Inline chords

MasterAnt

Is there an option to show chords (in a different color to the lyrics) inline, not above? I know it took a lot of work getting them above the lyrics, but I prefer them where I put them on the same line.

Damir

MasterAnt Hi Master Ant, i might be wrong but i think your reguest is going to be technically impossible because the chords will not be distinguishable between lyrics or chords.
The reason it works now is no unusual letters are allowed to distinguish chords from lyrics, as soon as you type in a letter like z in the chords line it treats it like a lyrics line, so i dont think your reguest is going to be easily implemented, but i will let Peter confirm as he is the genious in the proraming department.

MasterAnt

Are you inputting chords the same way I am?

When using this format:

[00:07.98] [Em] How can I just let you [Dmaj7] walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you [G] leave without a [Am7] trace,

chords then magically appear above the lyric in ST3 because they are within square brackets, I presume.

Instead of going with square brackets, I'm using parentheses because I want them on the same line:

[00:07.98] (Em) How can I just let you (Dmaj7) walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you (G) leave without a (Am7) trace,

One of the reasons I prefer them on the same line is because ST3 in December wouldn't get the alignment correct when the lyric wrapped around to the next line. I did read something about that being fixed in a recent update? But also I find it more compact. The only thing I'm asking is that if it detects the chord in its square bracket, that the color be changed...

peter

Well, it is possible doing it manually but it requires lots of editing:

You could use the color tag. So you would write your example like this:

[00:07.98] {c:green}(Em){c} How can I just let you {c:green}(Dmaj7){c} walk away

The placement of chords for lines with a line break has been fixed in version 3.5.

MasterAnt

peter I didn't know that color-tagging was possible, although because I haven't needed to edit lyrics in the program, I didn't read up much about this in the manual.

My old system running through FZLyrics/Winamp uses timetags in a slightly different format. To change the format, I wrote a program to convert them in a batch. The utility also has a few other cool tricks such as adjusting timetags for tempo changes, shifting them for intro changes, and inserting the lyrics into MP3 or M4A files to use in Stage Traxx 3, etc. (I'm not trying to promote my utility btw; it's just for my own use.) Adding those color tags to all the songs would be quite easy actually... It's more the fear of having to replace all the files in the Stage Traxx folder that scares me (haha). Then there's also the issue that these pseudo chords aren't transposable,,,

Damir I'm so accustomed to reading chords inline that I see right through them when following the lyrics. That being said, none of my lines are too long on iPad, so I might give the "proper" method another shot. It was more that when I was first figuring things out in November, and working out my system going forward that I encountered the weird behavior of alignment on my iphone that I decided to stick to having them inline to avoid problems. With the alignment issues apparently sorted, I'm going to give this method another try.

Damir

@"MasterAnt"#p6462i input my chords above the lyrics as they will be displayed when performing, i use chords above because a tidy lyrics line is easier to read and my brain requires lyrics more than chords, i seem to be able to remember or perhaps i should say feel the chords structure easily no matter what song unless it gets really complicated then a quick check of the chords above just gives me a prompt those awkward chord moments, having clear lyrics is more important to me, specialy if you are doing a song with lots of lyrics and chords, it becomes a dogs breakfast if everything is on one line , two lines share the load at those important moments , and if the chords become too bussy even with two lines i tend to shed some not soimportant chords to simplify things.
To eliminate wrapping chords if i enlarge my text i tend to create more lyric lines and place chords above the lyrics this allows me to have much larger lyrics but there are more lines involved.
Not many of my songs have long line lyrics and if they do i create two lines to compensate this allows me to enlarge the lyrics and the chords stay on the same line.

Damir

MasterAnt i agree with you the chords above the lyrics are not the friendliest to create or use if you go outside certain parameters.
You cant afford to zoom in to the point where the end word wraps around to the next line as the chords dont do the same and you create the problem of missalignment.
I set all my lyrics to be maximum size of 50 , and any other lyrics that have more words i shrink the text till all the lines text is on the one line sometimes my lyrics shrink to size 40.
This i know is a pain and what should happen both the lyrics and chords should wrap around to the next two lines to make it user friendly. But this might be too hard to do.
So in the meantime all you have to do to fix your example 1 problem is shrink the lyrics till all you line text is on its line, this will sync up the chords to where they should be.
If you want really large lyrics just create more lines and place the chords above where needed then you can make your text much larger without upsetting the chords above.
I know it is not a great way to operate but once you get use to the limitations it works.
I agree using inline chords it would be really great if you could just have colour on the chords to make them a little more distinguishable from the lyrics and its a pitty you cant pitch shift the chords in that method.

