Hymn Lyrics in OBS

Coming from a Wirecast Pro background and trying to migrate to OBS for stake conferences has been quite a learning experience. To me, OBS has always seemed a little rough around the edges compared to Wirecast's polished user interface. One thing I struggled with in OBS was setting up hymn lyrics - well, no more! One strong feature of OBS is the ability to add plugins and scripts from some very talented people. One such script I recently discovered is lyrics.lua that makes including lyrics in OBS actually faster and easier than what I was doing in Wirecast!

It's a bit tricky to initially setup, but this YouTube video does a great job of breaking it down step-by-step. Once setup, it's a breeze to use. Lyrics can be copied from the church website and dropped into a text file. With a minimal amount of touch up, they can be utilized in OBS. You can specify in OBS the number of lines to display at one time, or override that value with a control string put in the beginning of the text file. For example, to specify 3 lines would be #L:3. Other control strings are available for additional formatting, but I found I only need 1 or 2 to get by.

A little over-the-top for weekly Worship Services, but great for when we get back to in-person stake conferences utilizing dimly lit overflow buildings.

Take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojK8Vi36MKE
The concept is a workaround that just makes sense. The video uses google slides, but keynote also works if you're on a mac. It allows for greater freedom when it comes to text style, placement and animations. It's a tool that can be used for practically anything, if you get the hang of it.

Yes, Scott Fichter presented both methods in YouTube just days apart last November. Using Google Slides has been the workaround for quite some time for titles and lyrics in OBS. It's a lot of work to setup the slides for each hymn. That's the beauty of lyrics.lua - there's hardly any work in getting the lyrics on the screen formatted the way you want.

I've been using the lyrics.lua script for a while now and have built up a number of hymns.

https://github.com/mrmcgibby/ldshymnlyrics

Mike Gibson

mrmcgibby wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:34 pm I've been using the lyrics.lua script for a while now and have built up a number of hymns.

https://github.com/mrmcgibby/ldshymnlyrics

Very nice. Thanks!

Thanks for your note and for the hymn link.
Works well with .lua.
Thanks again,
Bob

mrmcgibby wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:34 pm I've been using the lyrics.lua script for a while now and have built up a number of hymns.

https://github.com/mrmcgibby/ldshymnlyrics

Mike Gibson

Perfect!!
Thanks so much!!
Bob

Does anyone have a good solution if using lyrics.lua when they announce we will sing verses 1,2,3 and 7? Up to now we have had enough time to quickly create a new hymn text and edit out the verses we are skipping. Our previous solution allowed us to select any any verse we wanted to present (but had other drawbacks)

matthewk wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 11:25 pm Does anyone have a good solution if using lyrics.lua when they announce we will sing verses 1,2,3 and 7?

You can open the lyrics.lua script, select the hymn (if not already selected) and in the "Song Lyrics" box, highlight the unused verses and delete them. Hit "Save Song" and the edited version will now show up when activated.

Not the easiest to do on the fly, but with practice, you can do the above while the organist is still playing the intro to the hymn.

How do I extract a text file?
You say, "Lyrics can be copied from the church website and dropped into a text file."
I'm trying to do this for the new song 1007. It only gives me a PDF file with the music bars around the lyrics. How do I extract the text only from this?
Bob

Oh, now I see it. There is a "lyrics" tab.

Actually, I use a version of Lyrics.lua that uses 2 lines at a time. Then I don't have to enter control marks in the text. And I don't have to save the songs in OBS. I just have a folder of all songs. The name of each file (song) has the song number at the beginning of the file name. Easy to find for changing to the next song. I hit refresh so the next song starts at the beginning.
Thanks,
Bob

I used wardtools.org this past weekend for our stake conference. It worked extremely well, and has the new hymns included. It has the ability to advance or click on what you want to view- fantastic for skipping verses. This also allows to view the names of speakers, prayers, callings, etc. It's a very useful and quick tool. The only complaint that I received was the names can be difficult to read at times because it's white text without a background. I'll play around with it more over the next few months to improve.

I have used wardtools.org as well for the last couple of years when it comes to Stake Conference. We handle our Ward Sacrament Meetings differently so OBS isn't a part of those. @dmbass, I'm not sure why you aren't seeing a background, maybe your css on the browser source might have change things, because I get a very similar overlay background like they use at Stake Conference.

I took it a step further, I utilize a Stream Deck so I built a custom plugin to be able to use WardTools.org's overlay, but be able to call on my Lower thirds (names of speakers, prayers, callings, etc) with a press of a button. I am looking to integrate hymns with it, so I'll be hoping to bring the ability to select which verses (all will be selected by default) like you stated.

Ward Tools and the Stream Deck has made it easier for me to handle this without the need of my mouse, or phone to control it.