Client Supported Lyrics

[Obaba]

I like WinAMP as my media player, and I don't love it because it has no lyrics support.
It's not that I don't use 3rd party plug-ins, I do, in fact I use them on all 5 VERSIONS of WinAMP I have installed.
I keep these legacy versions of the client in order to manage my old plug-ins that are no longer work with my current version, and even that isn't up to date.
It really makes sense to have this as standard on the program, allowing users to either download or edit lyrics in the program.

In the meantime, I'll keep 5.08, 2.79 and their friends installed until my plug-ins receive support, or find joy in true lyrics support for WinAMP.

[the SASS Man]

Winamp needs a built-in Lyrics Viewer/Editor!

Yes, there are a TON of Lyrics Database, Lyrics Viewers, and Lyrics Editors "out there" that work just fine for Winamp. The problem is, none of these are supported by Winamp! The best ones in existance are NOT free, and what I consider to be THE best will no longer function in the latest version of Winamp. Period. Ever. Probably.

Now I'm not saying that Winamp should maintain a library of tens of thousands of lyrics, or pay some company to give Winamp users access to their database. But Winamp already has the ability to recognise when a Lyrics 3 tag is in place, ans will copy Lyrics 3 to ID2v2.x and back again. What it cannot do is (a) view those lyrics--if present--when the song plays; (b) allow the user to edit Lyrics 3 tags, IV3V2 Lyrics tags, or text files containing text and lyrics related to the file.

So, my proposal is to create an "Official" Lyrics plug-in, and maintain compatibility of that plug-in with all production versions of Winamp. Make that plug-in skinnable. Make that plug-in optional (for those who use 3rd party Lyrics plug-ins).

Useful options for this plug-in include: the ability to initiate a web search for lyrics to the currently playting song; Save to text file, Lyrics 3 tag, or ID3v2 tag; add timestamps to lyrics in editor; And yes, a useful option would be to select and search from one of the many Lyrics databases.

Mostly, I propose this as a self-defense option for lovers of Lyrics. I have over 7,500 .MP3s, most of which have lyrics and often liner notes carefully tucked away in the tags of each .mp3 file, and--as of the current version of Winamp--I can no longer view or edit any of that information.

By having an official lyrics plugin that maintains compatibility with Winamp, even without any search capability, Winamp users will always have the ability to view any lyrics that they hae ALREADY downloaded and saved on their computers, and will always have the ability to add, edit, and update the lyrics for their files, no matter whether the third-party developers wish to continue their support for Winamp or not.

SASS has Spoken.

-- the sASS Man

[RickWakeman]

The best plugin was, by far, WinLyrics (http://www.winlyrics.com/). It searched lyrics in folders, online, ID3 tag, automatically saved lyrics in file or tag, supported time stamps and auto-scroll, totally configurable, configurable percentage of search result (song name / lyrics file name), etc.

So good that I even translated it in to Portuguese.

Unfortunately, due to cracked versions, they could not support the database anymore, so no more online lyrics with it.

But it still works flawlessly with lyrics saved in text files and in the ID3 tag. In fact, you can configure where WinLyrics will search/save lyrics, etc.

For online lyrics, I still use Lyrics Plugin (http://www.lyricsplugin.com/).

But an "official", "internal" lyrics viewer would be great. I support this idea. That it at leasts reads/writes from/to either a text file and the ID3 tag. And, maybe time stamps and auto-scroll as well?

[RickWakeman]

Client supported lyrics

My original post didn't get posted. Here's the summary.:

The best lyrics plugin by far was WinLyrics (http://www.winlyrics.com/). User database, load lyrics from online database, file, ID3 tag, great configurations, time stamps and auto-scroll... A great piece of software.

Unfortunately, due to cracked copies being the most to access the online database, they just couldn't support it anymore. But it still works great with ID3 tags and files.

Not available for download, anymore, though.

I keep it to use with my own lyrics database and ID3 tags anyway, and it's great.


For online lyrics, I use Lyrics Plugin (http://www.lyricsplugin.com/), and it's very good. But storing the lyrics locally is not really supported, so I copy and paste the lyrics in to WinLyrics.


Now I found MiniLyrics (http://www.crintsoft.com/mlfaq-editlrc.htm) which looks a lot like WinLyrics, but not as nice. I can foresee MiniLyrics ending due to cracked copies, just like WinLyrics did...

Anyway, if you can get (and register) a copy of WinLyrics, I recommend it. I translated it and registered it, because it's great.


But, Winamp should have internal lyrics support by now.

[DrO]

But, Winamp should have internal lyrics support by now.

this is the whole purpose of having a plug-in system so Winamp doesn't have to implement everything under the sun (and something which is impossible to do) and so it acts just as a core which can be extended. as to a lot of people, lyrics support would be deemed a complete waste of time and resources though there's then those (like yourself who'd have an opposite view to that).

if you're not happy with the plug-ins available then please try to contact the authors and see if they can improve things to something which is more fitting to your needs or there's nothing stopping you making one yourself (the reason why there is such a variety of lyrics plug-ins as too many people have different needs for such things).