MasterAnt

This is why I thought inline chords would be better. The second one is much tidier. And the Am7 is in the wrong place in image #1. I took the screenshot right now with the latest version...

peter

MasterAnt Are these screenshots on version 3.5.2? I ask because this incorrect line break behavior should have been fixed in version 3.5.0.

MasterAnt

Damir I could fiddle around with the lyric settings for each song, but it will just take a lot of time. The problem is that I use my old iPad Air 2 for backtracks with the iPhone mainly used as a backup. Everything fits fine on iPad without any text wrapping so normally with chords above it will work. The other day I had to use my iPhone when doing a demo gig. I mostly turned it to landscape to get things to fit, in which case there isn't room for much more than one or two lines of lyrics if the chords are above, but with just keeping chords inline with lyrics I don't have to worry about possible problems, and I can see a lot more lines in the limited space. In the case of the screenshot, it didn't even occur to me that the (Am7) was in the wrong place until I had already posted it—that could happen at a gig!! Rather not take the chance.

MasterAnt

peter 3.5.2 (7522) on iPhone 8 iOS 15.3

Here's my lyric data for you to simulate:

[00:01.00]Against All Odds - Phil Collins (1984)

[00:03.77]INTRO [Am7]--------[D]--------[Am7]--------[D]

VERSE 1
[00:07.98][Em] How can I just let you [Dmaj7] walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you [G] leave without a [Am7] trace,
[00:15.59]When I [C] stand here taking [D] every breath
[00:20.05]with [Bm] you, ooh [Em].
[00:23.75]You're the [Am] only one
[00:26.35]who really knew me at [D] all.

peter

MasterAnt Thanks, your problem lies in the whitespace characters after each chord. Each inline chord is attached to the next character following that chord. In your example it is always a whitespace. Whitespaces are also used to create line breaks. So your lyrics will break over to the new line at the whitespace the chord is attached to which leads to these problems you see.

If you write it like this, the chord placement will be correct:

[00:07.98][Em]How can I just let you [Dmaj7]walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you [G]leave without a [Am7]trace,
[00:15.59]When I [C]stand here taking [D]every breath
[00:20.05]with [Bm]you, ooh[Em].
[00:23.75]You're the [Am]only one
[00:26.35]who really knew me at [D]all.

MasterAnt

peter Thanks for pointing that out.

Okay so I have correct placement as well as a comparison between the two proposed formats attached. I'd like to retain my advocation of the inline chords format as an option. and hope you'll consider it in some future update. [Probably, the inline format should show the square brackets.]

and

versus

Damir

peter hi Peter and Master Ant, i have just played around a bit again and i think there might be a simple solution to your dillemma if genius Peter can make it happen.
It would involve a selection option in settings to keep the square bracketed chords entered visualy in the same lyrics line without creating a chords line or if selected opposite to lift the chords in to the line above, if possible this would give everyone a simple toggle switch option between the two preferred options and the colour schemes would remain the same , the pitch shift remains untouched all Peter has to do is figure out how to do this seemingly simple request yet possably ridiculously complicated programming task to achieve a happy ending.
I also think if possible anything within round brackets in the chords line should be ignored by the chords line and act like a notice note.
I dont need it but it sounds like others might find it usefull. Any thoughts anyone?
The inline operation would definitely be better for small screen devices.

Damir

MasterAnt
I can certainly get use to the in line chord changes when colour is introduced, and i can see another great benefit, when entering timecode you only need to deal with one line at a time this means no need to stop to jump a lyrics line then start again to continue to enter timecode for each line in this stop start fashion, it would be much faster, as you read the lyrics the chords are smack in your face at the right time and on the same line all you have to do is adjust your brain to skip over the coloured parts where the chords are.
I will definitely try this and see if it works faster to program and easy to use.
I like the chords above, but not the way i have to edit it to achieve a good result, and then this result can be spoiled if i zoom in too much.
Thanks MasterAnt i will try your aproach and see if it works for me better.

