How to assign an audio MP3 to a song

5/23/2015

This article describes how to assign an audio file (MP3, etc.) to a song and play it automatically while you display its lyrics. This feature is particularly useful for churches that have no musicians.

To assign/play an audio MP3 with a song:

1. Go into “Edit” mode (if not already into it):

2. Click on the song to which you want to assign an MP3:

3. In the middle panel, click the "Files" tab:

The "Files" tab enables you to assign an MP3 file to the song:

(1) Open the list of available MP3 for VideoPsalm songs.
(2) Select an MP3 file that goes with your song lyrics.
(3) When no MP3 file corresponds to the song, import it with the “Import” button, as a VideoPsalm MP3 file (see below).

4. Import audio files into your VideoPsalm
Use the "Import" button to import into your VideoPsalm MP3 files that you have in your PC.
Use the "Navigate" button to open the folder where VideoPsalm stores its MP3 files.
VideoPsalm reflects in the list the MP3 files located into its Audio folder.

Press the "Import" button to import audio files located into your PC:

5. Play the audio
When you display the lyrics of a song that has an associated audio file, VideoPsalm displays a music player:

If the player does not show right away:
1. Select another song and preview one of its verses.
2. Select again the song with an MP3.

This "bug" is in the list of things to correct for a future verison.

The music player has following functions:

Play/Pause button
Go to start
Go to end
Loop/Play once switch
Mute switch
Volume slider from 0 to 100
Display Elapsed time, total time, remaining time (click on it to display another value).
A track-bar to position the cursor anywhere between the start and end limits.
A limiter, to skip the start and the end of the audio file.

To start the playing of the audio, press the "down" key. In this case, it will not display the next slide, but start the audio.
To disable playing the audio, press the mute button.

When you put into an agenda a song that has an audio file associated to it, VideoPsalm will save the audio into the agenda file. When you open the agenda on another PC, the audio file will be there.

VideoPsalm is compatible with following audio files:
.mp3 .wav .wma .a52 .aac .aiff .ac3 .ape .dts .flac .it .m4a .m4p .mka .mlp .mod .mp1 .mp2 .oga .ogg .oma .s3m .spx .wv .xm

VideoPsalm cannot play midi files at the moment.

47 Comments

Jan Steenstra

5/25/2015 11:43:25 pm

I have one comment about importing mp3 files. I prefer more to browse to a song and add a url or directory, f.i. d:\worship\001 - He is exalted. Now all my mp3 files are collected or copied to d:\videopsalm\audio. This give a mess, because all my mp3 files of worship, children, hillsong are collected in one directory. Is it possible to specify where the MP3 files are? So with reference to the MP3 file, and not in d:\ video psalm \ audio, but in d: \ worship \ 001 - He is exalted and at the following number to d: \ hillsong \ 002 - My Redeemer lives, etc.

VideoPsalm link

6/8/2015 03:45:57 am

Hi Jan,

Thank you for your suggestion, it makes a lot of sense.
I added your suggestion to the todo list.
This will be implemented similarly for images, videos and audios, but I don't know when this will be available.

John Stanley

9/12/2015 07:45:39 am

This works correctly at the start of the song, but not at the end.
This is what happens:

Starting State: Song is at the last verse / chorus and ...

(1) Song's "Sequence" setting is: Continue with the next item.

(1.1) Music has not finished

(1.1.1) V-arrow on the screen is pressed - CORRECT:
Music stops, music player is removed, Projection advances to the next agenda item

(1.1.2) Down-arrow on the keyboard is pressed - CORRECT:
Music stops, music player is removed, Projection advances to the next agenda item

(1.2) Music has finished

(1.2.1) V-arrow on the screen is pressed - CORRECT:
Music player is removed, Projection advances to the next agenda item

(1.2.2) Down-arrow on the keyboard is pressed - WRONG:
The Music starts again from the beginning. The projection does not change

(2) Song's "Sequence" setting is: Switch off then continue.

(2.1) Music has not finished

(2.1.1) V-arrow on the screen is pressed - WRONG:
Music keeps playing, music player remains displayed, Projection advances to the "off" screen

(2.1.2) Down-arrow on the keyboard is pressed - WRONG:
Music keeps playing, music player remains displayed, Projection advances to the "off" screen

(2.2) Music has finished

(2.2.1) V-arrow on the screen is pressed - Correct for the congregation, but not correct behaviour:
The Music player remains displayed (WRONG), Projection advances to the "off" screen.

