Kodi Community Forum

Ok so I've just seriously updated the hell out of my music collection over the last couple months.
I've updated metadata including embedded album so that everything is 100% consistent.
Size of album art, naming and folder structure, tagging... basically everything.
I've acquired (or made my own) all artwork including folder, fanart, clearart, cdart, extrafanart and have everything stored locally.
I've started uploading to fanart.tv with much more to go.

The goal of all of this is to have everything looking the way I want it to in XBMC using Aeon MQ5 with all data stored locally.

The last step is for the lyrics. This is where it kind of sucks. Although XBMC will scrape lyrics for pretty much every song I play most of them are just lyrics.
Not the LRC files with the time codes. I think it really adds a lot to have the lyrics scrolling on time with the music instead of having to do it manually.

Even with many of the LRC files that it downloads you still have crap inconsistent timing, incorrect lyrics, spelling or grammar errors etc. Many of them had Chinese subtitles accompanying the lyrics.
Some of them are done properly but most are not.... especially if you have that OCD anal retentive everything has to be perfect personality... which I think many of us here share

However creating LRC files for any large music collection will be a HUGE task for a single person.
And this is the point of this post.... to see if there is any interest in gathering our forces and making this a group project.
Done by people who care about the end result and not just some 13 year old pulling some lyrics off a site and throwing inaccurate timecodes on it.

Some guidelines I would like to see
*100% correct lyrics of course will be the biggest concern. Many of the lyrics sites out there are just not totally correct. Even if you copy word for word from the CD book you still need to follow along with the song to be sure as they do not always match up exactly.
*Correct spelling, capitalization, punctuation etc.
*Proper time codes with each new line highlighting approx 1/2-1/4 second before it is sung...some of the songs I watched the lyrics on were 2+seconds off in either direction. A few were off by much more.
*Many of the lyrics have the complete lyrics down to the oooohhhs and ahhhs or whatever other sound the singer may be making... I like that idea.
*If you are going to do any particular songs then do the entire CD.
*Naming of the files will be artist - title.lrc

Now I know that everyone has different music tastes so hopefully between all of us (if there is any interest that is) we have enough cross interest that everyone participating is helping others out with whatever they contribute.
There is software out there for this but I am just starting to play around with it so I cannot comment much on it at this time... anyone have any experience here? Suggestions?
The files are simply text files with the LRC extension so they are incredibly small so online storage of the project will not be an issue.

Like I said this wont be a quick task... If you are working on a cd you may find some of the LRC files already done to satisfaction but If you have to do an entire cd then you are looking at probably 60-90 minutes each minimum. After you acquire the lyrics you will have to listen to each song all the way through hitting a key to mark the timecodes as well as checking for accuracy and spell checking.

We will have to get lists of music that we are going to do and what everyone is willing to do... obviously people will only be able to do music they have and will be more inclined to work on their favorite bands. One thing we don't want is two people wasting time on the same CD.

Anyway before I go any further I'll see if there is any interest first and then proceed from there.

In the meantime let me know if you are interested and if you have any other comments or suggestions on how to proceed.

I'm going to post this on the avsforum as well. I am 'lordhutt' over there.

Have you found anyone to help you with this project? I don't like seeing incorrect lyrics, so this project sounds great. I'd be interested to know what kind of music you listen to.

Actually no, and as I've mentioned I posted this in the AVS forum as well. I was kind of shocked at the lack of response... even though I didn't expect it to be overwhelming I thought there would be some.

Anyway as for your question... here is a listing of the bulk of my artists
Note that probably about 50 of these are artists that are 'one hit wonders'... I'll may only have or be interested one or a handful of their songs.
Some of these are comedy albums and some are audio books (tolkien mainly)
There is a lot of classical as well so no lyrics there.
I can get more detailed or list the complete albums instead of just the artists later.

Check it out and let me know what you think as well as your music interests as well.

