1. After downloading the installation files, unzip or extract the files, using the built-in Windows file unzipper or another similar program.
2. Right-click the ZIP file. In the drop-down menu, click "Extract All…" The unzip window will open, with a default destination for the unzipped files. If you want to unzip the files to a different folder, click "Browse…" and choose a location.
3. Click "Extract" and the files will be unzipped and copied to the folder you chose.
4. Navigate to the unzipped files and right-click on “songwritersdb.exe”. Then left-click on “Run as administrator.”

5. Click “Yes” on the screen asking “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?”
6. Review the End User License Agreement, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and if you agree to the terms, click “Next,” which will install the app on the C drive of your computer.
NOTE RE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS: Fear not that this app is fully approved and not malware! If you get warnings from your anti-virus program, be sure to click "Allow" or "Accept" to permit the app to install. (See "Anti-Virus Settings", below)

Recording a New Song

To record a new song, there are two methods:

1. From the Home page, click the red “Record” button on the right. This takes you to a page named “Add New Song.”
2. SONG TITLE: Type in whatever name you’d like in the box next to “Song Title.” If you’d prefer to add a name later, a default song name will be attached to your recording, consisting of the date and time of the recording, e.g., Rec_23_Apr_22_14_23_52, which means “Recorded on April 23, 2022, at 2:23 and 52 seconds, p.m.”
3. SELECT MICROPHONE: Next, if you have not already done so, select a microphone in the drop-down menu where it says “Select Mic.” You will have the option of using the internal mic in your PC or an attached mic. If it says "Unable to find any connected device...." click "Cancel" and turn on your audio interface, be sure it is connected to your computer, then click "New Song" again.
4. RECORD: Finally, click the red button with the microphone icon. This will immediately begin your audio recording.
5. PAUSE: To pause your recording, click the same button, which is now showing two vertical bars. Re-clicking that button will resume recording from where it left off.
6. STOP: Clicking the little square in the red circle will STOP the recording and you will then notice on the right, in the section headed “Recorded File Details,” an indication of the song’s length in seconds and its file size.
7. START OVER: If you want to replace what you just recorded, click the START OVER button all the way on the right. This will erase your existing recording and immediately start another audio recording.
8. SAVE: Finally, click the SAVE button at the bottom of the Add New Song window, to save your audio file. This will also take you back to the Songs page, where you can listen to your new song.

1. Click “Songs” in the left menu of the home page.
2. Click “New Song” in the upper right corner of the page. This takes you to a page named “Add New Song”.
3. Proceed as outlined above, starting with step #2.

Adding Just Lyrics or Title Ideas

1. Click “Songs” in the left menu of the home page.
2. Click “New Song” in the upper right corner of the page. This takes you to a page named “Add New Song".
3. Titles: To add just a title idea, replace the default date in the Song Title field and click "Save". Now you will have a blank song tile with just a new title.
4. Lyrics: To add just some lyrics or lyric ideas, click the "Lyrics" tab, type in your lyrics or lyric ideas, then click "Save." Note that the song will be saved with the date and time as the title; to avoid that, type in a word or two in the Song Title field before--or after--you click over to the Lyrics tab, but in any case before you click Save. Of course, you can always edit the Song Title later, but a brief title related to the lyric may help you find the song faster later on.

Later 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:

1. Add one or more songs at a time
2. Add an entire folder of songs

Adding one or more songs at a time

Here are the steps to follow:

1. On the Home page, click “Songs” in the left menu.
2. Click the icon that looks likes a folder with a "plus" (“Import songs”) in the top menu and this screen will open::
3. To select one or more individual songs within a folder, click "Select Files" and then click on the song you wish to add to SongwritersdB.
   To select more than one song at a time, hold down the shift key and click on additional songs.
4. When you are ready, click "Open" and the selected songs will be visible on the next page. Here you can add more songs the same way, or delete a selection.
5. Click checkbox "Use 'File Name' as Song Title" if you have already named your songs; otherwise the file name will be the date and time you import the song. This can save you the trouble of having to re-enter the titles of the imported songs manually, after they are imported.
6. When you are ready, click "Import Songs".
7. NOTE: All selected songs must already be formatted as either .mp3, .wav, or .m4a!
   • 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.
8. Select the folder holding the audio files of your songs. They must already be formatted as either .mp3, .wav, or .m4a!

   ( 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.)

 

Adding an Entire Folder of Songs:

Via the Song Page

Repeat steps 1 and 2, above.

