For some time I've been looking for a way to efficiently find and download lyrics, as well as to display synchronized lyrics. While one solution would be nice, it seems important to recognize these are two separate requirements. One is to populate (hopefully automatically) the Lyrics tag with unsynchronized lyrics. These are useful for searching or displaying just for information purposes—whether or not the track is playing. The second is to display synchronized lyrics. MC does not have the ability to do this, so another program or plugin is required to do so.
MiniLyrics keeps coming up as a potential solution. I suppose it's one of few cheap alternatives. While it seems to come very close to satisfying my requirements, each time I try it I conclude it just doesn't "play friendly" with MC. This time, I decided to take a closer look...
Unsynchronized LyricsAs others have noted,
MiniLyrics will find, download and tag MP3 files (I don't know about other types) with unsynchronized lyrics, but they are not displayed in MC's lyrics field. I don't understand much about file tags, so I'll just describe what I've found. Using MP3Tag, I can see the lyrics are saved in an extended tag called UNSYNCEDLYRICS. (I'm sure it's saving a synchronized tag as well, but I can't see it in MP3Tag.) There is a difference in how different programs are saving this tag:
- MC – ||[lyrics] (the "||" is not displayed in MC)
- MP3Tag – eng||[lyrics] (the lyrics are properly displayed in MC)
- MiniLyrics – eng|Lyrics was Saved by MiniLyrics.|[lyrics]
I suppose the "||" is meant to separate the tag into different sections for different languages, and MiniLyrics breaks this. This can be fixed by deleting "Lyrics was Saved by MiniLyrics."—or, more specifically, what's making it unreadable by MC are the single "|". Deleting both of them, or leaving "||" or "eng||" at the beginning of the first line allows the lyrics to be displayed.
Editing the tag saved by MiniLyrics with a tag editor is obviously not a viable solution. The tag must be readable by other applications, so maybe this is something J River will see fit to make MC able to do so as well.
In the meantime, the least painful way I can find to tag lyrics using MiniLyrics is this:
- Open a MiniLyrics window and a MC tagging window set on the Lyrics field.
- Right-click on the MiniLyrics window and select Lyrics - Advanced Save Lyrics Options...
- This opens a dialog from which the lyrics can be copied & pasted to the MC tagging window.
- Select Next to advance to next track, and repeat.
The same thing can be done using an open lyrics editor window, but unsynchronized lyrics have to be loaded first (unless that's all it can find, it defaults to synchronized).
MiniLyrics WindowMiniLyrics opens its display, editor and other dialogs in what appear to be MC child windows. Unfortunately, this seems rather pointless, as they are still pretty much independent of MC. This means one has to make screen space for it where it won't interfere with MC, set it to be "on top" and then turn this off or minimize it when using something other than MC. It would be so much more convenient if it could be opened in a split pane. My workaround is to open a split pane, and place the MiniLyrics window over the second pane.
The nature of the MiniLyrics window, however, allows it to be used with Theater View—sort of. It can be configured to overlay a music and/or playing now view so it's not covering other critical information. Hot keys programmed to a remote could be used to for hide the window when using other views. The problem is the same window is not going to work for both Theater View and Standard View. I don't see an easy way to save/switch configurations.
ConclusionIf the tagging problem could be resolved, I think MiniLyrics would be a reasonable (and cheap) solution for MC users with a casual interest in lyrics.
Maybe someone who understands how these things work can explain what potential there might be for it to be more tightly integrated with MC (e.g., to be able to use panes as well as detached windows in Standard View).