Sibelius edition.

What Cantai does

Cantai reads your score (notes, lyrics, dynamics, tempo, expression markings) and generates a realistic sung vocal performance. It works inside Sibelius as a playback device, so your vocal parts play back through Cantai automatically alongside the rest of your ensemble.

System requirements

• Sibelius 2026.6 or later
• macOS: Apple Silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 14 Sonoma or later; Intel on macOS 13.4 Ventura or later (renders on the CPU, slower than Apple Silicon)
• Windows: Windows 10 (2020 update) or later, x86-64 processor
• 8 GB of RAM minimum, 16 GB recommended · 4 GB of free disk space

The full list, and what happens on a computer that doesn't qualify, is on System requirements.

Installation & activation

1. Create a free account at cantai.app (or log in if you already have one).
2. Go to Downloads and download the installer for your OS, then run it.
3. Launch Sibelius. Cantai will appear as an available playback device.
4. Open the account menu (top right of cantai.app) and choose Profile to find your Account Token.
5. Activate by pasting your Account Token from your Profile into the Cantai interface and clicking Activate.

Setting up a vocal part

1. Add lyrics to your score

Select the first note in your vocal part and press Cmd+L (macOS) or Ctrl+L (Windows) to begin entering lyrics. Type your lyrics, pressing Space to advance after a complete word, or - (hyphen) to advance after each syllable of a multi-syllable word.

2. Load & activate Cantai in Playback Devices

Open Play > Setup > Playback Devices. In the Active Devices tab, find Cantai in the Available devices column, select it, and click Activate >> to move it into the Active devices list. Add one Cantai instance per vocal staff you want Cantai to sing; each can sit alongside other devices such as NotePerformer.

3. Assign each instance to a staff in the Mixer

Open the Mixer (M). On each vocal staff's strip, open the input-device dropdown and select the Cantai instance you want that staff to play through.

4. Choose a voice

On the staff's Cantai strip in the Mixer, open the program dropdown and follow Cantai → Voice, then pick a category (Female, Male or Ensemble) and choose the singer. The Ensemble category contains the choral voices (choir female and choir male).

5. Press Play

That's it. Whenever you change anything that affects a vocal part (notes, lyrics, dynamics, tempo or expression), Cantai automatically re-renders just the affected segments. No manual refresh needed.

Cantai settings

You only need the Cantai interface for occasional adjustments: changing the number of choral voices, resetting an instance, clearing the cache, or reporting a bug. To open it, click the gear icon on the staff's strip in the Mixer. The interface shows the active voice and the detected part (e.g. Soprano).

Open the … menu in the top-right to adjust instance settings: choir section count (3–10 voices per part for choral voices), Clear Cache, Reset Instance Settings, and Diagnostic logs export.

Choral voices

Cantai includes two dedicated choir voices, Choir — Female and Choir — Male, which render a full choral section rather than a single singer. To set the number of voices per part (3–10), open the … menu in the Cantai interface and adjust the choir section count.

The … menu also provides Clear Cache and Reset Instance Settings if you need to troubleshoot or start fresh.

Languages

Cantai sings English, Latin and Spanish, with more languages coming in later updates.

Choose the language in the Cantai plugin; it isn't detected from your lyrics, and it applies to every Cantai voice in the project. Spell your lyrics correctly: Cantai's phoneme engine derives pronunciation directly from the text.

Dynamics & expression

You don't need to draw any MIDI automation. Write your score the way you would for human performers, and Cantai interprets it.

Dynamic markings     p, mp, mf, f, ff, etc.
Hairpins             crescendo, decrescendo
Tempo markings       Allegro, Andante, ritardando, etc.

Tips for best results

• Write singable lines: Cantai performs best on parts a real singer could manage.
• Avoid extremely fast melismatic passages on unstressed syllables.
• Hyphenate multi-syllable words so each syllable aligns to its note. Cantai reads Sibelius's lyric hyphens to map phonemes correctly; while entering lyrics, press - after each syllable to advance to the next note. For example: beau- ti- ful · hal- le- lu- jah · a- maz- ing
• If a word sounds unexpected, check the spelling: misspelled lyrics produce incorrect phonemes.

Exporting audio

1. Choose File > Export > Audio.
2. Select the output folder and the staves you want to include.
3. Choose your format: WAV for highest quality, MP3 for a smaller file.
4. Click Export.

Cantai audio exports at full quality: the same engine used for playback renders the final file.

Known issues

If a voice isn't rendering, or its slot shows a cross (×) instead of the singer's photo in the Cantai window, open the affected Cantai interface and change the voice again from the Sibelius mixer. The voice will then load and render normally. We're working to fix this as soon as possible.

Reporting issues

If something isn't working, reach us through the Help chat button in the bottom-right corner of any page on cantai.app. Please include your diagnostic logs so we can investigate.

To generate them, open the … menu in the Cantai interface and, under Support, click Export logs…

Cantai saves a single timestamped zip archive (e.g. cantai-logs-2026-06-04-085622.zip). Drag that file into the Help chat window.

Licensing

One license covers Dorico and Sibelius: $9.99 a month, or $299 for a lifetime license with free updates. The free trial is the full plugin, up to 30 seconds of audio.

View pricing

Cantai is made by Turing Opera Workshop. We build tools for composers who take vocal writing seriously.