Welcome to SongwritersdB, the app designed to help songwriters save, organize, collaborate, and share their songs!
If you run into any problems or have any questions—or just wish to share a comment with us--feel free to reach out via the "Contact Us" form here or via the Chat window on the home page.
Until the iOs and Android mobile versions of SongwritersdB are ready, you can use this convenient mini-application on your iPhone or Android device to record sudden inspiration when you are away from your desktop!
The mobile app can be downloaded directly from the Apple app store or Google Play store. In addition, we will have on our website Google Play / Apple App Store links to connect you directly to the store, where you can then download the app and install on your phone.
To record a new song, there are two methods:
Method #1 of Recording a New SongLater on, you can do a search for songs with ONLY lyrics or ONLY titles (see "Search Options," below). Then you can scan the titles for ideas (like a "title book") or switch over to "Lyrics View" (see "Song Display Options," below) to scan your unfinished lyrics (or completed lyrics that need music).
To add existing songs to SongwritersdB, you have two options:
Here are the steps to follow:
( If you have another format of audio file, there are many file conversion programs available online, some for free, and some that will even convert the files online with no app installation required.)
Repeat steps 1 and 2, above.
You can also add an entire folder of songs from a cloud drive once you have made the connection to that drive (see below at "Cloud Backup").
To delete a song, go to the Songs page, be sure you are in Tiles View mode (not Lyrics View), find the song you wish to delete, click the icon with three vertical dots...
and then click “Delete this song.”
CAUTION: Note that any imported songs will still exist in whatever folder they were copied from (see prior section), but any new songs you recorded within SongwritersdB will be erased from both the local AND backup drives once you click the delete button.
Thus, if you wish to retain a song you recorded within SongwritersdB after removing it from the app, be sure to copy the audio files to another location before you click “Delete this song.”
To delete multiple songs:
The typical view of your songs is represented by the icon with the four small squares, in the top section of the page. Hovering your mouse over that icon displays “Tiles View.”
This is the default view of your songs, where each song is displayed within a square, with the name, comments, genre, tempo, and star rating in full view.
The bottom row of icons contains the Play/Stop button, a
Song Lyrics icon to take
you to the song’s lyrics page (where you can type in lyrics
to the song), the “Edit Song Details” icon
, the “Share” icon
, and
finally an icon with three vertical dots, which includes a
“Browse location” link (which takes you to the actual file
location on your computer) and “Delete this song” option.
NOTE: At the bottom of the left menu is a small volume control. Moving the slider to the right will increase the playback volume of all songs, moving to the left will decrease the volume.
Clicking the icon next to the “Tiles View” icon takes you to the Lyrics View. Unique to SongwritersdB is the ability to display songs not only by their song names, but also by their lyric content! For example, you may have started a song and only have a few scraps of lyric typed in. Months later, you want to review the lyrics of your songs but don’t remember exactly what you wrote. Or maybe you’d like quickly to scan the first lines of various song ideas you’ve started at various times. How can you do that? It’s easy with the SongwritersdB Lyrics View!
This view will initially display the title and first line:
However, by clicking the “Show only lyrics” box on the right side of the page--the first two lines of every song in your collection. Here you can quickly scan your forgotten lyrics for renewed inspiration or to rekindle your memory.
Once you find a lyric you want to focus on,
simply click the Play icon to the right to hear the
associated music. Clicking the “Show Lyrics” icon
will take you directly to the source of your lines, the
Lyrics page for that song. Clicking the “Song Details” icon
at the end of each song tile
enables you quickly to add comments, attach a genre, and
give a star rating, to help you further organize your songs.
For more control over the playback of your songs, click the small Play icon at the very top of the main app window.
This will open the Song Player Window. At first it is mostly blank, but upon playing any song it will look more like this:
There are two ways to edit song details.
METHOD ONE: Click the“Edit Song Details”icon on a song tile:
This opens a large window…
…that gives you the following options:
Song Title: Here you can enter a song title, if you have one. If not, the date and time the song was recorded will be displayed here. If you have a lot of songs with no mp3 metadata title, but the title is same as the name of the mp3 file, you can tick the box on the Import Songs page to use the mp3 file name as the Title of the song. (See “Adding an entire folder of songs,” above.)
