New in Symphony Pro

Version 5 brought professional sound quality, PDF vector support, Handwriting Recognition, and made SP available on iPhone as a univeral app.

Version 6 brings an even more intuitive & customizable interface, customizable score layout, new & improved gestures, free-hand annotations, as well as important bug fixes and usability improvements, that together make SP more reliable than ever before. Now available on macOS, starting with the latest (Apple M1) generation of macOS devices. Click here for a basic summary of Version 6.

Handwriting with Apple Pencil

Swift & seamless with Apple Pencil to write or edit, and now supports touch and capacitive stylus. As the only paid feature in Symphony Pro, the upgrade is a one-time purchase with free updates in the future.

Instantly convert pen strokes into all fundamental note objects, including stems, rests, beams, ties, and augmentation dots
Lasso selection of notes and other musical elements
Common articulations and phrase marks
Tuplets and meter changes
Edit using any of the existing touch-based interactions & gestures with the feature enabled

Playback & MIDI

Professionally sound-designed replacements to 36 of the orchestral, wind, and drum set instruments, as well as the piano
Bluetooth MIDI devices can now be connected with the app by navigating to Playback Options > MIDI / Recording Options > MIDI Connections > Bluetooth Setup
When starting playback mid-score, preceding score dynamics & tempo changes (i.e. crescendi, metronome marks) are now pre-simulated, meaning the performance is always consistent no matter where you begin playback

Tap any location on score to reposition playback cursor in real-time
MIDI Import Options: dialog to customize how to interpret a MIDI file into notation. (Appears at start of import process)
- Note values imported correctly
- All instrument channels imported correctly
Improved expression playback, including tremolo, trill, glissando, crescendo, and more

Score layout & Notation

View & edit the with infinite vertical scrolling. To enable, go under Score Menu > Score View Mode
Use the Select Special dialog to filter desired dynamics/articulations or chord symbols/text elements within a Region Selection (illustrated)
Edit the typeface/font of chord symbols and lyrics by selecting either element, then choosing the ‘Font’ or ‘Typeface’ menu item
Customize vertical and horizontal page margins by going to Score > Display Settings > Page Sizes > Margins
Staff Side Panel can now be found in any of the three Score View Modes

More Features

Gesture Shortcuts for Touch & Apple Pencil

If the Apple Pencil is your input device, SP now takes advantage of its improved precision across existing touch-based editing commands
Two-finger swipe left or right anywhere to undo or redo respectively
Two-finger swipe up or down to toggle between Pencil and Select mode

Score Symbols

Favorited Score Symbols allows you to include expressions of your choice under the new Favorites category for quicker access to commonly used articulations, dynamics, expressions, and text elements
Anchor text boxes at the top of the staff: simply select the element and choose Make System Text

Qwerty Keyboard Shortcuts & Accessibility

Use the new search bar in Shortcut List (Option+K) to filter commands by keyword
New shortcut commands:
- Command-Shift-G to jump to a specific bar number
- Extend selection by entire measure: default combination Cmd-Shift + Left or Right arrow
- Move to next or previous highlighted note using Option + Left or Right arrow

Configure Meter & Customize Beam Groups

Symphony Pro now allows you to define how beams are grouped by default by specifying a custom meter. First open the Measure Dialog, the navigate to Time/Key > Configure Meter: read more under the Full Release Notes link below.

Part Management

When exporting to PDF/AirPrint, an ‘All Parts’ option allows you to include each instrument as a separate score within the same PDF
Part names/labels, Score Title/Composer, and Subtitle are customizable in font/color by going to Score Menu > Display Settings > Part Labels
Create a new movement by choosing an ending bar-line under Measure Dialog > Bars

iPhone Universal app

As of the official launch of SP5, both existing & new customers who’ve purchased Symphony Pro are able to download SP for free for their iPhone
View, edit, and playback SP projects just as you would on iPad
Intuitively designed interface for the smaller touch screen
Import & Export in all of the supported formats, including SYM, MIDI, PDF, and MusicXML

Drum Set Notation

Intuitive access to all percussion samples, which also provides a customizable interface:
- Use the MIDI map to automatically create MIDI key bindings that align intuitively with the layout of your customized Drum Kit layout
- HUD displays staff positions of each mapped drum sample if entering notes with On-Screen piano

Tablature

Notation to Tab conversion when copying & pasting: See the full release notes for details
Guitar tabs now support customizable numbers of strings. To edit this track property for a tablature staff, go to Instruments > Instrument Properties > Tuning / # of Strings

View Full Release Notes

Read about earlier features offered free out-of-the-box.

In Version 5, Handwriting is the only In-App Purchase to enable the complete app, and we're offering the Version 4 Complete Features Bundle as a free IAP.

New in Version 4

New in Version 3

Symphony Pro: now available on iPhone and macOS with Apple Silicon

Symphony Pro is a universal app. Owners of Symphony Pro can download SP on iPhone free of charge by visiting Symphony Pro on the App Store from iPhone. Supports all of the editing, playback, and viewing capabilities of Symphony Pro on iPad and iPad Pro.

For a simpler scoring and playback app for iPhone only, visit symphonypro.net/iphone or the App Store page for more details.