Players

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Players

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There are five possible players who can help you practice:
◾ Audio player
◾ Drum machine
◾ Metronome
◾ Spotify player
◾ Video player
◾ YouTube player

A player can be a valuable tool for you to practice songs. You can listen to the original recording, a cover or a tutorial. This can help you to understand the melody, rhythm, tempo, and overall feel of the song. Using a player alongside the songbook can enhance your learning experience, and can make it more interactive, engaging, and effective to practice and improve your musical skills.

Each player has a ‘Play’ button to start and stop it. But the player can also be started and stopped by the‘Play’ button of the songbook, which controls the player and the scrolling. The metronome and drum machine do stop automatically after the song has been scrolled through.

The players are playing even if they are hidden. The YouTube player also. But it has to be visible to start it.

Only one player can be used at a time. The selected player is placed above your songtext. You can show/hide a player with the ‘Player’ toggle button and switch between them by the ‘Select player’ button in the toolbar.

We recommend the option to select the player automatically.

Automatic Player Selection

The player is shown based on the linked player source — this could be an audio file, a YouTube video ID, or a drum pattern.

The automatic selection chooses the most appropriate player based on:

  • The player sources linked within the song
  • The most recently used player
  • A predefined player priority

Selection Logic

The selection process follows this order:

  1. Audio Player is selected if:
    • It was the last used player and
    • the song is linked to an audio source
  2. Spotify Player is selected if:
    • It was the last used player and
    • The song is linked to an Spotify track
  3. Drum Machine is selected if:
    • It was the last used player and
    • a drum pattern is defined in the song
  4. Metronome is selected if:
    • It was the last used player
  5. Video Player is selected if:
    • It was the last used player and
    • the song contains a video source
  6. YouTube Player is selected if:
    • It was the last used player and
    • the song contains a YouTube video ID

🔄 Fallback Logic (if no recent player matches):

If no player could be selected based on the last used one, the selection is made based on available sources in the song:

6.1. Use Audio Player if an audio source is linked
6.2. Use Spotify Player if an Spotify track is linked
6.3. Use Drum Machine if a drum pattern is available
6.4. Use Video Player if a video source is present
6.5. Use YouTube Player if a YouTube video ID is defined
6.6. Use Metronome if tempo and time signature are set in the song

Audio Player

  • A-B loop to repeat only a part of a song
  • Accelerate or slow down the speed at which you’d like to practice a song (Android >= 6.0). It affects the audio play speed as well as the scroll speed
  • Option to play the song in a loop
  • There is an automatic lookup for audio files if the location has been changed (e.g. after synchronization).

Video Player

You can add a video that is stored on your device to every song. The embedded video player plays the video beneath your song text, so you can keep an eye on both. The video player supports the formats “3gp”, “mkv”, “mp4”, “ts” and “webm”.

  • A-B loop to repeat only a part of a song. While the player is running, you can click the button to set the starting point of the section to be repeated. Click again to set the end point. A third click deactivates the repeat function.
  • Accelerate or slow down the speed at which you’d like to practice a song. It affects the audio play speed as well as the scroll speed
  • Option to play the whole song in a loop

When you add a video to a song where the duration isn’t set, the duration of the song is automatically set to the duration of the video.

Below the video player is a handlebar to customize the size of the video player. There is an option in the songbook settings to hide the handlebar to save space on a small smartphone screen.

YouTube Player

  • In every song, you can create a link to a YouTube video
  • The embedded YouTube player plays the video in parallel to your songtext
  • If you add a video to a song where the duration isn’t set, the duration of the song is automatically updated to the duration of a video
  • Below the video player is a handlebar to customize the size of the video player. There is an option in the songbook settings to hide the handlebar to save space on a small smartphone screen
  • The directive {x_sccrd_yt:} is used to define the YouTube video by its ID (e.g. {x_sccrd_yt:19JVc76ExkY}).

Spotify player

The Spotify player allows you to search for songs directly on Spotify. Before you can use it, you must grant smartChord permission to access Spotify and its app. Once you have granted permission, you can use the player without restriction.

  • A-B loop to repeat only a part of a song. While the player is running, you can click the button to set the starting point of the section to be repeated. Click again to set the end point. A third click deactivates the repeat function.
  • Option to play the whole song in a loop.
  • Option to synchronize the position of the songtext with the playback position of the track.

If you add a track from Spotify without having specified a song duration, it will automatically adopt the duration of the Spotify track.

Drum machine

Integrated drum machine player to play the drum patterns for the musical accompaniment. When playing, it shows the minimized drum pattern view. Tap on it to stop the player.

You can choose between hundreds of shared drum patterns or create your own. The song gives the speed for the drum pattern.

Metronome

The song gives the speed for the metronome or can be entered by BPM dialog with tap tempo functionality. You can also select song-specific time signature from a list of predefined measures.

The player options allow:
◾ Optionally flash
◾ Optionally mute
◾ Optionally vibrate

Control songtext position via player

The audio, Spotify and video player provide an option to synchronize the position of the songtext with the playback position of the track.

Enable control of songtext position: If the toggle button is activated, the position of the lyrics next to the audio or video track is adjusted using the player’s slider.

Tap the slider to adjust: Simply tap the slider to move both the player and lyrics to the desired position.

A-B loop synchronization: When the A-B loop is activated, the songtext will scroll accordingly as the player returns to point A.