I tend to agree that there is a missed opportunity to on-ramp new users coming from "a stack of lyric sheets".
So, let's walk through the scenario.
Starting point - A bunch of lyrics files (.txt, .docx, whatever)
Goals:
- We want to avoid the time and effort of manually creating songs in ST one at a time.
- We want to end up with 1 song for each imported lyric file
- Ideally, we want each created song to function as lyric only, autoscroll, with no, or minimal manual intervention
So, unlike audio files that can contain metadata fields (Title, Artist, etc.) that we can use as part of the import to populate song details, 'text/document' files present a problem. text files will have no metadata. Other file formats do have metadata, but will vary by format, The bigger problem is that unlike audio files, the document files metadata fields (Title, Author, Tags, etc.) aren't geared towards music and are rarely filled in.
So if we are to create a Song in ST, worst case is that we only have the filename to work with.
Now, we've been discussing and proposing filename related import parsing forever for track naming. Still doesn't exist 🙂
But, let's say for this example we keep it simple and just use the filename for the Song title so we can at least create the song as part of the import.
Now, let's assume we then import the lyric file into the lyrics of the song.
Cool, so we now have a Song with lyrics in ST.
The Song title = the filename. Everyone will have their own standards for file naming. Song title? Artist? Key? Tempo? In what order? With what separator characters (hypen? underscore? other?).
Can I immediately go and use those songs 'as is' for just autoscroll? No.
Why? The duration is 0:00
So, no matter what way you look at this, you are going to have to go in and manually edit the Song Details.
At the absolute minimum, you need a duration (Is this maybe why ST3 used to default to 3:00 song duration for lyric only songs?)
So, you add a duration. Now you can play the song and autoscroll. Without a tempo is won't be 'as good as it could be', but it will be fine in many cases. But probably not good enough overall, across all the songs, so you have to go and perform some more work on each song.
You add a Tempo. OK, more accurate scrolling.
Now your "filename as the song title" is looking pretty confusing in Songs List so you decide to clean up song info.
You fix up Song Title.
You maybe even add in Artist and Key since you're already in there cleaning up.
Now, aside from tweaking the autoscroll speed on a case by case basis for lyric sheets that don't quite work with the default, you are pretty much up and running.
Did you save time and effort as compared to manually creating each song one at a time (new Song, enter bare minimum data, say, Title, Duration, Tempo, import lyrics, done)?
Maybe? But probably not by much.
So what would solve this problem and create an on-ramp for new ST users that just have a bunch of lyric sheets?
Well, obviously, a bulk song creation from importing lyric sheets.
And then given the aforementioned broader holy grail of import parsing of filenames for audio tracks, the same 'engine' (if built) could also facilitate this.
If you don't even need autoscrolling, then I guess it would work by just creating songs with filename -> Song Title. There, done. Song created. You can manually scroll it with your finger. Or you can do the steps above to get it to the point of autoscrolling. Or you can add audio tracks and go down that path.
If you do want to at least get to autoscrolling, then you need a song duration and that is really not going to be easy as colon character is a prohibited character in filenames. I don't think I've ever seen anyone try to put a song duration in a filename 🙂
I'm sure someone will say "well, what if there were fields in the lyric document that could be parsed during import, e.g. duration:3:26, tempo:120, key:A, etc?" But at this point, you may as well just do the work in ST rather than in the lyric files to try and prep them for import.
So, overall, I think there is a valid question mark around whether it is really worth having a bulk lyric import for creating songs.