The base key commands and principles remain the same in the new lyric editor!
We added a few new key features such as duet editing and fixed a whole lotta bugs.
The editor now runs more smoothly and looks prettier too ⭐️
The main new features added to the lyric editor 2.0:
Duet editing
Duet editing
Multi-track editing
When a song has more than one singer, we can add multiple singers / tracks to the waveform view and edit multiple lyrics at the same time.
Start
Start by writing out as much of the lyrics as possible to the transcription even if there is some overlap. You can then proceed normally to the lyric editor and add more singers for your edit there.
The active track
Click a track header to make that track active. View automatically zooms a bit closer to the active track than the rest.
The active track is the singer / track you're currently then editing.
You can also click a region in another lane to activate and switch to that lane.
The track menu (⋮)
Click the ⋮ button on a track header for:
Add empty track below — inserts a new blank track.
Duplicate this track — copies the track with all its words and timing.
Delete this track — removes the track.
Set a track's role (singer role)
A track's name is its singer role in the Singa format, so instead of typing a free-text name you pick a role from a dropdown.
Pay attention and select the correct role for the singer!
The track-header name is a dropdown offering four roles:
SOLO — a single singer.
MALE / FEMALE — the male / female part of a duet.
TOGETHER — both singers at once.
To change it, click the role dropdown on the track header and choose a role — the change applies immediately.
NOTE that the role TOGETHER is a multicolor role that should only be used when there are multiple singers singing the same thing.
Track colours
Each track has a colour swatch, assigned automatically by its position in the stack which is also the text colour of that singer in Singa player.
The top track is red, the next is blue, the next yellow, then the pattern repeats.
Move a word to another lane / singer
You can drag a region up or down into a different lane.
Drop it to move it. If the timing would clash with a word already in the target lane, the drop is rejected and the word stays put.
Dropping outside any lane cancels the move.
Aligning regions / Glue tool
Aligning regions / Glue tool
When you've selected two or more words, you can use our glue tool to "glue" the words regions seamlessly together. This only needs to be done if there are very short miniregions or very fast lines with a lot of small regions after one another.
Essentially it makes the lines color out smoother in Singa player.
A — align right: stretches each word's end forward to meet the next word's start. The last word in the selection is left untouched.
Shift + A — align left: stretches each word's start backward to meet the previous word's end. The first word in the selection is left untouched.
Undo, Redo, Save
Undo, Redo, Save
Cmd/Ctrl + Z — undo.
Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Z (or Ctrl + Y) — redo.
Click the Save button (the disk icon)
The Save button shows an accent colour blue whenever you have unsaved changes. After a successful save it returns to normal.
Note: The editor never saves on its own — your changes are only stored when you click Save.
Fly mode & Autoplay
Fly mode & Autoplay
Fly mode
The fly-mode toggle controls whether the playhead jumps to a word when you select it.
Fly mode OFF (default): selecting a word seeks the playhead to it.
Fly mode ON: the playhead stays put when you select words.
Autoplay
The autoplay toggle decides whether placing the cursor on a new place on the timeline or clicking a region automatically starts playback.
Creating a word with R while listening to playback
Creating a word with R while listening to playback
Create a word while listening on playback
Play the audio.
When the word you want starts, press and hold R. A region begins at that moment.
Its end follows the playhead, growing as the song plays.
Release R at the end of the word to commit it.
Notes: R only works while playing and only in an empty gap. Press Esc to throw the draft away.
Also the previous way of creating regions is still there:
Create a word by dragging
Hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows/Linux) and drag across empty place in the waveform view.
Release to create. If the band is shorter than the 0.1 s minimum, nothing is created.
Splitting words into syllables in editor
Splitting words into syllables in editor
Splitting a word
Splitting turns one word region into two separately timed regions.
This is used in situations where we have forgotten to hyphenate a word while making a transcription and have to divide the word into shorter and longer syllables in the editor.
Press S with the playhead inside a region:
While playing — the word will be divided by the cursor and you have to manually fix the divination of the text in the word regions.
While paused — the word editing opens and you can place the insertion point to where you want to divide the word and press enter. Now it will automatically divide the word into ready syllables with the text divided as well.
Example of pressing S while playback paused:
Word we want to divide where the cursor is:
2. After pressing S and the text divination edit opens:
3. Finding the place where I want to divide the word with the insertion point:
4. After pressing enter the region is divided where the red cursor is and word was divided where we placed the insertion point.
Find and replace
Find and replace
Find and replace
This is handy for example for removing all punctuation marks from the text if some have been accidentally left in at the transcription phase.
Click the magnifying-glass button in the transport bar to open the panel.
Type the text to find in Find, and optionally the replacement in Replace.
Click Replace All.
Close the panel with Esc, by clicking outside it, or by clicking the magnifying glass again.
Support for Furigana and right-to-left text (new feature not relevant to current freelancers)
Support for Furigana and right-to-left text (new feature not relevant to current freelancers)
Furigana (Japanese ruby text)
Write a reading in parentheses right after the base text:
静(しず). In the karaoke preview this renders as ruby — the reading appears small, above the base characters.The brackets are always treated as furigana, regardless of the song's language setting. The lyrics panel shows the raw
静(しず)form.
Right-to-left text
Click the right-to-left button (the bidirectional-arrow icon, between find and theme) to flip the reading direction of the lyrics. This affects the karaoke preview, the lyrics panel and inline editing — it does not flip the timeline, the ruler, or region labels.
For right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu and others) the editor can start in right-to-left automatically based on the song's metadata.