DickyDutch I am so glad you understood what i was suggesting as i know exactly how you feel about ST3 we all love it but we all feel with a bit of thought it could do so much more that is needed.
The idea of it being able to load in a text file and attach a length of time at a standard 120 tempo to it would be ideal and super fast,
Imagine this.
Simply load all your song text files in to ST3 folder.
Go in to SONG and all text files are present just like songs, you pick one it opens in lyrics view , enter the editor where there is a length of time setting so you just make a time setting you want the song to go for like 3min and presto you are done it will automatically scroll through the song.
Done and dusted
Another option, synced lyrics.
you pick up the guitar and have a foot pedal so you can enter timecode by foot, start performing with your guitar as your normally would as the intro finishes you just hit foot pedal to enter the first time code to sync the first line of your lyrics and you do this to the end of the song.
You are done, so next time you perform all you do is hit start as you begin the first lyric line the rest will just automatically highlight the lines you previously time stamped
And to speed up the scroll just increase you tempo to slow down the scroll slow down the tempo.
It would definitely be the simplest program to use with great on stage results, existing users of ST3 would not notice any difference , no need to involve other complicated software, it just makes perfect sense.
Re Drum machine- i am not suggesting to have a dum machine type of interface, i am just saying if you could load in a pre recorded drum song that had all your song elements in it, then segment that audio file in to loop type pieces and ability to jump around these pieces of loops with a foot pedal would be a very simple method of having a drummer backing that would be flexible to create any song in that drum style.
Example, load in a Drum song , it only consists of drums but is exactly like a normal audio backing track, the only difference would be you could program an - into, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, bridge 2, verse 2, bridge3, chorus 2, Ending.
You would have full control of the drummer in a simple operating method, as you jump around these loops as needed, imagine how simple it would be to create this powerful feature as you could use this same drums for many different songs , you could copy the song change the tempo and call it another song, or just hit play and in real time decrease the tempo to suit your current song, and if you want you could attach lyrics to the different loops so if you jump from bridge 3 to verse 1 you immediately get the correct lyrics, it would be so easy to be very flexible in performance.
This same principle to be available in normal backing tracks as there is no difference in the principle its just up to you what you choose to use as backing.
You could record piano only and use that as your bed, the possabilyties are endless.
peter