I told you some time not long ago about the Grammy Awards and who was the daddy there when it came to music production. Well, none other than Mr. Rick Rubin, a metal sound producer (Slayer, Danzig, System of a down and many, many more) whose expertise was solicited by artists like Justin Timberlake, Dixie Chicks and the like.

And just to prove himself worthy once more (not that this was absolutely necessary), Rick went home with some serious load of prizes he actually fully deserved.

Now, what's the secret, besides Rick's audio/sound production genius? For award-winning Dixie Chicks and Justin Timberlake, he used Sibelius. As it was the case for other artists and other tracks (which weren't that blessed as to have RR working on them - see how evil I am?) at the Oscars and Baftas, the studio work carried out with Avid's Sibelius finally paid off and they won. The Last King Of Scotland, Dreamgirls or Happy Feet, they all benefited from Sibelius' power; and man they won!

Since it became all so popular, ASK Videos has begun the distribution of the first Sibelius Tutorial DVD. With exceptional care and patience, this DVD comes in as a perfect initiation tool for those new to Sibelius and will take them from the basic installation to the unveiling of this software's powers, capabilities.

Learning notation publishing, writing, playing and printing, all is explained in thorough steps ensuring the newbie a solid Sibelius education; at the same time, the more advanced users will most likely not get bored interacting with this tutorial but will rather see it as a very handy tool in their complementary Sibelius constant training.




The users will have covered numerous fields ranging from installation on a Mac or PC, recommended equipment, audio & MIDI setup routines, "getting started" hints on set-up, instruments, and menus.

Next come creating the first score, adding notes and editing: concepts like guitar tab, key and time signatures, flexi-time recording and lyrics are covered in detail for a better understanding of what music editing really means.

This level 1 DVD also describes concepts such as transposition, articulations, markers, chords, and codas so the new user gets even a musical theory basic education in order to better understand Sibelius and the way it works.

The tutorial will work on Mac and PC alike and contains 25 videos with a more than 2 span meant to have the newbies ready for the oncoming Level 2 tutorial. Sold for $55, the Sibelius Tutorial DVD Level 1 is probably the best way to start if you want to improve your music producing skills!

As a final remark, a quote from the Sibelius website: "Sibelius is one of the most innovative pieces of software I have ever used. It allows you to work the way you want to work. For me, I like to create my charts in step-time, but you can also record in real time, or from your laptop's keyboard when you're on the road.

That's the beauty of Sibelius...it doesn't limit you. I used to have to dictate every note of my charts to my arrangers. Now, I can hand them a score." - Ray Charles (1930-2004), jazz legend.