3. Click "Select Folders" and navigate to a folder with the songs you wish to import. You can select more than one folder at a time (shift-click).
4. When you are ready, click "Select Folder" and the selected folders will be visible on the next page. Here you can add more folders the same way, or delete a selection.
5. Click checkbox "Use 'File Name' as Song Title" if you have already named your songs; otherwise the file name will be the date and time you import the song. This can save you the trouble of having to re-enter the titles of the imported songs manually, after they are imported.
6. When you are ready, click "Import Songs".
7. NOTE: All selected songs must already be formatted as either .mp3, .wav, or .m4a!
• 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.
8. The newly imported songs from within the selected folders will now show up on the Songs page.

Via the Cloud Drive

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").

1. To do so, click the Cloud Drive icon in the main left menu, then click "Import Songs from Drive".
2. You will see a listing of folders within that drive: select the particular folder that contains the songs you wish to import and then click "Continue to Download Songs".
3. If you wish to add additional folders, just repeat the above steps.
4. Once you have all the folders you want listed, click “Continue to Download Songs.”
5. The newly imported songs will now show up on the Songs page.

Deleting One Song at a Time

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.”

Deleting Multiple Songs

To delete multiple songs:

1. Click “Songs” in the left menu, then click the first icon: at the top of the page.
2. You will then see all your songs with greyed-out checkmarks, like this:

3. Find any number of songs you wish to delete and click the checkmark, which will turn solid.
4. When you have selected all the songs you wish to delete, click "Delete Selected" in the top right menu:

1. Tiles View

   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.

2. Lyrics View

   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.

1. 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 PRO

   PRO: Performing Rights Organization (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC)

   Yes = Song has been registered with a PRO

   No = Song not registered with a PRO

2. 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!

   Moving the Window

   You can reposition the small Song Details window by clicking at the top of the window and dragging it to a new position.
   

To add or delete genres (rock, folk, blues, country, jazz, etc.), click “Settings” on the Home page, then click the “Genre Settings” tab.

1. To add a new genre, type in the name in the text box, and click “Add”.
2. To delete a genre, click the “x” to the right of the name of the genre you wish to delete.
3. When you get back to your Song Details pages, you will see the changes within the Genre drop-down menu.

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.

Entering 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.

Clicking 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.

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.)

1. Click “Albums” in the left menu on the Home page.
2. Click “Create Album.”
3. Type the name you are giving the Album, the year, and a brief description.
4. Click “Save.”
5. You will now see the new Album listed on the left side of the Albums page.
6. To add songs to this Album, click “Songs” in the left menu, then click the first icon: at the top of the page.
7. You will then see all your songs with greyed-out checkmarks, like this:

8. Find any number of songs you wish to include in your Album and click the checkmark, which will turn solid.
9. When you have selected all the songs you wish to add to your new Album, click the second icon at the top:
10. A window will open called “Tag Albums,” which is where you assign your selected songs to your new Album (or any previously created Albums, as well). Note that a song can be assigned to more than one Album.
11. When done assigning the songs to one or more Albums, click OK.
12. Back on the Home page, click “Albums” in the left menu to see your Albums on the left, and the tagged songs on the right. Click an Album name to see the associated songs on the right side.
13. To remove a song from an Album, click the icon with the small “x” next to the song you wish to remove, e.g.,
14. To delete an entire Album, click the trashcan next to the Album name:

Rearranging Albums and Album Songs

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.

Playing Album Songs

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

1. saved on a local drive, AND
2. saved to an app-created folder ("songwritersdB") on your cloud drive.

To be sure the backup feature will work properly, you first must set up the connections to a cloud drive.

1. Click “Cloud Drive” in the left menu.
2. Click the “Connect” button for your preferred cloud drive service.
3. Once the initial connection is made, accept the options to connect to the drive.
4. When you return to SongwritersdB, if you do not wish to import a folder of songs at this time, do not select anything and just click "Continue to Download Songs" and then "Done".

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:

• Import/create an unlimited number of songs (free version is limited to just 20 songs)
• Share songs & lyrics with friends and collaborators
• Add/delete unlimited number of song genres
• Share data between your cellphone and computer
• Instant cloud backup. Never lose a song!
• Insert or append new audio to existing songs

• Click the Home icon in the left menu on the Home page.
• Click “Activate Now” on the pop-up screen.
• www.songwritersdb.com will open; click “Buy Now” at the top of the page.
• Follow the instructions for your desired method of payment.
• Once the payment is complete, you will receive an email containing your license code. Copy and paste this code into the License Key box.

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:

1. Click “Cloud Drive” on the Home page.
2. Click here at the page bottom:
3. Select a folder to hold your backup files.

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.