Best Way to Add Lyrics to Your Music Library…so far[11-Jan-14]
After testing most lyrics plugins for the most common media players and standalone lyric programs, I have finally come up with a solution to add lyrics for offline use. Feel free to use your own methods or alterations of this guide. Here are my findings.
Tools you will need: ($83 Total)
MusicBrainz Piccard or any tag editor https://picard.musicbrainz.org/
Minilyrics IPod Downloader ($5) http://www.crintsoft.com/MiniLyrics_buy.htm
Please complain as much as you can for them to add flac support
Extension Changer http://download.cnet.com/Extension-Changer/3000-2072_4-10394272.html
Lyrics and Subtitle Expert 3 ($20) http://www.qcrj.com/en/product_1.html
Foobar2000 https://www.foobar2000.org/download
Lyrics Show Panel 3 (plugin) https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_uie_lyrics3
Free Encoder Pack (plugin) https://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack
Dbpoweramp preferably ($58) https://secure.dbpoweramp.com/store_purchase.aspx?p=11
If Dbpoweramp is not a tool you would want, then any flac to mp3 converter that converts in batches and saves to the original folder is what you want. Even with errors, Dbpoweramp still saves a mp3 file with the tags embedded, uses all pc cores, and supports most common media formats. Minilyrics only supports mp3, mp2, mpa, m4a, and aac files, so any other media files need to be converted to what it does support (at lowest quality for hard drive space).
Knowledge:
Control + A = Select all
Shift + Click (on a different item after 1 item is selected) = Select all in between
LRC Chorus Format = Multiple Timestamps for Same Lyrics
LRC Regular Format = 1 Timestamp for Every Line of Lyrics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LRC_(file_format)
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-*.Lrc-File
Step 0 – Install Everything and Backup
Add the plugins to Foobar, Install programs, and…oh yeah BACKUP YOUR MUSIC!
Step 1 – Delete Embedded Lyrics
Method 1 – Open Foobar and select all of your music. Right click – properties and delete lyrics and un-synced lyrics and hit apply. If the tags still show up in Foobar, use method 2 because Foobar is not that accurate.
Method 2 – Open MusicBrainz and uncheck move files in options near the top. Now go to options -options and in the general tab, change port number to 81 and uncheck scan new files. Hit Apply. Now add all of your music library to MusicBrainz about 1000 songs at a time or it will crash. Wait for the unmatched folder to stop changing numbers and select all the cd icons in the right most window and move whatever is there to the unmatched folder. Select all of your music and delete lyrics/un-synced lyrics. Now select about 1000 songs and save. Rinse and repeat until done. Double check all tags are gone in Foobar.
Step 1.5 – Tag Your Music
I am not going to instruct you on how to do this, but the two most popular tools to use are MusicBrainz Piccard and Mp3tag. I suggest you go with MusicBrainz. Tagging your music is important for the lyric searching software to correctly search for the lyrics to your song. Badly worded, I know.
Step 2 – Add LRC and TXT Lyrics
Method 1: Open extension changer, Search for all existing mp3 files (easier in windows file explorer) and select all. Write whatever extension name you want as you will change it back later. Drag and drop all mp3s into extension changer. Do the same thing for all of your files that Minilyrics supports. Important!!! Remember to use a different extension name for each file type. Right click on your whole music folder and batch convert into mp3s. Make sure to save them in the same directory as the original file. Use low quality settings for mp3s to speed up the process. If you get an error, double check that the mp3s saved anyways and still play in any music player. Make sure your music library is organized into smaller folders within the larger music folder. If it is all in one folder, compartmentalize them now into 150-200 files each. Open Minilyrics IPod Downloader and add a folder in your music library to it. Do not drag and drop the folder as it is a broken function. Click on Lyrics – Advanced – Download all Lyrics. Make sure the only things check marked are “save lyrics in the songs directory” and “as the same name as the song”. Scroll down to the end and make sure the only errors you get are lyrics not found. If you get anything else then close, reopen it, and add the folder and advanced save again. If you get the same errors at the bottom, you have added too many files to the folder. IMPORTANT! You have to click on advanced – download all… each time or it will try to embed the lyrics in the mp3s and not to a separate file lrc or txt file. To streamline this process, add Minilyrics IPod Downloader to taskbar or shortcut, press clear file list in the media files tab, and Minilyrics remembers the last location of the folder you added, so press the down arrow to select the next folder in the list and press enter. Repeat until done. After all the lrc and txt files have been downloaded, delete all converted mp3 files (search for .mp3, select all, and delete. Make sure none of the text files you downloaded have .mp3 written in them. Change back your extensions to the original names and send those through Minilyrics to download the rest of the lyrics. You can mix this with method 2 as it will not overwrite existing lyrics.
Method 2: Open Foobar2000 and click library – configure. In the tools tab – in the lyric show 3 tab – in the lyric saving tab, check mark enable automatic save and change the save method to save to directory same as file. Change the filename format to only “[%title%]” no quotations. In the Lyric Searching tab, change the search order to:
Online DB: lyrics.wikia.com
Online DB: Timestamped 3 (this might be the Minilyrics database)
Online DB: Timestamped 2
Online DB: Timestamped 1
Online DB: lrc123.com
Associations Search
Make sure to not include darklyrics, google, tag, and local file search in the search order. Add all music to Foobar and right click – download lyrics… to add all lrc and txt files.
Step 2.5 – Change LRC Chorus Format to Regular Format
Open Lyrics and Subtitle Expert 3 with administrative privileges. Select batch convert and add the lrc files. Select LRC as the target file. Make a temporary folder to save to and select that as the output path and click start. Now replace the new lrc files with the old ones. Rinse and repeat for all folders in your music library. It can only add them one folder at a time, but I am working on getting them to add an “overwrite files” and “Add Folders” feature to further automate the process. Please complain to them about this to help with the cause. Most devices and players can use lrc files in chorus format or better yet read straight from the tags, but there are special cases like the Fiio X7 which read lyrics line by line. Again, complaining helps.
Step 3 – Add Embedded Lyrics
Open Foobar2000 and click library – configure. In the tools tab – in the lyric show 3 tab – in the lyric saving tab, check mark enable automatic save and change the save method to save to tag. In the Lyric Searching tab, change the search order to:
Local File Search
Tag Search
Associations Search
Make sure all of the online databases are left out of the search order. Add all music to Foobar and right click – download lyrics… to add all lrc and txt files to tags.
Step 4 – Congratulate Yourself
You did it! Nice Job. Now just soak in the accomplishment…ok that’s enough. There are probably other methods you could use and that is okay. New pieces of software are being developed and updated every day and this guide may soon be obsolete. If anyone has a more accurate or simpler way to add lrc lyrics, then please tell me about it. This is the best I can come up with and it is still not efficient on time.
Guide written by Berry Walker III www.speedname@gmail.com
Honorable Mentions:
Media Human Lyrics Finder
Mp3tag
MusicBee
MediaMonkey
My fat cat
Anything that starts with M
Playlist Creator