Lyrics Guide

Lyrics matching finds text that is close enough to the track you are playing. ECHO uses title, artist, album, duration, and tags, then lets you pick a candidate.

The goal is convenience, not a perfect hit on every file. Live cuts, edits, covers, translated titles, and bad tags all push automatic results off. Official support is local .lrc files, embedded lyrics, and candidates you save yourself.

First time

1. Play a song you know well. Unfamiliar songs make it hard to judge whether lyrics are right.
2. Open Lyrics in the left navigation.
3. Wait for text. Local or embedded lyrics usually appear quickly.
4. Check whether the current line roughly follows the vocal.
5. If the text is small, faint, or lost in the background, adjust it in lyrics settings. Do not treat that as a matching failure.

A normal result: the main lyrics are readable and the current line roughly tracks the song. Translation, romanization, and desktop lyrics are extras, not things you need on day one.

Where lyrics come from

Recommended confidence order:

1. A local .lrc you already saved, preferably next to the audio file.
2. Lyrics embedded in the audio file.
3. Online candidates.
4. The candidate you pick by hand.
5. A per-track time offset.

Check local and embedded lyrics before blaming the network. If the title or artist in the tags is wrong, online matching cannot be accurate either.

When lyrics are wrong, classify the problem first

Do not clear the library over inaccurate lyrics. Figure out which kind of wrong it is:

What you see	Likely cause	Do this first
Completely different song	Wrong candidate	Switch candidates
Entire file early or late	Whole-file offset	Adjust this track’s offset only
First lines match, later lines drift	Different version or duration	Pick lyrics for the same version
Only a few lines are wrong	Weak timestamps in this file	Try another candidate
Translation does not match the original	Different translation source	Hide translation or switch candidates
No lyrics at all	No local file, no online result	Fix the title and artist, then search again

Do not use the global offset to fix one song. Global offset is only for cases where every song is consistently early or late on your setup.

How to switch candidates

1. Keep the track playing.
2. Open the lyric candidate or source list.
3. Scan title, artist, and duration for obvious live cuts, instrumentals, or different songs.
4. Pick the result that looks most like the studio version you are playing.
5. Return to the lyrics view and listen for 20 seconds.
6. If it is still off, try the next candidate. Do not start changing fonts, themes, or output devices in between.

Change one thing at a time: either the candidate or the offset. Changing both at once hides which change worked.

Adjusting the offset

Offset shifts the whole lyric file earlier or later.

Good for:

• Every line is early by the same amount.
• Every line is late by the same amount.

Not good for:

• Right at the start, wrong later. That is a version mismatch.
• Only the chorus is off. That is usually poor timestamp quality in the file.

When adjusting:

1. Open the offset for this track only.
2. Move in small steps and listen to one line before continuing.
3. If you make it worse, reset this track’s offset. Do not touch the global one.

Translation, romanization, and desktop lyrics

These are display layers. They do not change playback.

Feature	Who it is for	Note
Translation	Reading the gist in your language	May come from a different version than the main lyrics
Romanization / kana	Singing along in a foreign language	Takes extra lines; turn it off if it feels crowded
Desktop lyrics	Seeing the current line while watching video or working	Just a small window, not a second matching engine

If the text is hard to read, adjust in this order:

1. Lyric color and smart readable color.
2. Background brightness, blur, or mask.
3. Main font size and line spacing.

Never rescan the library because text is hard to read. Readability is a display setting.

Placing local lyric files

If you have your own .lrc files:

1. Put them in the same folder as the audio file when possible.
2. Match the filename to the track so it is easy to find.
3. Play the track, then open Lyrics.
4. If nothing appears, check whether the tags identify the same song the lyric file belongs to.

Local lyrics are more stable than transient online results. For songs you play and calibrate often, saving locally saves work.

Why matching cannot be 100%

There is no universal source of truth for every track version. The same song may exist as:

Case	Result
Original, live, edit, remix, instrumental	The lyric timeline and MV may differ completely
Single version and album version with different lengths	Lyrics drift more and more over time
Titles with feat., with, translated names, romanization, aliases	Search can return mixed candidates
Non-standard video titles	MV results can include fan edits, stages, clips, or reuploads
Recompressed or trimmed uploads	Video and local audio will not naturally align
Changing platform result order	Today’s first candidate may not stay the same

Automatic matching can save a lot of manual searching, but it cannot replace your judgment about the exact version.

Video you attach yourself

The official product no longer maintains platform MV search, parsing, or downloading as a feature. If you have a local video file or a URL you have the right to use, treat it as extra picture. Do not expect millisecond alignment with the audio.

Common reasons for mismatch:

1. The video is a different version of the song.
2. Intros, outros, or title cards do not match the audio.
3. Decoding, buffering, or an immersive background adds delay.

If the picture is wrong:

1. Switch to your own file or URL.
2. If the versions differ, change the video instead of chasing sync.
3. If the whole picture is uniformly early or late, then try sync settings.
4. If you do not want a picture, turn Enable MV off.

If it will not open, check that the file still exists, the path is valid, and this PC can decode it. Do not start by changing output modes or rebuilding the library.

Suggested settings

Goal	Suggestion
Just want to sing along	Open the lyrics view; keep local and your usual sources
Fewer mismatches	Fix track title and artist first, then switch candidates
Slow network	Turn off deep search; rely on local files first
Every song is off by the same amount	Then consider a very small global offset
One song is off	Adjust that song’s offset only
No video of your own	Turn Enable MV off
Lyrics hard to read over video	Darken the background or turn immersive background off
The PC stutters	Lower quality and turn preload off

What not to do before reporting

These usually do not fix lyrics or picture issues and make debugging harder:

1. Do not delete the database first.
2. Do not clear the whole library.
3. Do not keep switching audio output modes.
4. Do not change proxy, source order, offset, and theme all at once.
5. Do not treat platform MV search as an official feature to debug.

Keep the current track, the current candidate, and the one or two changes you already tried. Saying “I switched candidates” or “I only adjusted the offset” is far more useful than “lyrics are broken”.