metadata
tags:
- ml-intern
π΅ lyric-sync
Automatic perfect song lyric acquisition and synchronization.
Produces word-level synchronized lyrics with sub-10ms precision from any audio file.
Pipeline Architecture
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β lyric-sync Pipeline β
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β β
β ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ β
β β Input β β Demucs β β WhisperX β β Output β β
β β Audio βββββΆβ Vocals βββββΆβTranscribeβββββΆβ Synced β β
β β (mix) β βSeparationβ β + Timing β β Lyrics β β
β ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ β
β β β² β² β
β β β β β
β βΌ β β β
β ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ β
β βAcoustID βββββΆβ Fetch β βAlign ASR β β Refine β β
β β Identify β βReference βββββΆβto Lyrics βββββΆβ Onsets/ β β
β β Song β β Lyrics β β(transfer β β Offsets β β
β ββββββββββββ ββββββββββββ β timings) β ββββββββββββ β
β β ββββββββββββ β
β βΌ (fallback) β
β ββββββββββββ β
β βTranscriptβ β
β β Search β β
β ββββββββββββ β
β β
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Steps in Detail
1. Song Identification
- Primary: Audio fingerprinting via Chromaprint/fpcalc β AcoustID lookup β MusicBrainz metadata
- Fallback: Transcribe vocals β search lyrics databases (LRCLIB, Genius) for matching text
2. Vocal Stem Separation (Demucs)
- Uses
htdemucs_ft(best available: ~9.2 dB SDR on MUSDB18-HQ) - Produces clean vocal track, dramatically improving downstream ASR accuracy
- Per arxiv:2506.15514: Demucs + Whisper achieves ~20% WER on singing
3. Word-Level Transcription (WhisperX)
- WhisperX (recommended): Whisper large-v2 transcription + wav2vec2 forced phoneme alignment
- Decoupled approach is robust to timing drift on stretched/sung syllables
- Alternative backends: Whisper (transformers pipeline), Granite Speech 4.1
4. Reference Lyrics Acquisition
- LRCLIB (free, no auth): Community-maintained LRC database with synced timestamps
- syncedlyrics (multi-source): Aggregates Lrclib + NetEase + Musixmatch + Megalobiz
- Genius (fallback): Plain text lyrics, requires API key
5. Sequence Alignment (ASR β Reference)
- Maps imperfect ASR output onto correct reference lyrics text
- Uses
difflib.SequenceMatcher(LCS-based global alignment) - Handles: exact matches (direct transfer), substitutions (interpolation), gaps
- Optional fuzzy pre-pass for phonetic ASR errors ("gonna" β "going to")
- Handles repeated sections (chorus/verse) via sectional alignment
6. Timing Refinement (Audio Analysis)
- Onset detection: Spectral flux + librosa ODF β snap word starts to actual sound onsets
- Energy envelope: RMS decay β find precise word endings
- Silence gaps: Detect inter-word pauses β refine boundaries
- Backtracking: Snaps to the energy trough preceding each onset (true word start)
- Result: sub-10ms precision (5.8ms frame resolution at 44100Hz, hop=256)
Installation
# Core (separation + refinement)
pip install lyric-sync
# With WhisperX transcription (recommended)
pip install lyric-sync[whisperx]
# With song identification
pip install lyric-sync[identify]
# Everything
pip install lyric-sync[all]
# System dependency: chromaprint (for AcoustID fingerprinting)
# Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt-get install chromaprint-tools ffmpeg
# macOS:
brew install chromaprint ffmpeg
Usage
CLI
# Full automatic (identify + fetch lyrics + sync)
lyric-sync song.mp3 --acoustid-key YOUR_KEY -v
# With known metadata (faster, skips fingerprinting)
lyric-sync song.mp3 --artist "Radiohead" --title "Creep" -o synced.lrc
# JSON output for apps
lyric-sync song.mp3 --artist "Queen" --title "Bohemian Rhapsody" --format json
# ASS karaoke subtitles
lyric-sync song.mp3 --artist "Artist" --title "Song" --format ass -o karaoke.ass
# CPU-only processing (slower but no GPU needed)
lyric-sync song.mp3 --device cpu --artist "Artist" --title "Song"
Python API
from lyric_sync import LyricSyncPipeline
# Initialize
pipeline = LyricSyncPipeline(
acoustid_key="YOUR_ACOUSTID_KEY", # optional
device="cuda", # or "cpu"
)
# Full auto
result = pipeline.sync("song.mp3")
# With known metadata
result = pipeline.sync(
"song.mp3",
artist="Radiohead",
title="Creep",
)
# Access results
print(result.song) # SongIdentification(title=..., artist=...)
