Hi Peter, i woke up this morning with some ideas regarding Lyrics Editor workflow improvements, to speed up the editing process when using synced lyrics with chords.
I dont like how it works at the moment as it makes us work hard to achieve a good end result, and i think it could be much faster to complete a song.
At the moment you have one screen doing all three things at the same time LYRICS,CHORDS,TIMECODE, and its awkward , i would separate this in to two separate functions.
LYRICS/CHORDS EDIT
TIMECODE EDIT
This could be a simple button selection on the top of editor screen, default to be Lyrics / Chords , so when you enter this page first thing is you can enter or load your lyrics you can also enter your in line chords if you want, in this mode the timecode button is not available on screen, once you have created your lyrics you choose the TIMECODE EDIT function, this shows the timecode button and now you can enter your timecode, the difference between this and the other is you cant do anything to the lyrics /chords in this screen it is purely a timecode editor only , as you play your song and enter the timecode as before the lyrics lines jump as you enter the timecodes but if you make a mistake you can simply single touch a timecode which allows you to re enter the time manually or if you long press on this timecode it highlights it NOW YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS if you drag your finger up or down it also selects other neighbouring timecodes , if now you release the selection you get a pop up delete menu so you can either quickly delete one or multiple timecodes , the lyrics and chords are not effected as you are in timecode edit mode, this applies in reverse, you can not manipulate timecodes if you are in the edit lyrics/chords mode.
If you enter timecodes without any lyrics then try and place lyrics in to the song you need to select the apropriate timecode line and then type your lyrics , if the lyrics are long they will drop down the timecode thats below, it will not allow you to enter to next timecode unless you press that line that contains the new timecode , if you import your whole lyrics and you have timecodes present the whole song will import to the first timecode line and you will have to cut and paste all lines to appropriate timecodes.
If you have created audio segments , the beginning timecode of every segment would be presented to you automatically in the timecode edit mode this will be labeled to the audio segments name and a timecode will also be present , you can simply import the lyrics cut and paste the appropriate lyrics to these timecodes ie. If you have created audio segments, verse 1, chorus 1, solo , verse 2, chorus 2, you simply import the lyrics , the appropriate timecodes are already present to you in the lyrics editor and are displayed but not active as you are in lyrics/chords mode , the lyrics are all imported to the first timecode line, which in this case would be VERSE 1, now all you do is cut and paste all other lyrics like chorus 2 and paste the lyrics to the chorus 2 timecode which is coloured the same as the audio segment colour you have chosen , then you cut and paste the other two VERSE 2 , CHORUS 2 and do the same.
So now with minimal work you have put in by creating audio segments has also created timecodes for you to place the correct lyrics , this would save lots of time and give you basic auto sync lyrics , now you can switch to edit timecode mode and sync every line if you want , so you have two options a hit on the audio segment button gets you to the apropriate lyrics for the whole region, and a bit more effort you can now easily line sync all the lyrics if you wish.
When you choose TIMECODE EDIT, and you want to correct a single or multiple timecodes , you single touch a timecode this highlights it now you can enter the new numbers, or long press on this timecode then release opens a delete window , if you long press and drag your finger to other timecodes they also highligh and when you release the finger a delete option window opens and all selected timecodes will be gone.
This creates a very quick method of editing timecodes.
Once you leave TIMECODE EDIT the lyrics/chords EDIT mode screen becomes brighter and the timecodes go dim but are still there so you can cut and paste your lyrics/chords to the apropriate timecodes.
The idea then is, you can select all and export lyrics only , lyrics and chords in line or on top of line option,lyrics, chords & timecode, or Timecodes only.
This then creates great options to use the exported data to create other song compilations.
I have run out of time but have more ideas to come .
The basic idea is to give us quick editing capability and get rid of the clumsy time consuming method of creating synced lyrics/chords.
Here is another idea, give us a simple way to record a single stereo track to use as our guide track for lyrics only mode, why? Because a shitty simple audio track which will never be used can be used by audio segmenting ,creating rough audio segments, name and colour them , import all the lyrics to the lyrics editor , cut and paste all text required, paste in front of apropriate automatically created timecodes that were created by the audio editor process, and now you have very accurate control of your lyrics, your shitty recording is not heard but used as a guide and you can hit any loop to get to any part of the lyrics you need, basically the same idea applies if you use audio backing all you are doing is importing high quality audio for backing through PA.
This is very simple yet very powerfull if you need lyrics/chords only or backing as well, the idea is to make it fast to create, simple ipad microphone can capture your guide track recording which will not be used for anything but creating reliable audio segment loops which will pritty accurately scroll your lyrics for you and if you want to jump around your song you can simply do that by selecting loops you need if you stop and addlib you can quickly choose which lyrics you jump to by using loop buttons and if you hit start you will get an accurate scroll to the end of your song, so basically LYRICS ONLY OR BACKING TRACKS ENDS UP GIVING YOU SAME CONTROL OVER LYRICS.
You can speed up or down the scroll of lyrics by using the speed control and set a tempo so you can also use the visual metronome to keep you in reasonable time.
This then is a very powerful tool for lyrics only users as well as backing tracks users and the process is identical, the difference is one system uses pre made high guality backing the other a very basic built in microphone to create the basic song which is better than a bank time which makes it hard to create audio segments of the song you are working on, a quick recording gives you an overall time it gives you information when to create an audio segment which automatically gives you a timecode to simply paste the lyrics in to, and it gives you song speed so you can enter a basic TEMPO , plus it gives you other features like, you can use this crappy recording to figure out your chords and positioning of the chords within the song.
What we have now for LYRICS OONLY tracks is absolutely limited in features on stage as well as editing process.
Gotta go!
Cheers Damir
