Free tool
Word-by-word LRC maker — enhanced lyrics, by hand
Paste your lyrics, play the song, tap each word as it's sung, and export an Enhanced LRC file with per-word timestamps. Free, no AI, no account — your audio never leaves your device.
Everything runs locally in your browser — the audio file and your lyrics are never uploaded. The export is a standard Enhanced LRC file: [mm:ss.xx]<mm:ss.xx>word <mm:ss.xx>word…
What a word-by-word LRC file looks like
Enhanced LRC (also called A2 extension or word-time-tag LRC) adds a timestamp in angle brackets before every word:
[00:33.15]<00:33.15>Hello <00:33.90>darkness <00:34.70>my <00:35.10>old <00:35.55>friendThe line timestamp keeps it backward-compatible — players that only understand plain LRC read the file line-by-line as usual, while word-aware players light up each word on cue. One file serves both — which is why this enhanced LRC maker always writes the line tag too.
Using this enhanced LRC maker — the workflow
- Paste the lyrics, one lyric line per text line. Title and artist are optional and become
[ti:]/[ar:]tags. - Load the song from your device — it plays locally, nothing uploads.
- Tap along. Press Enter (or the button) on the first syllable of each word. Fast verse? Switch to 0.75× speed. Missed one? Click any word to jump back and re-sync from there.
- Export. Download the .lrc, name it like the audio file, keep them in the same folder — done.
Tips for accurate word timing
- Do a listen-through first. Knowing where the phrasing breathes makes your taps land better than sight-reading the lyrics cold.
- Tap the vowel, not the consonant. A word feels “on” when the highlight hits the sung vowel — tapping at the first consonant reads early in playback.
- Slow the fast parts, not the whole song. Toggle 0.75× only for dense runs — timestamps are stored in song-time, so mixing speeds costs nothing.
- Fix, don't restart. One late tap doesn't ruin the take: click that word, seek back a couple of seconds, and re-stamp from there.
- Melisma is line-level's revenge. When one word stretches across ten notes, a single word timestamp is all the format offers — stamp its onset and let it ride.
Manual tapping vs AI lyric syncing — the honest comparison
AI aligners transcribe and time-stamp a whole song in seconds, and for bulk jobs that speed is unbeatable. The costs are the ones their landing pages skip: your audio gets uploaded to someone else's server, word boundaries drift on ad-libs, harmonies and anything sung faster than it's spoken, and non-English lyrics fare worse still. Hand-tapping inverts the trade — slower, but every timestamp lands exactly where your ear put it, and the file never leaves your machine. For the songs you actually care about, precise beats fast.
Where word-by-word lyrics shine
Line-level lyrics answer “what's the next line?”; word-level lyrics are for performing — karaoke nights, language learners shadowing pronunciation, and players that make lyrics a first-class feature. That last one is why this tool exists: Trove Player renders word-by-word lyrics natively on Mac and iPhone, and we needed a good way to make them. If you only need line-level timing, our LRC Maker does that job in a fraction of the time — and LRC to SRT turns either into video subtitles.
Word-by-word lyrics FAQ
Format, players, AI comparison and timing questions.
What is an Enhanced LRC file?
Enhanced LRC extends the normal .lrc lyrics format with a timestamp per word: [00:12.00]<00:12.00>Hello <00:12.80>world. Players that support it can highlight each word as it's sung — the Apple Music-style karaoke effect — instead of just scrolling whole lines.
How is this different from a normal LRC maker?
A normal LRC maker (like our line-level LRC Maker) stamps one timestamp per line. This tool stamps every word, which takes longer but produces word-by-word lyrics. If line-level is all your player shows, start with the regular maker.
Why tap by hand instead of using an AI lyric sync tool?
Two honest reasons: precision and privacy. AI aligners are fast but wobble on ad-libs, overlapping vocals and non-English lyrics — and they require uploading your audio to a server. Tapping is slower and exact, and your file never leaves the browser.
Which players support word-by-word lyrics?
Fewer than support plain LRC — that's the trade-off. Trove Player (our Mac and iPhone player, in development) renders Enhanced LRC word-by-word; several mobile players and some karaoke apps read it too. Players that don't understand the word tags simply fall back to line-level display, so the file stays compatible.
Is this free? Is my song uploaded?
Free, no account, no watermark, and nothing is uploaded — audio and lyrics are processed entirely in your browser. It even works offline once the page has loaded.
How long does it take to sync a song?
Plan for roughly two to three times the song's length: a 3-minute track is a 6–9 minute job at normal speed. The 0.75× speed toggle and the click-any-word-to-redo control exist precisely to make dense verses manageable.
Can I turn the result back into a normal LRC?
Yes — the line timestamps are already there, so any player or tool that ignores word tags reads it as a regular LRC automatically. No conversion needed.
Does it work for Chinese, Japanese or Korean lyrics?
With one caveat: words are split on spaces, and CJK lyrics usually aren't space-separated — so a line becomes one long 'word'. The honest workaround is to insert spaces where you want highlight boundaries (per character, per phrase — your call) before continuing. Karaoke-style CJK syncing genuinely works this way; it's just an extra prep step.
Can I use this on a phone or tablet?
It runs — the stamp button works fine by touch — but a couple hundred taps go faster on a keyboard, and a bigger screen makes the word grid easier to track. If you have a desktop nearby, use it; the export is identical either way.
Made for the player that sings along
Trove Player for Mac and iPhone renders your Enhanced LRC files word by word — next to FLAC, NAS streaming and gapless playback. Free, one-time Pro purchase, never a subscription.
More free tools: LRC Maker — line-level synced lyrics, faster · LRC to SRT Converter · Add Album Art to MP3