Entering lyrics and midi files?

[Bass Guitar]

OK probably not a lot of users hanging around here that might have tried this but here goes! 
 

Im fascinated by using this Midi player called Midi Sound Synth 2. I’ve had it for years now but really never used it for anything other than previewing download midi files. I did that today and I opened the lyrics view and Lo and behold there they were! 

It’s mainly because of midi Karaoke that it exists but it would also work for musicians who use midi backing tracks. 
 

So I Googled “How do you add lyrics to a midi track? “   Top of the list was Cakewalk and Cubase.  

So before I waist a couple of hours exploring this the big question is does lyric view export with the midi file?? 
 

I downloaded a Karaoke creator app and it totally sucks and it’s audio not midi. 
 

Thank you for your advice. 

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, Bass Guitar said:

So before I waist a couple of hours exploring this the big question is does lyric view export with the midi file?? 

Lyrics are supported as meta events in the MIDI file structure, so you should be able to pass that data to/from apps that support the spec fully. Finding things on MIDI.org is a little challenging at times, but a guy from Stanford posted the file structure here if interested. 

[Bass Guitar]

Thanks for the info. I've used midi since it was born but I've never desired to go past note on and off and velocity!!  I still have no clue what this Articulation stuff is all about. 

I did a quick test. The user manual recommends using Staff View. Took a few minutes but I figured that out. But for it to go quickly you actually need a midi vocal track! 

oh well, I new this was going to be a time suck. Then the words you type actually follow the notes but you need to break it down into syllables.   Once sorted out it all goes as planed. 

Sonar tracks the lyrics perfectly in staff view,    So I'll give it a 7 out of ten compared to all the other apps I tried.

Lyric View?? why did they even bother to include this POS. Yet another feature Cakewalk Next has that Sonar Doesn't. I'm going to try Next tomorrow.  

I saved the file as a Midi type 1 and opened it in Midi Sound synth, The lyrics were there just like they are in Sonars Lyric view.. ONEBIGLONG STRINGOFWORDSWITHNO SPACES.  Nice.  But it did recognize the fact that there were lyrics.  At least that proves that they are stored in the midi files. But getting the scrolling   to work??? ?  

At least weird investigations like this are just out of curiosity and usually what I learn is it's a stupid idea and all this weird midi freeware is better off used on a DOS computer.  It most certainly looks like that was where it came from.  

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Bass Guitar

[Promidi]

2 hours ago, Bass Guitar said:

does lyric view export with the midi file??

Yes.  

[mettelus]

25 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

The lyrics were there just like they are in Sonars Lyric view.. ONEBIGLONG STRINGOFWORDSWITHNO SPACES.  Nice.

LOL, exactly... hence the dependency on the app being used. Traditionally, lyrics are on musical scores in syllables (we have all seen them), so apps that either cater to Staff View specifically (or have it included) will use the timing of that meta data to sync the tracks properly. The Lyric View is just a parsed file of the lyric meta data (text file basically in most cases), and the OnesWhereTheyJamAllTheSyllablesTogether are not parsing it properly. Few actually use lyrics linked to the Piano Roll View, but there are notable exceptions like Synthesizer V and karaoke apps, where the melody is directly linked to the lyrics on a traditional Piano Roll View (since many find that easier to work with than Staff View).