TRK:IQ — Lyric & Timing Editor

The Lyric & Timing Editor lets you fix the words of each lyric line and when it lights up. Play the song and hit Starts here on a line the moment you hear it, edit text, split or merge lines, or re-time a whole section in one move, then save it straight back to your track.

You can open it from two places:

• From TRK:IQ, with the Lyric & Timing Editor button in the lyrics card. It is there whenever there are lyrics, fetched or pasted, timed or not.
• From the results screen after a run, with Adjust Lyrics. Your audio and lyrics stay loaded, so you fix the lines and generate again without re-uploading.

Here is what you can do in the editor:

• Edit lines — fix a word, split a long line, merge two short ones, add or delete a line, or paste a whole block.
• Play the song and watch the matching lyric line light up.
• Mark where a line starts with one click, or time a whole song in one listen by tapping M.
• Set a time on any line by typing it in mm:ss.xx.
• Re-time a section after a cut, a bumper, or a speed change with Cut Sections, Shift All, Re-anchor, or Tempo Scale.
• Save the new lines and 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 editor in Cut Sections mode. You can also open the editor any time from the lyrics card.

What the editor looks like

The editor is one screen: a row of mode buttons across the top (Edit Lines, Cut Sections, Shift All, Re-anchor, Tempo Scale), a small player with a play head you can drag, and a scrollable list of lyric lines, each with its timestamp on the left. 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. Pasted plain lyrics come in untimed and show + time instead.
• Hit Starts here to stamp a line with the play head, or click its time (or + time) to type one. Click the text to change the words.
• The little − / + beside a time move just that line a tenth of a second. Play from here plays the song from that line’s time so you can hear whether it lands.
• The re-timing tools need every line timed first; until then only Edit Lines is available.

Play the song and mark where lines start

Before you change anything, listen. Press play (or tap Space) and the lyric list follows along, highlighting the line that should be singing and keeping the line that’s up next near the top with the lines after it in view, so you never touch the scroll bar while marking. Drag the play head along the bar to jump anywhere in the song.

1. 1

   Press play

   Listen for the first word of the line you want to fix. Pause right when you hear it, or let it keep playing if you’re quick.
2. 2

   Hit Starts here on that line

   Every line has a Starts here button. Click it and the line takes the play-head time. No typing, no math, and Undo takes it back.
3. 3

   Time a whole song in one listen

   Press play and tap M as each line starts. The line that’s up next is marked with a dashed edge; every tap stamps it and moves on to the one below, whether or not it already had a time. So a three-minute song takes three minutes, and a pass over timing that came in wrong works the same way.
4. 4

   Check it, then fine-tune

   Click a line’s number (or its Play from here button) to hear the song from that line’s time, right from the list. Just marked a line and want to hear it back? Press R. A hair early or late? Tap that line’s − or + to shift it a tenth of a second and play it again.

Set or fix one line’s time by hand

Click the line’s timestamp, type the new time (or take the play head’s time with one click), and confirm. Only that line moves; the others stay put. To move a whole run of lines at once, use one of the tools below instead.

• Set to play head fills the box with wherever the player sits — pause on the word, click, confirm.
• Or type in any of the accepted formats; tenths are fine (1:31.4).
• Enter confirms; Esc cancels.
• Nothing is saved until you click Apply Changes, 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 lines and 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.
• Timing is all-or-nothing today: if some lines are still untimed when you apply, the lyrics save as plain text and the aligner times every line on Generate.

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.
• Editing from the catalog, with no player? 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