NOTE there is a follow-on situation here. See (3) below.

(2.2.2) Down-arrow on the keyboard is pressed - WRONG:
The Music starts again, the projection remains at the last verse/chorus.

(3) Follow on from (2.2.1): The State is: The "Off" Screen is projected, but the Music Player is still displayed

(3.1) V-arrow on the screen is pressed - CORRECT
The Music player is removed, the projection advances to the next agenda item.

(3.2) Down-arrow on the keyboard is pressed - WRONG
The Music starts again, the projection remains at the "off" screen.

VideoPsalm link

9/12/2015 08:53:48 am

Hi John,

Thank you for the detailed description of the problem, it helped me to reproduce it, which is a great step to correct it. I added this bug to the list of things to fix for the next version.

For the time being, it is required to quickly use the mouse on the music player and stop the music manually in case it unexpectedly restarts. Sorry for any inconvenience.

David Dyson

11/7/2015 03:48:21 pm

Really love this program, but would sure appreciate the ability to use MIDI files for associated music, it would save me a lot of conversion time.

VideoPsalm link

11/12/2015 02:11:02 pm

Hi David,
Thank you for your suggestion, it makes a lot of sense.

7/20/2017 10:19:27 am

I'd love to replace our current software with VideoPsalm but the lack of MIDI support is a deal-breaker for us. All our music (hymns and liturgy) is played from our presentation software through a MIDI-capable organ.

VideoPsalm link

7/20/2017 12:05:51 pm

Hi KJ,
This feature is in the list of things to do, and your request adds weight to it. Alas, at the moment, I don't know when it will be implemented.

11/14/2015 05:32:37 pm

I have assigned an audio file to a song in the past, then edited the audio file. Now when I try to remove the old file from the song and assign the new file to it, the old file still gets played. I've tried deleting the old file from the computer, restarting the program, renaming the file, and everything. Am I doing something wrong?

11/14/2015 06:10:09 pm

Sorry, I figured the problem out. Just had to go into the folder that VideoPsalm was storing it's data and delete the old file from there.

VideoPsalm link

11/24/2015 12:45:02 am

Thank you for your feedback. Should you have further questions, please feel free to ask.

Rafael

2/18/2016 09:04:54 am

Good Software.
Maybe they could include you can set the duration of each slide according to the structure of the song assigned
For example if I have a song with this structure
( 00:00 - 1:34 minutes)
Verse 1 ( slide 1)
( 1:34 to 3:45 )
Chorus 1 ( slide 2 )
( 3:46 to 5:31 )
Verse 2 ( slide 3 )
.... and so on.

That way they would programmed songs and projection automatically.

VideoPsalm link

5/4/2016 11:53:39 am

Hi Raphael,
Thank you for your suggestion.

Jenn Gigowski

6/3/2018 02:51:45 pm

This is an excellent suggestion, and one that I was going to make. You'd think it would be an easy change to make...

Miguel MM

5/27/2020 08:54:47 pm

Due to Covid-19 my church is considering seriously installing monitors to display liturgy and hymns to avoid using the books. So, I learned about this program (by the way, a super nice one) and am familiarizing with it. This feature of timing song slides was exactly what I was looking for, so that they can played without requiring human intervention once it's started. Sadly, didn't see any way of doing it (so far). Is this still not possible or am I missing something?

VideoPsalm link

5/28/2020 12:45:28 am

Hi Miguel,
Thank you for your feedback about moving automatically to the next song when the audio arrives to the end of its range.
Thiis not implemented at the moment, although it makes a lot of sense and I would use it personnaly at Sunday school...
One workaround is to assign a moving background (a video) that has an audio track and use the video-range for each song verse.

This works well, but only since version 1.26 (available in a few days).
I hope to get to make a video tutorial on how to use this.

To make things clear, for VideoPsalm 1.26:
- This will work with a background video assigned to a song.
- This will not work with an audio file associated to a song.
- This will not work with a video file associated to a song.

Hopefully this will be implemented in a future version.

Miguel MM

5/28/2020 12:36:41 pm

VideoPsalm, thanks for the video suggestion; it is a doable workaround, it will require some work, but is certainly an option.

