So avoid making sudden tempo changes during recording. If Sibelius’s beat gets out with you as you’re playing, stop and go back to the point where it got out. If you just blunder on regardless, Sibelius may well get back in time again, but correcting the rhythm will take far longer than just playing it in again. * If you find that Flexi-time produces complicated notation and you want to simplify it, try the plug-ins in the Plug-ins > Simplify Notation folder, especially Renotate Performance – see 5.11 Plug-ins. Inputting into two instruments You can input into two staves of different instruments if you like – such as Flute and Bassoon – so long as they’re adjacent (and there are no staves in between that have merely been hidden from the system in question). Just like inputting into a piano, click the upper staff, then Shift-click the lower staff so both are selected, and start recording as normal. Recording other MIDI data When recording via Flexi-time, Sibelius records MIDI controller data along with the notes. For example, if you use a sustain pedal when inputting via Flexi-time, Sibelius will notate the appropriate MIDI messages and automatically hide them in the score. Other MIDI controller data that can be recorded include pitch bend, modulation, volume, etc. If you would prefer these MIDI messages not to be recorded when using Flexi-time input, switch off the appropriate options on the Notation page of the Notes > Flexi-time Options dialog On the Flexi-time tab * Internal MIDI time stamps: if you have a computer with dual processors or a hyper-threading processor, you may find that the rhythm of the notated music becomes increasingly inaccurate as recording continues. If you encounter this problem, switch on this option (Windows only). Our recommended Flexi-time options are the default values, as follows: Adjust rhythms on, Minimum note value sixteenth-note (semiquaver), Flexibility of tempo set to Low, Staccato and Tenuto on with thresholds of 35% and 110% respectively. For tuplets, set 3 to Simple or Moderate, maybe 6 as well, and the others to None unless you’re into playing things like septuplets.