3 Doors Down\
311\
AC-DC\
Adam Sandler\
Aerosmith\
Alanis Morissette\
Alice in Chains\
Amy Schumer\
April March\
Artificial Joy Club\
As I Lay Dying\
AWOLNATION\
Bach, Johann Sebastian\
Bad Religion\
Bakerton Group, The\
Barenaked Ladies\
Beastie Boys\
Beethoven, Ludwig Van\
Bill Conti\
Black Pacific, The\
Black Sabbath\
Blink-182\
Bloodhound Gang, The\
Blue Oyster Cult\
Britney Spears\
Bruckner, Anton\
Bush\
Butthole Surfers\
Cardigans\
Carly Rae Jepsen\
Cascada\
Chopin, Frédéric\
Chris Rock\
Christina Aguilera\
Clutch\
Cranberries, The\
Days of the New\
De La Soul\
Dead Kennedys\
Der Hof\
Descendents\
Disturbed\
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince\
Doors, The\
Dropkick Murphys, The\
Edgar Winter Group, The\
EMF\
Eminem\
Epic Score\
Eric Ekholm\
Escala\
Eve 6\
Everclear\
Everlast\
Faith No More\
Fastball\
Fear\
Filter\
Fiona Apple\
Foo Fighters\
Fuel\
Garbage\
Godsmack\
Green Day\
Green Jelly\
Greg Giraldo\
Guns N' Roses\
Harvey Danger\
Hole\
Holst, Gustav\
iCarly\
Immediate\
Incubus\
J.R.R. Tolkien\
Janes Addiction\
Jennifer Lopez\
Jimi Hendrix\
Jimmie's Chicken Shack\
Joe Baker\
Joydrop\
Katy Perry\
Ke$ha\
Kelly Clarkson\
Kid Rock\
Kinks, The\
Kool Moe Dee\
Korn\
Lady Antebellum\
Led Zeppelin\
Limp Bizkit\
Lit\
Lucas, George\
Macklemore\
Marcy Playground\
Marilyn Manson\
Megadeth\
Metallica\
Miley Cyrus\
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus\
Natalie Imbruglia\
Naughty By Nature\
Nine Inch Nails\
Nirvana\
No Doubt\
Norah Jones\
Offspring, The\
One Republic\
Orff, Carl\
Ozzy Osbourne\
P!nk\
P.O.D\
Pennywise\
Perfect Circle, A\
Piano Guys, The\
Position Music\
Posthaste Music\
Prokofiev, Sergei\
Psychostick\
Rabauken\
Radiohead\
Rage Against the Machine\
Ram Jam\
Rammstein\
Ramones\
Red Hot Chili Peppers\
Rob Zombie\
Rollins Band\
Royalty Free Kings\
Run-DMC\
Sade\
Saliva\
Schubert, Franz\
Section, The\
Selena Gomez\
Semisonic\
Serj Tankian\
Sevendust\
Shake it Up\
Sir Mix A-Lot\
Skid Row\
Slipknot\
Smashing Pumpkins, The\
Smashmouth\
Soundgarden\
Soundtracks\
SR-71\
Stabbing Westward\
Staind\
Static-X\
Steven Wright\
Stone Temple Pilots\
Strauss, Johann\
Stroke 9\
Styx\
Sublime\
Suicidal Tendencies\
Suicide Machines\
Sum 41\
System of a Down\
Taylor Swift\
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr\
Third Eye Blind\
Tone Loc\
Tonic\
Tracy Bonham\
Trashmen, The\
Two Steps From Hell\
Urge, The\
Van Halen\
Vangelis\
Vanilla Ice\
Various Artists\
Verdi, Giuseppe\
Verve Pipe, The\
Vivaldi, Antonio\
Wagner, Richard\
Wall of Voodoo\
Weird Al Yankovic\
White Stripes, The\
White Zombie\
Young M.C\

Thank you for listing them. There's no need to post the albums, I made up my mind already. To be honest, I didn't expect to see such a collection. You made it sound a lot worse in your description. Some artists and bands are unknown to me, but there are quite a lot of them on my "all-time favourites" list, because I used to listen to them years ago.

I listen to a lot of jazz, blues, classical music, all of them mixed with Japanese music. But if I travelled back in time a bit, my interests wouldn't be too different from yours, so I think we could collaborate if there's no time pressure.

Ok cool. Definitely no concern on the time-frame. This is a time intensive project and I always have multiple things going on.
So here is what I did. I removed everything from the list below (mainly classical) that does not have lyrics.
I made all the artists blue that I have only 1 song or less than a whole cd of. (I put these into one category since they could be knocked off quite quickly compared to artist that I have a full catalog of cd's for.
All the ones in red are artists I will never listen to (wife/daughter music).... they are not concerned with any of this so those are at the bottom of the list for me.
Finally I made bold and GREEN my 4 favorite bands. These are the ones I would be interested in doing the most and first... There are approx 60 albums between them...I'll just list them here as well. They are Bad Religion, Clutch, Pennywise, Rammstein.