MasterAnt

Damir Unfortunately it's painful to go with the way demonstrated while it has to be done manually, but it's worth trying out on a song to see how it feels to play along with on various devices. On an iPhone, it really makes sense. Transposing chords sadly doesn't work, and entering the colour codes would be too time-consuming unless you could do some sort of batch editing. (I can because of the program I made to keep my old and new format in sync where the lyrics are in separate files.) Sure, on a large-screened iPad having the chords above might not be as much of an issue, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who uses an iPhone at times.

I can't say I've fully decided how I'm going to go forward while functionality remains as is. In the short term, I'll probably stick to things as I have them—white chords in parentheses.

Damir

MasterAnt i can totally see your dillemma, heres an example i have created to show the two systems and the advantages and disadvantages.
Basically your in line system is easier to enter time code as you dont have to stop/start to reposition to a correct line, it is better on small screens, once you get use to it if it had colour chords that were simpler to create it would be easier to distinguish between lyrics/chords, transpose chords facility is missing, but the chords are on the same line meaning your eyes dont have to jump up to see the chords you just keep the same line of sight and filter out the colour chords and only sing the more bright white text lyrics, this has got a lot of advantages, the disadvantages it looks messy especially if no colour difference is present you have to enter brackets around the chords but you dont get any advantages for doing this, no easy colour choice, no transposition to chords, so not very practical as is.

The chords above system works well but is very time consuming to create, advantages are once you spend the time to create it, it looks neater and has colour chords with highlighted different colour for now active line chords so you can see two different colours for chords, it also pitch shifts the chords nice but not as easy as it should be.
Disadvantages are it hogs a smaller screen device , it is more awkward to enter timecode having to stop/ start all the time, it does not wrap around both lyrics and chords when zooming in to get larger font.
First example shows how bland the in line chords are.
Second example shows the chords above as it is now, if you could make both systems be simply switched between the two and all the problems were fixed it would be very usable for all.

JonathanS

I find it very annoying that some chord lines are not coloured because there is a (required) character included. I often use characters in chord lines such as ~ to signify a repeated bar or ^ to remind me that the melody line goes up… I don’t want these instructions within the lyrics because they are as relevant to the music as the chords. Even important words such as ‘hold’ or ‘sustain’ or ‘to end’ spoil the colour and these are not unreasonable commands, especially for other musicians when I’m hosting sessions. For what it’s worth all lyrics are formatted before adding, I don’t use square brackets at all as I don’t get on with them (on over 800 songs).

Damir

JonathanS hi Peter and Jonathan, perhaps to force whatever you put in to brackets on that chord line to be considered as a chord and ignored by the pitch shift.
So only proper chords get treated as normal but the (STOP) IS IGNORED BY THIS LINE,
anything in brackets can be entered but ignored by the chord line and pitch shift.
Would this work or is it asking too much of the apple man.
And is that the sort of thing most users would find a use for?
I normally just use the lyrics line and insert in brackets what i need to identify a command.
I leave the chords line alone as it doasnt like foreign matter.
Example
D E7 (STOP)
Love me tender, love me sweet (STOP)
Never let me grow

MasterAnt

Damir This is exactly what I was and am still hoping for. Just a global settings switch to toggle having the chords on the same line or above. I use regular brackets for other info too, not just chords; things such as this:

[00:07:708]Well, shake it up, baby, now, (shake it up, baby)

So I'd like these "notes" to continue to be treated just as text, and I'm happy to change all my chords to square brackets, but I'd like them shown on the same line.

JonathanS: Yup, there's more to singing than just reading lyrics: Eg.

[01:21:766]Lay down your money \and you \play /your part
[01:25:678]Everybody's got a hu-u-//ungry heart

.
.

BRIDGE
[01:22:589]Ahhhhhhhhhh (root)
[01:25:633]Ahhhhhhhhhh (third)
[01:27:804]Ahhhhhhhhhh (fifth)
[01:29:978]Ahhhhhhhhhhh (seventh)
[01:31:611] (breath) Ahhhhh Ahhhhh Woah, Yeah

😆