Comments: Adding comments is super-important, since it will help you find the song months or years from now, when you can’t remember the name or if there are no lyrics, yet. For example, you might add the comment “Justin Beaver-type beat” or “super-moody minor melody” or “this would be great for Bob’s new band” and so on. Our super-fast search feature will quickly locate the missing song months or years from when you recorded it.
Rating: Adding a star rating helps you separate the great from the not-quite-there-yet songs. No one writes nothing but hit songs every time they sit down! Going back every month or so to re-visit your works of art with an honest assessment—reflected in the star ratings—will help you to concentrate on those most worth working on. No use spending a lot of time on a 2-star song when you have 5-star songs that still need to be finished, first! Later, a quick sort for “unfinished 5-star songs” will pull up a bunch of songs you really need to work on first.
Genre: We start you off with 15 of the most common genres (e.g., rock, folk, blues, country, etc.). The Pro version allows you to add and delete genres (see below) to fit your particular styles of songwriting. Attaching a genre to your songs will help you narrow down a search for a particular type of song if you are pitching to an artist within a certain genre, etc.
Tempo: Is the song a ballad? Mid-tempo? Or Uptempo? This will also help you in your searches for particular types of songs to fit a certain situation.
Completed Status:None = neither music nor lyrics is complete
Music = the music is complete but not the lyrics
Lyrics = the lyrics are complete but not the music
Yes = both lyrics and music are complete
Recording Status:No = No demo recorded, yet
In-Progress = Demo started, but not yet finished (mixed, mastered)
Complete = Demo complete, ready to pitch or post online
Copyright Status:Yes = Song has been registered with the Copyright Office
No = Not yet copyrighted
Registered with PROPRO: Performing Rights Organization (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC)
Yes = Song has been registered with a PRO
No = Song not registered with a PRO
METHOD TWO: Click the “Song Details” icon on the right side of a song tile:
This opens a smaller window to edit the same song details:
This can be useful when you wish to keep the display of song tiles in view and show the details of another song: simply click the “Song Details” icon in another song and the details in the Song Details panel will immediately be updated to that of the new song. Very handy for making a lot of quick changes to many songs!
To add or delete genres (rock, folk, blues, country, jazz, etc.), click “Settings” on the Home page, then click the “Genre Settings” tab.
One of the primary features of SongwritersdB is the ability to search through all of your songs, to find the ones you want to finish, collaborate on, or share. A robust and sophisticated search engine will accomplish all of that, no matter how many hundreds of songs you may have in the database.
Normal SearchEntering keywords in the search box at the top of the page will search for those words, based on the other search options you have selected in the Advanced Search (see below). Note that capitalization is ignored. Also, a search for more than one word will limit the results to those songs that include ALL the listed words.
To start with a clean slate, open Advanced Search, click Reset, then tick whichever boxes at the top (Title, Comments, and/or Lyrics) you wish to search through. Click “Apply” and now your text searches will check all songs based on your selection.
Advanced SearchClicking the small icon with three horizontal lines and a magnifying glass takes you to the Advanced Search window. Here you can search just song titles, just comments, just lyrics, or any combination of the foregoing. In addition, you can search for all songs within a particular genre, tempo, star rating, music/lyrics completion, demo recording status, and copyright status.
For example:If I wanted to display all uptempo country songs rated four stars, I would enter it this way:
To display all songs including the word “sun” in the title:
To display all songs including the words “James Taylor” in the comments section:
To display all blues songs with incomplete lyrics but completed music:
And on and on….
On the “Songs” page, there are several ways to sort the songs display, using the “Sort By” drop-down menu in the upper-right corner. To understand A-Z and Z-A, think of reciting the alphabet: you start at A and end at Z, thus Z is the most recent letter you said, so it’s the “newest”!
Date Imported: Reflects the date when the song is imported into the SongwritersdB program. The program does not look at the date the actual imported audio file was originally recorded or edited before the date it is imported into SongwritersdB.
