Wordbuilder Suggestion

[mee]

Many sequencers have some kind of lyric capability. Sonar has, for instance, a very good one. One can enter lyrics for a MIDI track, and see them scroll in time, with the active syllable highlighted, Karaoke-style.

If one already has lyrics entered in a sequencer MIDI track, and one assignes that track to Symphonic Choirs with Wordbuilder, it sure would be nice if Wordbuilder could read the lyrics already entered into the track. Sure, one might have to still do some editing in Wordbuilder, but it would be a start, if the already-entered lyrics could be read into Wordbuilder from the sequencer track. (Not only the words themselves, but their syllabification-- which syllable goes with which MIDI note, melismas, etc.)

Any chance of having this capability in the next WordBuilder update?

[luima]

Hey mee,
It should be nice, but much more difficult, almost imposible. the program should have to translate every word in english, latin or whatever other language to VOTOX and even then the sound of every word should have to be edited for lenght, and articulation. Anyhow the team at EW are very clever people and perhaps... who knows.

[mee]

Hey mee,
It should be nice, but much more difficult, almost imposible. the program should have to translate every word in english, latin or whatever other language to VOTOX and even then the sound of every word should have to be edited for lenght, and articulation. Anyhow the team at EW are very clever people and perhaps... who knows.


The program already does that, no? It translates from English to Votox, etc. Not perfect, but that is part of its current functionality. You can type English words into Wordbuilder. I believe Latin too, then you would choose "phonetic". So, I don't see what the difference would be in that regard if the program was able to read the lyrics from the sequencer file. It sure would add convenience, for those of us who already have files with lyrics.

[Sam Fischmann]

Hello,

Thank you for your suggestion, but the reason this is not possible currently is that no sequencer gives plugins access to what is typed on your lyrics track.

-Sam

[mee]

Hello,

Thank you for your suggestion, but the reason this is not possible currently is that no sequencer gives plugins access to what is typed on your lyrics track.

-Sam

They probably didn't envision the development of programs like Wordbuilder, when they designed the lyrics capability. Perhaps you could work together with sequencer developers to integrate the two.

However, I think lyrics are stored as a standard MIDI event, lyric events. (At least Cakewalk-Sonar stores lyrics as lyric events. .Kar files, on the other hand, store lyrics as text events.)

If lyrics are stored as standard MIDI events (as opposed to some kind of proprietary format for the sequencer), shouldn't WB be able to read them, if that capability was developed?

[Sam Fischmann]

Hello,

The MIDI specification (http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec.htm) does not include anything about lyrics, and thus no lyrics can be stored as standard MIDI events. You can interpret MIDI as text, but any way you do this would be proprietary because it's not part of the MIDI standard.

Believe me, I feel you on this one, but as long as the audio world is using MIDI, we work within its limitations. WordBuilder is pushing the limit very far; it's pretty much the only thing out there that does what it does.

-Sam

[mee]

Hello,

The MIDI specification (http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec.htm) does not include anything about lyrics, and thus no lyrics can be stored as standard MIDI events. You can interpret MIDI as text, but any way you do this would be proprietary because it's not part of the MIDI standard.

Believe me, I feel you on this one, but as long as the audio world is using MIDI, we work within its limitations. WordBuilder is pushing the limit very far; it's pretty much the only thing out there that does what it does.

-Sam

Well, for instance--if I save a song file with lyrics in Cakewalk or Sonar as a Standard MIDI file (not as a proprietary Cakewalk or Sonar file), and re-open it, the lyrics will still be there in the re-opened Standard MIDI file.

In fact, if I open that saved MIDI file in a different sequencer, Power Tracks (PG Music), the lyrics saved in the MIDI file in Sonar, will open in that MIDI file opened in Power Tracks.

Therefore, I really don't think this is a proprietary lyric format, but something standard in MIDI files. There are two ways to store lyrics in a MIDI file, as lyric events or text events. Cakewalk/Sonar stores them as lyric events. .KAR files store them as text events. There is a .CAL file for Sonar, to transform text events into lyric events.

So, I'm not sure you are correct in saying that any storing of lyrics is purely proprietary, not readable by programs other than the one that created it.

[Sam Fischmann]

Hello,

Maybe this link will help:

http://www.midi.org/about-midi/smf/rp017.shtml


Again, there's no standard, though I can find a recommended defninition that was not complete enough to ensure compatibility. Thus, each method is proprietary. If you search the site futher, you can find some extended recommended practices to finalize a specification, but they are just proposals. I can't post more on the issue really, because this comes straight from the horse's mouth.

From the linked article at midi.org:

This is a recommended practice (RP) defining a common implementation for the use of Lyric Meta Events within a Standard MIDI File. The Standard MIDI Files 1.0 document does not clearly define how to place text within the Lyric Meta Events, with the result that several companies have implemented lyric events in incompatible ways.

[mee]

Hello,

Maybe this link will help:

http://www.midi.org/about-midi/smf/rp017.shtml


Again, there's no standard, though I can find a recommended defninition that was not complete enough to ensure compatibility. Thus, each method is proprietary. If you search the site futher, you can find some extended recommended practices to finalize a specification, but they are just proposals. I can't post more on the issue really, because this comes straight from the horse's mouth.

From the linked article at midi.org:

This is a recommended practice (RP) defining a common implementation for the use of Lyric Meta Events within a Standard MIDI File. The Standard MIDI Files 1.0 document does not clearly define how to place text within the Lyric Meta Events, with the result that several companies have implemented lyric events in incompatible ways.

OK, there is no clear standard, but there does seem to be some compatibility among manufacturers. For instance, the example I mentioned--saving a MIDI file with lyrics in one sequencer, and opening that file in a different sequencer, by a different manufacturer--the lyrics appear when opened in the other sequencer.

Therefore, I would imagine that the capability could be developed in WB, when it finds lyric events in a file, to import them. Yes, it would not be perfect, and one would have to work on it afterwards. (Even if such importation were perfect, one would have to do phonetic fiddling afterwards to get the lyrics to sound right.)

However, for songs in which one has already inputted the lyrics in the sequencer, the fine tuning of the lyrics and their placement after importation would probably be less time-consuming than starting from scratch,