After that in no particular my most wanted list would be (I'll list 10)
Blink-182, Drokick Murphys, Green Day, Guns N Roses, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Led Zeppelin, Rob and White Zombie, Slipknot, Static X.

I guess its obvious I like a lot punk and heavier music the most (at least are far as music with lyrics is concerned)

I'm thinking if you provide a similar list we can decide which ones would be best to benefit us both.
If you have zero interest in my top 4 then I wouldn't have a problem holding off on them and doing something that would benefit us both and getting back to them later. But at the same time we want to make sure we don't work on the same band.

let me know what you think.

3 Doors Down\
311\
AC-DC\
Adam Sandler\
Aerosmith\
Alanis Morissette\
Alice in Chains\
April March\
Artificial Joy Club\
As I Lay Dying\
AWOLNATION\
Bad Religion\
Barenaked Ladies\
Beastie Boys\
Black Pacific, The\
Black Sabbath\
Blink-182\
Bloodhound Gang, The\
Blue Oyster Cult\
Britney Spears\
Bush\
Butthole Surfers\
Cardigans\
Carly Rae Jepsen\
Cascada\
Christina Aguilera\
Clutch\
Cranberries, The\
Days of the New\
De La Soul\
Dead Kennedys\
Descendents\
Disturbed\
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince\
Doors, The\
Dropkick Murphys, The\
Edgar Winter Group, The\
EMF\
Eminem\
Eve 6\
Everclear\
Everlast\
Faith No More\
Fastball\
Fear\
Filter\
Fiona Apple\
Foo Fighters\
Fuel\
Garbage\
Godsmack\
Green Day\
Green Jelly\
Guns N' Roses\
Harvey Danger\
Hole\
iCarly\
Incubus\
Janes Addiction\
Jennifer Lopez\
Jimi Hendrix\
Jimmie's Chicken Shack\
Joe Baker\
Joydrop\
Katy Perry\
Ke$ha\
Kelly Clarkson\
Kid Rock\
Kinks, The\
Kool Moe Dee\
Korn\
Lady Antebellum\
Led Zeppelin\
Limp Bizkit\
Lit\
Macklemore\
Marcy Playground\
Marilyn Manson\
Megadeth\
Metallica\
Miley Cyrus\
Natalie Imbruglia\
Naughty By Nature\
Nine Inch Nails\
Nirvana\
No Doubt\
Norah Jones\
Offspring, The\
One Republic\
Orff, Carl\
Ozzy Osbourne\
P!nk\
P.O.D\
Pennywise\
Perfect Circle, A\
Psychostick\
Rabauken\
Radiohead\
Rage Against the Machine\
Ram Jam\
Rammstein\
Ramones\
Red Hot Chili Peppers\
Rob Zombie\
Rollins Band\
Run-DMC\
Sade\
Saliva\
Selena Gomez\
Semisonic\
Serj Tankian\
Sevendust\
Shake it Up\
Sir Mix A-Lot\
Skid Row\
Slipknot\
Smashing Pumpkins, The\
Smashmouth\
Soundgarden\
SR-71\
Stabbing Westward\
Staind\
Static-X\
Stone Temple Pilots\
Stroke 9\
Styx\
Sublime\
Suicidal Tendencies\
Suicide Machines\
Sum 41\
System of a Down\
Taylor Swift\
Third Eye Blind\
Tone Loc\
Tonic\
Tracy Bonham\
Trashmen, The\
Urge, The\
Van Halen\
Vanilla Ice\
Verve Pipe, The\
Wall of Voodoo\
Weird Al Yankovic\
White Stripes, The\
White Zombie\
Young M.C\

I don't have priorities, so we'll just work on whatever you want first.
Bad Religion is actually one of my favourites as well. If you want we can split the albums, so we can finish quicker. I don't know Clutch and Pennywise and unfortunately I don't think I can help you with Rammstein.
From your second list I could easily work on Blink 182, Green Day, Guns N Roses, Led Zeppelin and eventually Nine Inch Nails.

