So my saga of lyrics-related problems continues!

All of my mp3 files are VBR, which makes the process of lyrics tagging quite time consuming because if I make a mistake I have to play the song from the very beginning again. This is due to the issue that both XMMS and WinAmp share in that they don't seek accurately within VBR files. However, even worse than that, I've discovered a new VBR issue.

Having tried out the SYLT plugin for WinAmp I've noticed that when playing back songs with lyrics I tagged with XMMS-SingIt they were synchronised initially but slowly began to lag as the song progressed, eventually going as much as an entire second out of sync. Testing this out on the empeg, I find the XMMS tagged files were perfectly synchronised, but the WinAmp tagged files would go out of sync as the song progressed with the later lyrics leading the vocals. I'm using the latest version of WinAmp. Has anyone else seen this behaviour? I doubt it's a problem specifically related to my mp3s as they work fine when I use XMMS to produce the time-stamps.

Back to Linux and XMMS for me... shame, I really liked the SYLT plugin.

Ross

This is a known bug, and there's no known remedy. I believe it's due to limitations in how the plugin gets track time from WinAMP, but I could be mis-remembering. Look at some of the SYLT threads (or do a search if you can't find them) for Patrick's explanation of the whole thing.

Incidentally, I *believe* that the timestamps are, in actuality, in sync with the song as you tag it, but it's just how it "appears" in the plugin that's wrong. Again, it's been awhile and I've been distracted lately, so maybe that's wrong. Before giving up on SYLT entirely, I'd sync over at least a few test tracks to make sure it's as bad as you think it is when emphatic displays it.

Also, adding a negative offset in the SYLT config will have the lyrics start to scroll in a little early, which should help if things are really bad. I realize these aren't ideal solutions, but I'm just trying to provide alternatives.

This is the first I've heard of this problem. I'm using Winamp 2.0 (I tried 3.0 ages ago when I first started with lyric tagging and it had some strange behaviour) and the 1.30 SYLT plug-in. I have found no problems with the playback although I did wonder why sometimes scrolling is spot on through emphatic and other times they are just slightly out.

I generally 'click-as-you-sing' and then go back and make some fine tuning examples - sometimes having to playback 4 or 5 times.The maximum I find the lyrics out by is about a second but never getting progressively worse through the song.

Could you to try something like:


Spot a audible highlight near the end of the song in winamp and check the running time in the winamp "time counter". One exactly on a whole second would be best because it'll be easier to compare. Look and see if it is at the exact same time in xmms. I haven't tried it myself, but I guess it won't. I so, it's not "my" fault ;-)


I'm pretty curious to see what will be the result...

Not looking likely that there will be any significant changes to WimAMP code. Even the timestamp issues are highly unlikely to be fixed now as it's not a showstopper bug.

I've finally found some time to test this out thoroughly.

Yes, ignoring the SingIt and SYLT plugins, the difference purely lies between WinAmp and XMMS. WinAmp (both v2 and v5) will always end up leading both XMMS and emphatic by around a second towards the end of the song. Both the time-stamps and the actual WinAmp/XMMS time counters display this behaviour.

Curiously this is true both of my VBR encoded mp3 files *and* my CBR encoded ones! So why doesn't anyone else see this behaviour???

A four-minute song is typically a second out towards the end, and a six-minute song is typically a second and a half out towards the end. This is really quite noticable! Of course, towards the beginning of the song XMMS, emphatic and WinAmp all agree.

Ross

Bizarre. I have done some testing, and excluding confusing Winamp by fast forwarding and rewinding in VBR encoded files, Winamp, emphatic amd xmms all agree to within a very small tolerance - even on long tracks.

Wonder what is configured differently on your machine?

I have the same problem, too. I'm betting that it's actually a hardware problem based on having to convert 44.1kHz audio to 48kHz audio so the cheap-ass sound cards can deal with it.

What kind of sound card are you using? Mine is the on-board SoundMAX, or something like that.

Ways to check.... Uh, try a 48kHz-encoded mp3? Get a decent sound card? I haven't gotten to any of these tests yet.

I have a Gigabyte GA-7NNXP with onboard sound. Sound chip is a Realtek ALC650. No specs on website concerning sampling rate. I guess it has something to do with less than perfect drivers too...

Oh, and by the way, as you would guess, I don't have problem mentionned here...

Perhaps - mine is an Audigy Platinum - I think it handles 48kHz natively. And I'm using an old Winamp, as I can't stand the newer ones. Think I'm on 3...I'll check.

Great idea! I think you've got it. Yeah, the computer I'm using has an appallingly bad on-board sound card. No idea what type, I just know that sound is awful through the computer, and the card is a part of the mboard. I have a few old Soundblaster AWE64s lying around that might be able to use to test idea out (though thinking about it they may all be ISAs and I doubt my computer is old enough to have ISA slots!).

I'll get on to it.

Ross

I too experience the "lyrics drift" where by the end of the song the lyrics is a good second or two off. Although the time in Winamp agrees with the time on the stamp, the row isn't being highlighted until some small time later (>2 seconds by the end of the track).

I too am using a poor quality onboard sound card -- ESS Maestro on a Dell Insperon.

From Winamp's "Directsound output" status tab (from output plug-in config):
Certified: yes, emulated: no
Supports sample rates from 4800 Hz to 48000 Hz (continuous)
Hardware memory: N/A
Hardware mixing: supported, 15 free streams (17 max)
Speaker setup: stereo

This could be verified by seeing if the lyrics scroll fine using my fancy Soundblaster Audigy USB soundcard at home... I'll let you know this weekend ;-) If not, could it have something to do with the DirectSound output plugin doing [cross-]fading?