Date Recorded: Reflects the date of recording within the SongwritersdB program.
Last Edited On: Reflects the date last edited. An edit is any change in song file data (rating, genre, comments, lyrics, other tags, etc.) or when audio is appended or merged.
Song Title: Songs displayed alphabetically according to their song titles.
An “album” within SongwritersdB is simply a collection of your songs, i.e., similar to a Playlist on other platforms. For example, you may wish to put all your Christmas songs in an Album called “Christmas,” all your favorite country songs in an album “Country Faves,” or create an album of songs you’ve co-written with your friend, Albert, called “Albert Co-writes.” (Note that you can include a song in more than one Album.)
Just use click-drag-drop to rearrange the sequence of Albums and songs within Albums.
Click on an Album or Song you wish to move up or down, move to the desired location, and release your mouse button.
You will notice a Play button within an Album as well as within each associated song. The Play button within an Album will play all associated songs in order, until you press the square “Stop” icon. Alternatively, you can play any of the associated songs by pressing their individual Play buttons.
One of the great features of SongwritersdB is the almost-immediate backups of your recordings to a cloud drive (Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive). No more lost files! The minute you click Save on a new recording, it is
To be sure the backup feature will work properly, you first must set up the connections to a cloud drive.
Manual Backups At any time, you can backup your entire song database, including all songs and data, to your cloud drive. To do so, click the Cloud Drive icon in the main left menu, then click "Create Backup Manually".
The app will now start to back up any newly added songs since the last backup, to an app-created folder (named "songwritersdB").
The “Settings” left menu item takes you to the Settings page. Here you can select a microphone (input) and speakers (output) for recording any new songs, or add/delete genres (see "Adding/deleting a Genre," above).
We hope you find the SongwritersdB app helpful to your songwriting!
While the free version is great to give you a good idea of the app’s capabilities, note that the Pro version will give you the following additional benefits:
If for any reason you need to uninstall the app, follow these steps:
In Windows, type “Add or Remove Programs” in the Windows search box, and select the highlighted text.
Next, search for the app “SongwritersdB,” click the three little vertical dots and then “Uninstall”. Click “Uninstall” again, to confirm. That’s it!
Alternatively, within Control Panel, click “Uninstall a Program.” Click on the name of the app, SongwritersdB, and then click Uninstall and Yes (to confirm).
Occasionally, an anti-virus program will flag SongwritersdB as a virus or malware and prevent its installation. To avoid having the installation blocked, you will need to add the app name to the exclusion list of apps not to be blocked. The exact method of doing so will vary from one anti-virus program to the next.
For example, in Avast Free, a popular anti-virus program, you need to go to the Menu, click Settings, then Blocked & Allowed Apps. Under “List of allowed apps” click “Allow App,” scroll down to the name “SongwritersdB”, and click “ADD.”
New songs: New songs are stored in C:/Users/yourname/Music/SongwritersdB
Imported songs: Anytime you click “Add folder to scan for songs” (icon at the top) and then “Add folder to import songs,” and then “Import Songs” (discussed above under “Importing Existing Songs” ) your imported songs are copied to a new folder named “Imported Songs,” located at C:/Users/yourname/Music/SongwritersdB/ImportedSongs.
Backup files: In addition to the above locations, Pro version customers with an active license will be able to make a backup to a selected folder, as follows:
Song Locations: To find the location for any song, go
to the Songs page in Tiles View, click the icon with three
vertical dots on the song tile in question
, and then click “Browse location.”
While SongwritersdB will work with either .mp3 or .wav files, note that .mp3 files occupy between one-tenth (1/10) and one-fifth (1/5) of the hard-disc space within your computer (depending on the selected bit rate). For example, a three-minute song in .wav format will typically require around 32 MB of hard drive space, while an .mp3 file of the same song at 256 kbps will require only 6 MB of space.
For the purposes of SongwritersdB, where the absolute best CD-quality audio is not needed, we recommend always using a 256 kbps/.mp3 file format whenever possible. This will save a lot of space on your hard drive, as the number of your songs increases, yet still deliver high-quality audio.