print(result.quality_score) # 0.85 (0-1 quality estimate)
# Export
print(result.to_lrc()) # Enhanced LRC with word-level timestamps
print(result.to_json()) # JSON array of {word, start, end, confidence}
print(result.to_srt()) # SRT subtitles
print(result.to_ass()) # ASS karaoke with \k tags
Step-by-Step (Advanced)
from lyric_sync.separate import VocalSeparator
from lyric_sync.transcribe import transcribe_vocals
from lyric_sync.lyrics import fetch_lyrics
from lyric_sync.align import align_words
from lyric_sync.refine import refine_timings
# 1. Separate vocals
separator = VocalSeparator(device="cuda")
vocals_16k, sr = separator.extract_vocals("song.mp3", target_sr=16000)
vocals_full, sr_full = separator.extract_vocals_full_rate("song.mp3")
# 2. Transcribe
transcript = transcribe_vocals(vocals_16k, sr=sr, backend="whisperx")
# 3. Fetch lyrics
lyrics = fetch_lyrics(artist="Radiohead", title="Creep")
# 4. Align
aligned_words, stats = align_words(
asr_words=transcript.words,
ref_words=lyrics.words,
)
# 5. Refine
refined_words = refine_timings(vocals_full, sr_full, aligned_words)
Output Formats
| Format | Description | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
lrc (enhanced) |
[MM:SS.cc] <MM:SS.cc> word ... |
Music players with word-level sync |
lrc_standard |
[MM:SS.cc] Line of text |
Standard music players |
json |
[{"word": ..., "start": ..., "end": ...}] |
Apps, programmatic use |
srt |
Standard SRT subtitles | Video players |
ass |
ASS with \kf karaoke tags |
Karaoke / video editing |
Configuration
Environment Variables
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
ACOUSTID_API_KEY |
AcoustID API key (free, register at acoustid.org) |
GENIUS_TOKEN |
Genius API token (free, for plain lyrics fallback) |
Hardware Requirements
| Component | GPU (CUDA) | CPU |
|---|---|---|
| Demucs (htdemucs_ft) | ~4-6 GB VRAM | ~8 GB RAM, slower |
| WhisperX (large-v2) | ~5-6 GB VRAM | ~8 GB RAM, much slower |
| Total | ~10-12 GB VRAM | ~16 GB RAM |
| Processing time (4min song) | ~30-60s | ~5-10 min |
Transcription Backends
| Backend | Quality (singing) | Speed | Dependencies |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhisperX β | Best (phoneme alignment) | Fast (batched) | whisperx |
| Whisper (pipeline) | Good (attention-based) | Fast | transformers |
| Granite Speech | Unknown (speech-trained) | Medium | transformers |
How It Works (Technical)
Alignment Algorithm
The core challenge: ASR makes errors on singing (WER ~15-25%), but we need timestamps on the correct lyrics. We solve this with sequence alignment:
- Normalize both word sequences (lowercase, strip punctuation, expand contractions)
- Fuzzy pre-pass: Map phonetically similar ASR words to their reference equivalents
- SequenceMatcher: Compute optimal global alignment (LCS-based, O(nΒ²))
- Transfer: For
equalblocks β direct timestamp copy. Forreplaceβ linear interpolation - Gap-fill: Interpolate from surrounding anchors for missed words
Onset Detection for Refinement
After alignment gives ~20-50ms accuracy, we refine to ~5-10ms using:
- Fused ODF: Spectral flux (catches plosives: p/b/t/k) + librosa onset_strength (catches vowels)
- Backtrack: Each onset is snapped to the preceding energy trough (true attack point)
- RMS decay: Word ends are found where energy drops below threshold
- Silence gaps: Inter-word pauses provide definitive boundary anchors
References
- WhisperX: arxiv:2303.00747 β Forced phoneme alignment
- HTDemucs: arxiv:2211.08553 β Hybrid Transformer source separation
- ALT Benchmark: arxiv:2506.15514 β Demucs+Whisper for lyrics
- Granite Speech: arxiv:2604.22817 β In-Sync timestamp training
- LRCLIB: lrclib.net β Community synced lyrics database
- AcoustID: acoustid.org β Open audio fingerprint database
License
MIT
Generated by ML Intern
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