Nathan Wailes - Blog - GitHub - LinkedIn - Patreon - Reddit - Stack Overflow - Twitter - YouTube

How to use Rhymecraft

Owned by Nathan Wailes
Last updated: Nov 01, 2020
7 min read

Table of contents

What can I do with Rhymecraft?

  • The eventual goal is to have Rhymecraft be a tool for the creation of rap lyrics.
  • At the moment, though, there are really only two things that people may find helpful:
    1. You can create lyrics videos where each syllable is highlighted or on-screen for the duration it's performed.
    2. You can view the timing (rhythm) of lyrics on a graph, where each row of the graph represents one measure (four beats).
      • This can help you more-quickly analyze how a rapper is constructing their lyrics.

How can I create a lyrics video?

  1. Get the song's lyrics and timing into Rhymecraft.
  2. Create the video.
    1. Click "Video → Generate Lyrics Video". 
    2. Set the video options as you'd prefer.
    3. Click the "Create lyrics video" button. 
  3. Download the video.
    1. Open the 'Finished lyrics videos' window.
      1. Click 'Video' in the navbar, then click the 'Finished lyrics videos' option. 
    2. Wait for your video's status to be 'Finished'. 
    3. Click the 'Download' button. 
    4. The video should begin downloading to your computer as an AVI file.

How can I view the timing / rhythm of lyrics?

  1. Get the song's lyrics and timing into Rhymecraft.
  2. Tap out the BPM.
    1. Background:
      1. We need to do this to:
        1. Know how wide each syllable should be on the graph.
        2. Know the left/right positioning that the syllables should have relative to the beats shown on the graph.
    2. Step-by-step process:
      1. Open the BPM window if it isn't already open.
        1. Click 'Song' in the navbar, then click 'BPM'. 
      2. Open the 'Record the timing' window if it isn't already open.
        1. Click 'Song' in the navbar, then click 'Record the timing'. 
      3. In the 'Record the timing' window, click the 'Play' button. 
      4. Click inside the 'Tap for BPM' input box. 
        • Background:
          • You need to do this so that the website knows it should start interpreting your pressing of the spacebar as a measurement of the beat.
      5. Press the spacebar to the beat.
        • Important: Your first press of the spacebar should be on the first beat of a measure.
          • Background:
            • This is necessary to correctly show what beat (within a measure) the lyrics start on.
          • Step-by-step process:
            • To hear the first beat of a measure:
              • Listen for where the music seems to start repeating.
              • Most songs begin on the first beat of a measure.
        • You can stop pressing the beat whenever you want; the more you press it, the more-accurate the estimation of the BPM will get.  I normally press the spacebar for at least 16 beats, but if I want a very accurate estimate, I'll sometimes press the spacebar through the entire song.
      6. Click outside of the input box.
      7. You should now see a numerical BPM estimate.
  3. Open the timing graph.
    1. Click "Song" in the navbar, then click the "Timing Graph" option. 
      1. Alternatively, press Alt+Shift+3. 
  4. You should see the syllables of the lyrics displayed on the timing graph like this: 

