I haven't installed sibelius yet since reinstalling Windows XP, so I can't directly test this. I was wondering if I could get a definitive answer here.
I'm going to be using Sibelius with Garritan Personal Orchestra and also a relatively expensive Kontakt-based sample library called XSamples Chamber Orchestra. I know that Sibelius can be programmed to use the proper keyswitches and controllers for both of these sample libraries.
My question is: can you export a MIDI file that uses exactly those keyswitches and controller values? I could play this later through Kontakt or Aria, but what I would really like to do is edit/modify the MIDI data. I would just like the basic MIDI data to properly represent the keyswitches/controllers so that I can make sense of it.
I'm concerned that the MIDI export function would use General Midi only, which isn't really as rich or specific as Kontakt/Aria.
One distinction between GM and Kontakt/Aria is that GM selects instruments through the MIDI "program change" controller, while Kontakt/Aria assign different MIDI channels to different instruments with the addition of keyswitches to get additional instrument/timbre/articulation.