Lyrics are supported in the ID3v2 specification, although I dunno about the time-index markers. Wouldn't that be cool, though? Having lyrics scrolling on the MP3 display? That would be so awesome.

Having thought about the whole lyrics-in-mp3s thing, though (completely separate from the Empeg itself), it seems to me that there are some inherent problems with it:

1) Until music companies publish the MP3s directly, it's up to fans to enter the lyrics properly. This means that everyone with a Jimi Hendrix collection would be singing "scuse me while I kiss this guy" because that's what the tag data would contain.

2) Even if you go by the lyric sheet, sometimes the words on the lyric sheets are typos or taken from unfinished copies of the song. I've seen plenty of errors in official lyric sheets. Even with bands which take great pains to get their lyric sheets right, errors still can slip through. For years, Rush denied that there was an error on the lyric sheet to "Permanent Waves" until a US fan showed them the typo on the American printing of the album (they had only proofread and approved the Canadian printing).

3) Someone would have to take the time to synch the time index markers with the lines in the song. Most folks who rip MP3s don't even bother to fill out the Year and Genre fields correctly, let alone take the time to enter lyrics and synch them up.

Of course, if I were entering the lyrics for my own collection, I'd take the time to do them all perfect and those problems wouldn't happen. I'm just saying these are the problems for the general public.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.