However, I want to clarify the request as I understood it. It is not about moving to he next song once audio arrives to the end. The situation is that I have a song (set of verses/ chorus slides) with an audio track, and would like to set the times for each slide to be displayed. For example, Slide 1 at 0:45 (monitor could be blank during intro), Slide 2 at 1:05, slide 3 at 1:24 and so on until the song ends.

In the meantime, I just checked that another workaround can be preparing a Power Point slideshow with sound. Is doable, but kind of tricky to get the desired timings, and unfortunately the slideshow could not be edited on the fly as with VideoPsalm. But in the end, it's an option.

VideoPsalm link

5/28/2020 01:32:51 pm

Hi Miguel,

You are completely right.
Actually I was meaning:
"moving automatically to the next ***slide*** (not song) when the audio arrives to the end of its range."
Sorry for the confusion.

Oscar

6/11/2016 08:41:32 pm

I noticed the "Switch to live feed" button doesn't always work. Yes the video camera is connected but when I click the camera feed button, its like trial and error. Sometimes it works almost immediately. Other times, it doesn't work at all. We have to keep clicking to activate and deactivate until it eventually picks up at some point. We use Windows 10.

VideoPsalm link

6/12/2016 01:15:02 pm

Hello Oscar,

Thank you for describing this problem.
My attempts to reproduce it were unsuccessful.
I will add this bug to the list of things to do, in the hope that someone will solve it.

Charles Williams

6/21/2016 02:29:24 am

howabout some adivise or bette a link for some good mp3 sites

jonathan

10/29/2016 07:51:12 am

no se reproducen los videos , queda en negro y solo juestra la pantalla de imagenes solo eso proyecta me ayudarian gracias

VideoPsalm link

10/29/2016 11:05:29 am

Hi Jonathan,

The preferred video format for VideoPsalm is WMV.
VideoPsalm can display WMV videos on most PCs, notably on Windows 10 PCs.

Other formats (MP4, AVI, etc.) may or may not work, or may even bring VideoPsalm to break.

There is a 30 seconds sample WMV video in the video gallery, that displays horses running on a beach:
This video should play OK on your PC. Is it the case?

1. Connect loudspeakers to the PC
There is a bug in VideoPsalm that prevents to display videos when no loudspeaker is connected to the PC (black background).
In case you have a PC, make sure that some loudspeakers are connected to it.
This is not necessary for a laptop, because laptops have integrated loudspeakers.

2. Enable the display of other video formats (MP4, AVI, etc.), by installing additional components, called "Codecs", like the ones found here:
http://www.codecguide.com/

Be careful when installing additional codecs, as some codec packs found on the internet may try to install additional software that you don't really need, and are sometimes hard to get rid of.
Note that even with installed codecs, it is not guarantied that VideoPsalm will play other video formats.

3. Convert your videos to WMV, for example with the FreeMake Video Converter application:
http://www.freemake.com/

4. Your PC has switched to Windows 10 overnight, and since then, VideoPsalm doesn't play videos anymore
It is required to manually update the graphic card video driver.
Go to your graphic card manufacturer web site, download and install their Windows 10 video driver.

Possibly Windows 10 will update your video driver automatically, but it may take a few days before it does so.

Several people who upgraded to Windows 10 have reported all sorts of problems, notably with being unable to play videos.
However, some have reported that the problem disappeared by itself after a few days (possibly through an automatic Windows update).

In any case, if you have a Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista or XP PC that gives full satisfaction, and you do not require any Windows 10 new feature, it is highly recommended to simply keep with it.

Did any of these solutions solve the problem? Please let me know.

Wenona Barlow link

11/18/2016 08:01:14 pm

As others have stated, thank you so very much for creating this software and making it available at no cost...a true blessing from God! I have a quick question...what should the Start (ms) and End (ms) options do to the audio file? Should this fade the song in/out or something different? Thank you for your help!!

VideoPsalm link

1/18/2017 12:21:29 pm

Hi Wenona,

Most of the time, you will want to let VideoPsalm play the whole clip.

If necessary, you can tell VideoPsalm to start at the start position and let it play the clip to the indicated end.

To set the start and the end, it is easier to use the control bar with the two sliders located at the bottom of the audio control.

Benji

1/17/2017 10:29:38 am

Hi, I'm very impressed with this presentation software! excellent resource for small groups up to bigger churches...

