Scroll the lyric editor to the song play position when entering.

rowe2000

Problem
When adjusting the lyric appearance—such as editing line breaks and time codes—I often find myself jumping in and out of the lyrics editor. When this take place near the end of the song, it becomes frustrating to scroll all the way back down each time. When working in the middle of the song, it’s easy to accidentally scroll to and edit the wrong chorus when there are several verse–chorus repetitions.

Suggestion
Have the lyrics editor automatically scroll to the current play position when it is opened.

Implementation
Maybe scroll to lyric view scroll position (the view you see when you actually play the song) if it is not in sync with play position.
Also make use use the setting "Highlight position" in the lyric editor.

Damir

rowe2000 This has been requested many times even in ST3 , apparently it can’t be technically achieved, we have a great colour segmented waveform that helps to get to our audio parts easily then you need to compare the time to get you to the correct text area, my suggestion was to swap the time display with the play button so at least you have the time in line with time codes above so your eyes don’t have to move all the way to bottom right then to the left somewhere on screen , at least both needed times would be in line , also the play button would be much closer to the time code entry for easy start /time code entry for those quick changes.
And to fix the problem of accidentally hitting the Midi button which occurs regularly when entering chords I would separate the two buttons by the time display to avoid this.
This kills 3 birds with one stone

Anyway after a while you get use to it, and it gets easier it’s not ideal but it works.

peter

The lyrics editor does not parse your lyrics semantically. It only parses them to the degree necessary to allow syntax highlighting. But it has no knowledge about which part of the text corresponds to which time code. So this is not possible to implement.

rowe2000

Ok 😔 I see!
Thanks @Damir but we don’t use audio..!

Damir

rowe2000 Thanks @Damir but we don’t use audio..!

The advantage of using an audio track even if you don’t use audio is you can segment the audio file which gives you a great simple way to jump around the text of your song just by a simple touch of a segment either by finger or foot pedal , the audio is just like a template you cuse to segment your song.
On stage you simply choose which part of a song you need to see, or you can run the audio and the text will scroll automatically but you now have option to go back to any part of the song you need very simply, yes it’s a bit more work to enter the audio that could be a crappy recording on the acoustic but well worth it in the long run, just remember not to use the crappy recording .

AnthonyB

rowe2000 Ok 😔 I see!
Thanks @Damir but we don’t use audio..!

Could you expand on how you are using ST?

I'm making an assumption you use ST as 'lyrics only' but you have tempo and duration correctly defined, and timestamps for lyric highlighting..

How are you/the band (sorry, don't know your setup) then staying in time? Are you running metronome, external click track?

Reason I ask, is that depending on the above answer, following on from @Damir suggestion, you could use ST for an audio click track and that then gives you and audio track to apply regions to, just so you have the visual cues. or you could just add the original song (e.g. an MP3/AAC stereo file) as a guide track to base segments on. That latter one very much depends on whether you are performing songs in original tempo and structure, otherwise you then have to weigh up the work to tempo change, slice and dice, an MP3 to match your performance 'version' just so you have an audio file to make Regions on.

rowe2000

Thanks @AnthonyB for asking!

We’re a 5‑piece party band: drums, bass, guitar, keys, and acoustic guitar — and three of us sing lead.

To be honest, we’re not using ST at the moment, but we’re struggling a bit with SongbookPro.
We tried ST3 earlier, but the deal‑breaker was that all three singers need to be able to edit lyrics and setlists.

I’ve been running ST3 in parallel just to access the MIDI tags for my keyboard patches, lights, and X32 FX, but keeping two systems in sync is a pain.

We use the metronome for the starting tempo.
I always set up a roughly correct song length and we try to stick to it, but feel and flow take priority — so sometimes we drift in tempo or pause to interact with the audience.

On stage I use an iPad for lyrics and MacBook for synth plugins, off-stage iPhone for setlist edits inbetween the sets and private on-the-go-rehearsing at home etc.

We don’t use backing tracks right now — and maybe never will — but we’re experimenting a bit.

I did try adding original artist audio tracks for rehearsals, and that turned out to be really useful, especially with pitch and tempo shifting.

In SongbookPro we’ve been using the weblink field to store Spotify URLs, which is also handy for rehearsing. SBP also has great integration with Ultimate Guitar for downloading lyrics, which we’ve found very useful for requests or quick tryouts.

In general, I consider ST very well designed, well implemented, and very well supported.
Huge thanks to @peter and this forum for that.

Though I do feel it’s a bit more geared toward “lyrics with backing tracks” than strictly “lyrics only.” For example, Regions can’t be used with lyrics‑only workflow, and manual scrolling detaches from the timeline instead of moving the song position pointer — which is less ideal when you’re not running tracks.

But our plan now is to get ST4 up and running (once released), since the network session remote start, MIDI tags, and time‑coded scrolling could help us a lot. The downside is losing the ability for everyone to edit and the scrolling detach.

Still, I find it the most stable and usable lyrics viewer out there.

And if ST4 works well for us, I’m planning to use it with my two other bands as well.

Damir

rowe2000
It sounds like you know your stuff and have definitely picked the right tool for your job.
If i was in your shoes, this is how i would do it.
Use ST as intended, load an original song or your own quick recording of your band, iphone record it not worying about quality or mistakes just a single run through to get your timing length and a rough layout of your song.
Use this as your background template that does nothing more than control your devices and displays correct lyrics .
By Audio segmenting this to a point where you can easily jump to any part of your song while performing by either using stop start to auto scroll or simply by stop pause to stop auto scroll and jump to any part of your needed lyrics. You can colour code your lyrics to 3 colours so every member immediately knows their part to sing lead vocals.
Having an original song as a template is helpful at rehearsals as you can use the audio as well to refresh band members memmory of how the song goes.
Midi control insert any changes you need at the correct times and using audio segments will automatically trigger midi , the options are all there for you to set it up exactly how you want.
Have a folder for each Band you play with, share tis with you band mates for them to arrange song order then load in the final outcome when performing , there are so many ways ST can help, yust play around with it and ideas will pop up.
The one thing i would like to see that changing tempo is not destructive , so if you fiddle with it while performing the default is always remembered , in your case especially as you want to run free and not be affected in any way on the next gig.
Love to see that someone is thinking outside the box like your setup it must be a lot of fun performing the way you do as a solo performer i miss that greatly.
Lots of other little benefits i have not mentioned but you get the drift.
I agree that lyrics only users have been niglected a bit but thats because midi and cloud sync and other things are a lot more complicated to achieve and need more time, i am assuming midi is working and cloud sync, as i have not been testing them.
I wish i had this tool when i had my band.
Good luck with it all.

rowe2000

Thanks, @Damir, for your response.

I’ve also realized that the original artist track can act as a track for regions — I need to spend time creating it and setting it up in ST4, along with the regions, and it’s a bit time‑consuming…

By “only lyrics”, I mean just that "finger scrolling detaches timeline" and the "regions need audio".

To all of you, I hope it was clear in my last post that I’m really happy with how ST4 is turning out, as well as with the support from this forum and its creator. With the new functions, I’m hoping I can finally convince my Android bandmates…