Concerning .lrc files: is it ok to upload them on my mediafire account and post the link to the folder here?

That sounds cool.
Wow, based on the fact that Bad Religion is one of your favorite band and what you picked from my second list I can't believe you don't know Pennywise!

Check these... I'm about 100% confident they will be in your list of favorites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zYU_xBPTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2ZsMuQiJVU


As for Clutch... a somewhat unique band I think and one of the best live bands I've ever seen... check out these couple cd's! AWESOME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAc8xRev5L8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp5pkuejl7w

As for the files I see no issue with post a link to mediafire here.

What exactly were you planning on using to create the .lrc files?
We should probably set up a couple guidelines so we are consistent with each other....

One thing I can think of is that I would like complete word for word lyrics the whole way through.... meaning I've seen a lot of lyrics where they will label the *chorus* and then just put *chorus* when it repeats.
I like to just have a line by line set of text the whole way.
One other thing... perhaps songs that repeat a work many times at the end of a sentence like they sometimes do... can just write
Repeat 6X

Any other thoughts?

I honestly never heard of them before. I started listening to the first Pennywise link you posted and I have to say that my first impression is: not bad, not bad at all! The sound reminds me of Bad Religion, indeed. Listening to punk again after so many years is refreshing. I'll listen to everything and then I'll tell you more.

Now, back to the .lrc files:

I've been thinking about it and I find it difficult to use any lrc software. I have some experience in writing subtitles and doing karaoke, so I'll be using the same software for lrc files as well. It's a software called Aegisub.
What I like about it is that you can see the audio waveform (or a spectrum analyser) and click on the waveform to set the start and end times or you can adjust timings by dragging them wherever you like.


The only drawback is that since it's a subtitle editor software, it can't export lrc format. I found an .ass to .lrc converter online, but I didn't like the way it messed up my timings, so I found a workaround.

In an .ass subtitle file (if you open it in a text editor), the basic format is:
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.21,0:00:03.79,Default,,0,0,0,,I've been waiting a long time
(Dialogue: overlaying order, start time in hh:mm:ss.ms, end time in hh:mm:ss.ms, settings concerning style of subtitle, the actual line)

while the format in a .lrc file is:
[00:00.21]I've been waiting a long time
([start time of the line in mm:ss.ms] the actual line)

So I'm doing the timings in the subtitle software (making sure that all the ending times are the same (let's say 1:00:00.00), copy-paste everything in a text editor, then replace all "Dialogue: 0,0:" with "[" and ",1:00:00.00,Default,,0,0,0,," with "]". Since these 2 bits are the same for every line, I only have to use Replace All twice.
I tried it on a Green Day song and it worked well. It might seem complicated, but I find it easier to replace two pieces of text instead of listening to a part of the song many times just because I pressed the tag key too early/too late in a lrc software.

Definitely full lyrics all the way through! I really don't see the point in writing "chorus" in a timed lyrics file.

As for "repeat x6", it depends on the thing I was going to ask you: How exactly would you prefer your lrc files?
Do you want the lyrics to be highlighted line by line as displayed by the lyrics add-ons? Or do you want a more detailed, karaoke-like lrc file to be used in the built-in karaoke feature of XBMC?

I used Waiting by Green Day to quickly make two examples: a normal one (line by line) and a karaoke one (which works only if you enable Karaoke support in XBMC Settings).

I guess if we're going to do karaoke-like lrc files, then it doesn't really work to write "repeat x6" at the end of the sentence.
So try them out and let me know. Hopefully there won't be problems with the tempo or something. I tested them both and the only line that seems to be late is "Better thank your lucky stars", because I forgot to break it into smaller pieces. I also forgot to break the lyrics into blocks and add breaks on the instrumental parts in the normal file, so sorry.

Sounds good so far. I have a small issue at the moment. I upgraded from Frodo to Gotham this week and nothing wants to work right including local lyrics. So I haven't been able to test out yours or the one I made.
I'll play around with it a bit more and will try another computer (still with Frodo) if I have to.

I just used this website for my test file
http://lrcgenerator.com/
I don't think it is going to be accurate enough though and will try out the software you linked.

As for the regular vs karaoke....let me check out your files and I will get back to you....what was your time difference in creating the files? Seems like the karaoke version will be a much bigger task??

