How to
When the lyrics drift from the music
Synced lyrics that run ahead of the music, or trail behind it — in almost every case the cause is the playback setup, not the lyrics file. Each cause has its own fix, so we start by working out which way it is drifting.
Last updated: 2026-09-02
First: which way is it off?
Below the play button there is a timing offset control. Which way to press it:
| What you notice | Which button |
|---|---|
| The lyrics run ahead (they light up before the singing) | −0.2s to delay the lyrics |
| The lyrics trail behind | +0.2s to advance the lyrics |
Each press moves it by 0.2 seconds, over a range of −1 to +1 second. The setting stays on this device, so next time you open a song it starts from the same value.
Bluetooth earphones lag by 0.1–0.3 seconds
This is the most common cause. Bluetooth compresses the audio before sending it, so it takes time to reach your ears. The screen lights up at the right moment and only the sound arrives late, which makes the lyrics look like they are running ahead.
How much it lags depends on the earphones and the codec. Rough figures:
| Connection | Typical lag |
|---|---|
| Wired earphones or the device speaker | Almost none (around 0.02 s) |
| Bluetooth (AAC / SBC) | 0.15–0.3 s |
| Bluetooth (low-latency: aptX LL, LC3) | 0.04–0.1 s |
| Through a TV or external speaker | Over 0.3 s on some equipment |
If you switch between wired and Bluetooth, the quickest approach is to remember the value that worked for each and swap between them.
How much is corrected automatically
When this site is playing the audio itself (for copyright-free songs, for instance), we read the output latency the browser reports and subtract it automatically. In practice it usually comes back around 0.02 seconds, and that much you never have to adjust by hand.
But the browser only knows the delay up to the point of output. Everything past that — the Bluetooth hop, the processing inside an external speaker — is invisible to it. That remainder is what you adjust by hand.
Lining up with Spotify or Apple Music
For commercial songs, you play the audio in your own music app while this site runs only the lyrics. The two apps keep separate clocks, so they will almost never line up on their own.
There are two ways to line them up.
① いま歌っている行をタップする その行の頭に歌詞を合わせます。ズレに気づいたその場で直せるので、 いちばん手早い方法です。 ② 音ズレ補正で微調整する ①で大まかに合わせたあと、まだ気になる差を ±0.2s で詰めます。
The sync helper for Mac and Windows reads the playback position out of your music app and follows it automatically — through track changes and seeks alike.
Drift the offset cannot fix
A constant offset across the whole song is what the control is for; other kinds of drift are not. The tell is whether it lines up at the start and then drifts further and further as the song goes on.
A different recording.The single, album and remastered versions of the same song can differ in length. If the intro is a few seconds different, that gap persists to the end. No offset will fix it.
Silence at the head of an MP3.By the nature of the format, encoding an MP3 can prepend a very short stretch of silence. That is why, when you supply your own audio, we recommend M4A (AAC) over MP3.
The lyrics file itself is off.Sometimes the timing in the posted lyrics is simply wrong. In that case you can propose a timing correction from the song page. Once the person who posted it reviews and accepts the change, it is fixed for everyone.
Tips for getting it right
Line it up on a quiet opening line rather than the chorus. Where the arrangement is dense it is hard to hear exactly where a line begins, and a 0.1-second difference is undetectable.
You can also judge it by watching the leading edge of the fill as it sweeps across the characters: if the fill is ahead of the voice the lyrics are early; if it is chasing the voice they are late.