I've just started working with the Lyrics capability in Sonar Studio 7
but it appears that its not at the level I hoped it would be. Here is my
wish list for lyrics and the lyrics view:
1) Allow for more than one word to be highlighted at the same time.
Instead of the 'bouncing ball' effect (which I think is distracting), I
would like to highlight part or all of the current line. I think this is
easier to work with since, as a singer, I just want to know what line
I am on. As a programmer, I know this means the basis of the
lyrics-to-notes logic will have to change. Perhaps using a tab character
instead would make more sense. Just be sure to change the lyrics
view so the tab does not display or change the display of the words.
Currently, the only way I can get Sonar to do something close to
what I want is to change all the spaces to underlines in a group of
words that I want to highlight at the same time and then link
that group of words to a single note. It works, but the underlines are
also distracting.
2) Don't force a link from a word or group of words to a note. That
should be optional.
This would require a type of 'link mode' where the user can indicate
if they want the lyrics to be linked to notes or not.
If they don't want the link, then the lyrics view will still need to know
when to highlight the lyrics. It appears the lyric event has a start
time, so just use that to know when to highlight the lyric. And since
it also has a duration, that can be used to know when to discontinue
the highlighting of the lyric. Of course, this means there will have to
be a way to edit the start time and duration of the lyric event.
Perhaps the lyric view can be enhanced to allow for those attributes
to be edited.
3) Allow for text on the lyrics view which is just decoration text and
not lyrics.
For instance, in the lyrics I like to separate sections of the song with
the name of the section (Verse 1, Verse 2, Chorus 1, Bridge, etc). I
would not want the section names to be highlighted as another lyric.
Another use of decoration text I like is chord text just above each
lyric line and over the word or space where the chord change
happens. Still another use of decoration text is guitar tablature. I
like to put tablature in its own section of the lyrics sheet OR above or
below each lyrics line.
4) Allow for decoration text (see #2) to be linked to song markers and
possibly be highlighted differently from the lyrics and stay highlighted
for the entire section.
In other words, while in Verse 1, I could have the 'Verse 1' section
header highlighted in a different way than the lyrics in verse 1 and
the section highlight would last for the entire verse, based on the
markers.
5) Allow for different fonts for each character, like a real text editor.
This would allow me to use one font for my section header text, one
for my chord text, one for my lyrics and even allow for different
fonts throughout my lyrics.
6) Allow for underlining of any text or lyric.
I like to use this on my section header text.
That's all I can think of for now. Let me know if you need more
clarification on the items listed.
Thanks.
Chris