-daz

[the SASS Man]

No current supporteed lyrics editor

It seems sad and distressing that there is NO current supported Lyrics editor that operates with/on the internal Lyrics3 tags. And yes, I realize that it's the greed and selfishness of the users of Winamp (and in some cases, POVERTY) that undermined WinLyrics support.

But I'd still think that the demand for this would continue to drive somebody, somewhere, to continue to maintain a good lyrics editor for Winamp.

I, personally, lack the skill or the time to make an editor, though I wish I had both. I wish I had the source code to WinLyrics, or something like it. But that lyrics support for Winamp has fallen so COMPLETELY out of sync with Winamp development completely baffles me.

Where are the lovers of Winamp Lyrics?

[DrO]

the only lyrics3 support i've ever known about in Winamp has been the reading and using of the tags only in certain cases where the title is longer and there's no ID3v2 tag on the file. i don't ever remember there being any native editor of lyrics3 tags in there and i doubt there probably will be (but i'd like to be wrong).

-daz

[Sabine Klare]

Hello RickWakeman,
thank You for the 3 links. The feature with the "Lyrics in Winamp" (and also in other media player) is very interesting...
If I try to download from the first link (http://www.winlyrics.com/), I get this message (in both, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox):
"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /_files/ on this server."
I have given up to download the plugin from the first link. From the other two links (http://www.lyricsplugin.com/) + (http://www.crintsoft.com/mlfaq-editlrc.htm) I could download the setups successfully. I have not yet let run the installer, because I am a little bit careful with third-party-plugins. I have read about problems with some other lyrics-plugins (in other threads and in the recensions), but I think, these recommended plugins in this thread seem to be better and I can try it very soon...
I myself have only less songs with lyrics on my computer, the most tracks (mostly MP3 and WAV, only a few WMA) are without lyrics and very special (mostly also very unknown), because my music-taste is so special...
Greetings from Sabine Klare Aka Sternenmaschinebine

[Obaba]

In most cases, I do not find the lyrics I am looking for in databases.
Foreign language tracks, remixed lyrics and such do not appear. Why in the world would one have to save the information in a separate file, with a unique file extension when there is a place for it in the track itself.
This being a actual feature would be something I would pay for, instead of using the free version. It means that much to me.

[Aotus]

We really need a lyric feature in winamp

The best plugin was, by far, WinLyrics (http://www.winlyrics.com/). It searched lyrics in folders, online, ID3 tag, automatically saved lyrics in file or tag, supported time stamps and auto-scroll, totally configurable, configurable percentage of search result (song name / lyrics file name), etc.
...

Hi Rick, I used WinLyrics FOR YEARS. I spent hours to collect my lyrics, add time stamps, corrects errors, ... and this plugin was one of the major reasons why I liked Winamp.
But recently, I had to uninstall it: it crashed Winamp everytime few seconds after loading.
It's really annoying.
I seriously think about uninstall Winamp 5.63 and go back to 5.581.

[DrO]

or why don't you report the issue to the plug-in developer so they know there is an issue and can actually try to fix it?? talk about reverting to an older version of Winamp really pisses me off as having been a plug-in developer, no one ever bothers to let them know something is wrong (or when they do it's months after the issue arose) and then people like yourself just bitch about it elsewhere when things should and can be fixed in the plug-ins

[the SASS Man]

WinLyrics

As far as I know, the developer of WinLyrics has stopped supporting it, if not ceased to exist altogether. Originally it was a user-supported commercial database, and as numerous people used various means to circumvent the user check, the company could no longer support itself. Unfortunately, as a commercial product, the program requires the server to operate. No server, no WinLyrics.

And WinLirics was the ONLY...and I do mean the -ONLY- lyrics editor/viewer out there that supported all of the features it had, such as timestamps with fractional seconds, user choice whether to save in Lyrics3 tag, ID3v2 tag, or file; and it had the best actual editor I've ever used.

Now, even the parent corp's web site is gone. And, since it is proprietary/commercial software, I don't foresee the code being made available for one of us to get it running again. Ever.

See, that's the whole problem with Winamp not natively supporting the full set of features that exist in the .MP3 specification(s). Without a built-in editor that is slowly evolving and getting better with the Winamp product itself, people have become dependent on something that some third-party for-profit organization controls. And as you can see...they're NOT interested in sharing it.

[mogwhye]

For anyone who wants to maintain their own time stamped lyrics,
I would recommend this old plugin.

http://www.winamp.com/plugin/winamp-lyrics-v1-22/7873

I have used it for many years and it works fine in XP, Vista and Win7.
I currently use it with winamp v5.63 (x86) lite.
The actual version downloaded from the plugin link is v1.21

You can store the lyrics either in a text file or, as I do, I store them within the mp3 file.
It's quick and easy to timestamp your own lyrics and the editor is easy to use.

You get the current line being played highlighted, variable fonts, colours, sizes etc.
Can't recommend it highly enough, as long as you don't want auto-downloaded
lyrics from online databases.