TRK:IQ — Timestamp Editor

The Timestamp Editor lets you fix when each lyric line lights up. Drag the play head to hear your song, click a line to move it, and save the corrected timing straight back to your track. Think of it as tuning the timing so the words land on the beat.

You can open it from three places:

• From TRK:IQ, after you upload a song — or straight from pasted lyrics with the Lyric Editor button in the lyrics card.
• From the song catalog in IQ Studio: open a song and tap Edit & sync to fix its lyrics and timing without leaving the catalog. Your changes save back to the song.

Here is what you can do in the editor:

• Scrub the song and watch the matching lyric line light up.
• Nudge a single line earlier or later in small steps.
• Re-sync a whole section after a cut, a bumper, or a speed change.
• Save the new times back to the track as custom synced lyrics.

Why your lyrics drift

TRK:IQ fetches synced lyrics from LRCLIB. Those timestamps match the original studio recording. If your audio is different, the lyrics land in the wrong spots:

• Shortened edits — you cut a verse or outro to fit your show window.
• YouTube rips — a few seconds of silence or a logo bumper before the music.
• Live or extended versions — extra bars, crowd noise, ad-libs.
• Different-speed versions — an acoustic or remix that runs faster or slower.

When your file’s length doesn’t match the LRCLIB original, TRK:IQ shows a trim warning with a one-click button into the Timestamp Editor. You can also open the editor any time from the lyrics panel toolbar.

What the editor looks like

The editor is one screen: a scrollable list of lyric lines, each with its timestamp on the left, and a play head you can drag. The line playing right now is highlighted so you always know where you are in the song.

• The time on the left is when that line starts, in mm:ss.xx.
• The highlighted row follows playback, so you can eyeball whether the word matches the music.
• Click any row’s time to edit it. The rest of this guide covers the four ways to fix timing.

Scrub playback to find the right time

Before you change anything, listen. Drag the play head along the bar and TRK:IQ jumps to that spot in your audio. The lyric list scrolls along, so you can see exactly which word is supposed to be singing.

1. 1

   Press play or drag the play head

   Listen for the first word of the line you want to fix. Stop right when you hear it.
2. 2

   Read the play-head time

   The time under the bar is exactly where you stopped — for example 00:18.90.
3. 3

   Snap the line to it

   Click Set to play head and the selected line takes that time. No typing, no math.

Nudge a single line

Sometimes one line is just a touch early or late. You don’t need a whole tool for that — click the line and bump it. Small nudges move only that line; the others stay put.

• ±0.1s bumps the line a tenth of a second — perfect for a word that lands a beat off.
• ±1s jumps a full second when a line is way out.
• You can also type a new time straight into the box. See timestamp formats for what it accepts.
• Nothing is saved until you click Confirm, so you can fiddle freely.

Re-syncing a whole section: the four tools

When more than one line is off, fix them as a group. Pick the tool that matches what you did to the song. You can combine them — apply one, then open the editor again for another pass.

Cut Sections: you removed part of the song

The most common case. You cut a verse in Audacity, and now every lyric after the cut shows up late. Snip snip, fix fix.

1. 1

   Click Activate Scissors

   This turns on cut mode.
2. 2

   Click the first and last lines you removed

   The range turns red. For a one-line cut, click the same line twice.
3. 3

   Set the anchor timestamp

   An input appears for the first surviving line after the cut. Type the time where that line starts in your edited audio.
4. 4

   Confirm, then Apply Changes

   Every line after the cut shifts automatically. Check the preview first.

The math: new_time = anchor_new + (original_time - anchor_original). In plain English, the gaps between lines stay the same — everything just slides over. Need more than one cut? Make as many as you want; each shows as a red divider, and the shifts add up from top to bottom.

Example: you cut the second verse of “In the Air Tonight.” The next surviving line used to start at 02:15.80, but in your edit it starts at 01:31.41. Enter 01:31.41 as the anchor and every later line slides back about 44 seconds.

Shift All: everything is off by the same amount

The simplest tool. Every timestamp moves by one fixed offset. Use it when the song itself is untouched but the start point moved — a 3-second YouTube bumper, silence you padded onto the front, or LRCLIB timestamps that drift by a steady amount.

1. Switch to Shift All.
2. Enter the offset in seconds. Negative = earlier (enter -3 to remove a 3-second bumper). Positive = later.
3. Check the first and last lines in the live preview.
4. Click Apply Changes.

Timestamps never go below zero — the editor clamps them for you.

Re-anchor: fix one section at a time

The most flexible tool. Click any line, type the correct time, and everything after it shifts by the same amount — until your next anchor. Great for live versions with extra bars, extended bridges, or fine-tuning after a cut.

1. Switch to Re-anchor.
2. Click any timestamp in the list (a dotted underline appears on hover).
3. Adjust the pre-filled time to match your audio and confirm.
4. Repeat for other sections. Each anchor shows as a chip above the list.

Example: a live recording has an 8-second crowd cheer before verse two. Lines 1–15 are fine; everything after is 8 seconds early. Click line 16, add 8 seconds, confirm. Lines before it stay put.

Tempo Scale: the whole song runs fast or slow

For versions of the same performance at a different speed — say, an acoustic take that’s 5% slower. Instead of sliding, every timestamp gets multiplied: new_time = time × scale. The song changed pace, so the lyrics should too.

Two ways to enter the scale:

• Direct factor — 0.95 means your version is 5% faster (timestamps compress); 1.05 means 5% slower (they spread out).
• Duration ratio — enter the original length and your version’s length in seconds, and the editor does the math. Original 240s, yours 228s → scale 0.95.

Saving back to your track

When the preview looks right, click Apply Changes. Your corrected times save back to the track as custom synced lyrics, and the trim warning disappears. From there the lyrics flow into your sequence just like the originals would.

• The lyrics panel relabels the track Custom (synced) so you know your edits are in place.
• Each apply saves on its own, so you can shift, reopen, cut, and apply again without losing earlier work.
• Generating an .xtiming file? It uses your saved custom times, not the LRCLIB originals.

Workflow tips

• Preview before applying. Every tool shows the full updated LRC output. Spot-check a few lines against your audio first.
• Combine tools. Shift All to fix a bumper, then reopen the editor and Cut a section. Each apply saves in place.
• Let Audacity find the times. Select a spot in your audio, read the start time from the toolbar, and type it into the editor.
• Not sure where to start? Re-anchor just the first lyric line so the vocals begin on time, then see how the rest lines up.

Timestamp formats

Every timestamp input accepts these:

• mm:ss.xx — like 01:31.41
• m:ss.xx — leading zero optional
• mm:ss.x — tenths of a second, like 01:31.4
• mm:ss — centiseconds default to 00
• [mm:ss.xx] — brackets stripped automatically, so you can paste straight from an LRC file

FAQ