In that case, I suggest you try version 3.0.4. I updated to the latest version (3.1.3) and it seems to be a little sluggish.
If you need any help with it, let me know.

Time difference... hmm, I really don't know. 2, maybe 3 minutes? I only listen to the song once when I'm working on timings and then I listen to the song again with the timed lyrics on the screen.
The process is basically the same, except you'll have multiple lines instead of one. I chose Waiting as an example because it has some longer notes and breaks between parts of the same line, but I guess there's no point in breaking a line in multiple lines on songs like Bad Religion's Punk Rock Song or Atomic Garden, since the pace is constant and there is no pause in the middle of the line.

In Waiting I split most of the lines in two:

I've been
waiting a long time
For this
moment to come

and occasionally I split the line before a long note:

For anything at
all...

Anyway, if you think it takes too much or it's too complicated, we can make them line by line. I just wanted to know how should I work.
So I'll be waiting for your decision, whenever you have time and you can get it to work.

Ok, got my XBMC update issues resolved so local lyrics working fine.
Your file looked great.... spot on with the timing.
I think I'd actually prefer line by line.

By the way your karaoke file did not work properly for me

This is what I got
waiting

I thought maybe the double timestamps may have been the issue such as
[00:00.01]I've been [00:01.44] [00:01.82]waiting a long time [00:03.46]
So I removed them all to make it like this
[00:00.01]I've been [00:01.82]waiting a long time
But that didn't help.

I just need to figure out what the problem is with aegisub and I can get started here.
Also, if you don't mind, hold off on the Green Day. I may have some more help for this and that would be one of the main bands they would want to do.
I figure the more familiar someone is with the music the easier for them and more accurate the timing will be.

Going to try aegisub on a different computer now and see if it works for me.

<<EDIT>>Well, just tried aegisub on a laptop. Same situation. It tries to open the audio file and crashes. All my pc's are win7 64 bit....so don't know if there is an issue with that or a setting that needs changed.

That's great news. It means we won't have problems with tempo.
Ok then, we'll do simple lrc files.

The karaoke file should work though, according to this wiki page, but for some reasons it doesn't. I get the same thing as you when I open it with CU LRC add-on, but if I enable Karaoke support from the Settings window and use only that, closing the lyrics add-on window, it works as it should (screenshots taken in Confluence with Karaoke enabled).

No problem, I simply picked that song for the reasons I stated in my last post. Just tell me what should I work on.

Check your inbox, I think I replied to your PM last night about that Aegisub issue. Changing Audio provider to Avisynth should solve the crashing problem.

Hey guys,
I know, this thread is close to ancient in internet timescales but I just found it right now as I just bought a pi an installed CU LRC.

I do love music and I like to sing, hence moving lyrics are just the thing I was looking for. As a lot of my songs miss LRC files I just startet to create my first one, using http://lrcgenerator.com/
As you already explained, it's not that exact but it was good for trying it out.

My question, first and for all: does your project still exist and do you still look for supporters? I'd like to join you for a while but my music taste is quite focussed in one specific area: Extreme Metal
I'd like to syncronize even the most brute grunts and growls just for the fun of showing that these guys really do have lyrics. There are also some more soft songs in my library (Iron Maiden for instance) but I'd focus on the ruff stuff.

If I can join your informal team there is one main question: where can I upload that stuff so that others can profit from my miserable attempts to syncronize music and lyrics?

Regards,
Larimow

Larimow,

There didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for this project when I first posted it. And actually once I did start it and found out how much time is involved in a single album I kind of lost my own enthusiasm.
Its just a very time consuming process to first acquire all the lyrics and then getting them perfectly timed... if I ever do this I would be obsessed with getting the timing pretty spot on as I've seen some shitty LRC files.

But hey post up some files and maybe some people will jump in and get this thing moving.
If I would decide to get on board again it would be at least a month before I do so until some other projects are done....

Actually now you have me wondering if help could be found from other resources as well besides the Kodi forums.... Like Facebook for example.... I belong to a few pages on there for my favorite bands where there are tons of die hard fans. Going to individual pages like that and soliciting help from multiple groups that are really into that exact music may be quite beneficial. I put a post out tonight on one of the pages and see what turns up.

Lyrics being under copyright is a real shame sometimes