How to import a song's lyrics and rhythm into Rhymecraft

Written explanation

  1. If you don't already have a Rhymecraft account, create one.
  2. If you are not signed in, sign in.
  3. Prepare a new, blank song.
    1. If you have just created an account and signed in for the first time:
      1. You should've already had a new, blank song created for you.
      2. You should see a screen like this: 
    2. Otherwise, if you have already used the app for another song, and you'd like to add a new song:
      1. Click 'Song' in the navbar, and then click the 'New Song' option. 
  4. Prepare the lyrics.
    1. Insert the song's lyrics into the 'Type/Paste Lyrics' window.
      1. Get the lyrics from Genius.
      2. Make any changes you want to make.
        • Examples of changes you might want to make:
          • Add or remove line breaks.
          • Remove lyrics you don't want to keep (for example, secondary performers).
    2. Click the 'Submit Lyrics' button.
    3. Click the 'Syllabify Lyrics' button.
  5. Prepare the audio file.
    1. Open the 'Record the timing' window.
      • Click the 'Song' option in the navbar, then click the 'Record the timing' dropdown option. 
      • Alternatively, press Alt+Shift+2.
    2. Add a link to the audio file to the input box. 
      1. If the audio should be taken from a YouTube video, extract an audio file from the YouTube video.
        1. Copy the link to the YouTube video.
        2. Go to http://www.flvto.biz/.
        3. Insert the YouTube link.
        4. Click the 'Convert to' button.
          • It should convert to mp3 by default.
      2. If you don't have a link to the audio file, move a copy of the file to a cloud storage service that will let you generate a link to the file.
        • With Dropbox:
          1. Move the file into a Dropbox folder.
          2. Copy the Dropbox link. 
    3. Click the 'Load' button.
  6. Record the rhythm.
    1. Click the 'Record' button.
    2. Change the song speed to a fraction of its normal playing speed.
      1. I generally find 0.25x lets me record the rhythm fairly accurately.
    3. Click the 'Play' button.
    4. Press down on the spacebar when you begin to hear a syllable, and release the spacebar when you no longer hear that syllable.
      • Note that the syllable that will have its timing recorded the next time you press the spacebar is shown in the 'Record the timing' window.
        • If you do not have the spacebar held down, just the next syllable is shown. 
        • If you do have the spacebar held down, both the currently-being-recorded syllable and the next-to-be-recorded syllables are shown. 
    5. (Optional) You can make corrections in the timing more easily by using the shortcut keys.
  7. (Optional) Verify your work.

Video explanation

  • Note:
    • Some aspects of this explanation are out-of-date.
    • The UI now looks different (in some ways) from the way it did when I recorded this explanation.

How to use the Playback window

  1. Open the Playback window.
    1. Click the 'Song' option in the navbar, then click the 'Playback' option in the dropdown. 
  2. Click the 'Play back the lyrics' button. 
  3. You should begin to hear the audio playing, and when the rapper is performing, you should see each syllable appear on-screen (one at a time). 

How to use the keyboard shortcuts while recording the rhythm

Written explanation

  • Background:
    • I added these shortcuts as a way to very-quickly make corrections to the timing of the syllables.
    • I would say that using these shortcuts is practically essential for getting an entire song's lyrics' timing accurately recorded.
    • Note that the shortcuts are only enabled after you have clicked the 'Record' button (so that it says 'Stop Recording').
    • Note that you can make corrections to just a single syllable without needing to then re-record the rhythm of the syllables that follow it.
  • The shortcuts:
    • To start or stop the audio: press 'e'.
    • To change the speed of the audio playback:
      • Press '1' for full-speed.
      • Press '2' for half-speed (0.5x).
      • Press '3' for quarter speed (0.25x).
    • To move the audio one second backwards, press 'q'.  To move the audio one second forwards, press 'w'.
    • To set the current syllable (the one that will have its timing recorded when you press the spacebar):
      • Press 'a' to set it to the syllable before the current syllable (in other words, taking one step backwards).
      • Press 's' to set it to the syllable after the current syllable (in other words, taking one step forwards).
    • To scroll the syllabified lyrics down or up:
      • Press 'z' to scroll the syllabified lyrics up (viewing earlier lyrics).
      • Press 'x' to scroll the syllabified lyrics downwards (viewing later lyrics).

Video explanation

How to use the trainer page to grade your accuracy at recording the timing of the lyrics

Written explanation

  1. In one tab, go to https://www.rhymecraft.guru/trainer.
  2. In a second tab, go to https://www.rhymecraft.guru/.
  3. In the Rhymecraft app, create a new song. (Song → New song)
  4. On the trainer page, select which audio segment you want to practice with. 
  5. Using the audio file and lyrics shown on the trainer page, follow the instructions for how to get a song into Rhymecraft.
  6. You should now have both the lyrics and the rhythm of those lyrics contained in a new song in the Rhymecraft app.
  7. Copy the ID of your song as shown in the URL. 
    1. The ID should be an integer.
  8. On the trainer page, paste your song ID into the input box that says, "What's your song ID?". 
  9. Click the "Submit" button. 
  10. Scroll down to see your results. 
  11. For any syllables that show up in the trainer results highlighted in red, go back to the app and use the keyboard shortcuts to try to correct the timing of those syllables.
  12. When you have gotten your results to show up mostly green (with some yellow and no red), try recording the rhythm of another song listed on the training page.

Video explanation


Follow me on Twitter