If I may give a suggestion, can an option be included to overlay for example a .png image on a background? I notice the option is almost there; I can open the .png as a slide show image, but it doesn't allow me to add a background to it. Or maybe even to assign the image to a toggle button (just like the text toggle button in the controls). Thanks

VideoPsalm link

1/18/2017 12:29:30 pm

Hi Benji,

To put an image as a background, select an image in the image gallery.

The following article describes how to add more images to the VideoPsalm image gallery (article in French, please use "Google translate" to translate it into English):
http://videopsalm.weebly.com/blog/comment-importer-des-images-dans-la-galerie-de-videopsalm

VideoPsalm uses the concept of cascading style attributes, enabling you to define in a few clicks the style at any level : song verse, song, songbook, all songbooks, base.

Please let me know if the following articles explain well enough how to make best use of cascading styles:

How to change the background of a song or a whole songbook - Cascading styles part one
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/1/post/2012/02/first-post.html

How to assign a background to a song verse or to the whole song - Cascading styles part two
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/1/post/2013/12/how-to-assign-a-background-to-a-song-verse-or-to-the-whole-song-hierarchical-styles.html

Three methods to display a background/logo between two songs
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/three-methods-to-display-a-backgroundlogo-between-two-songs

How to remove an image assigned to a song verse
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/how-to-remove-an-image-assigned-to-a-song-verse

Andrew Carter

3/31/2017 10:27:23 am

Please could you advise whether you have songs in Spanish available through this programme?

Can you also tell me whether we can type in further songs that we might want to sing in the future?

VideoPsalm link

4/1/2017 11:32:31 am

There are 6 Spanish songbooks in the VideoPsalm online library and 20 Spanish Bible translations.
It is easy to type-in new songbooks and new songs.

Please let me know if the following articles explain well enough how to add predefined Spanish songbooks to your VideoPsalm, and how to type-in your own songs:

How to add predefined songbooks to your VideoPsalm
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/how-to-get-songbooks.html

How to add Bibles to your VideoPsalm
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/how-to-get-bibles.html

How to add/edit songs and announcements
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/how-to-addedit-songs-and-announcements.html

Scott

8/13/2017 06:23:34 pm

So I have created a Song within the Songbook and have attached a motion background and associated an m4a file but I cannot get the m4a file to play when I present the slides. When I click the down arrow, it advances the slides to the next one. The motion background works great...just no song.

My ultimate goal is to play a few worship songs for our small group through my computer. I will just connect the computer (running Windows 10) to a TV via HDMI and the present the slides.

I am sure it's something minor but what am I doing/not doing that is preventing me from playing the song while the slides are being presented?

VideoPsalm link

8/14/2017 07:34:10 am

Hi Scott,

There are several ways to display a song:

1. Display the song lyrics.
Additionnally, you can select either a fixed or a moving background, in the toolbar -> Background -> Image or video background.

2. Display a video instead of the song lyrics.
When you click on a song, the middle panel displays the song properties.
In the "Files" tab, you can associate a file to the song, for example a video.
If I understand properly, this is what you did.
In this case, when you display the song, VideoPsalm will display the video (only).

3. Display a youtube video instead of the song lyrics.

4. PowerPoint, Word, Web site, etc.

Does this clears things up?

Scott

8/17/2017 07:40:05 pm

Not really. I can get the lyrics to display, and I can get the motion background to play. My problem is getting the m4a file to play as well.

VideoPsalm link

8/22/2017 05:01:16 pm

Hi Scott,

My attempts to reproduce this problem were unsuccessful.

This is what I did:

1. Click the song.
This sets VideoPsalm to the "Song" style level.

2. Select a background video in the Toolbar -> Background -> Video gallery.
This assigns the clicked video to the song.

3. In the middle panel (song properties), in the "Files" tab, I associate an m4v (audio) file to the song.

Then, when I display the song lyrics, the lyrics are displayed over the video, and the audio plays.

Could you please send me an agenda file (a .vpagd file) containing a song with an .m4v audio file associated to it that VideoPsalm doesn't play?

This will certainly enable me to reproduce the problem.

My email is at gmail.

Kurt hobbs

1/15/2018 03:36:44 am

Hi there
I tried to use a iTunes track in video psalm it was a m4p type file and it just returned an error am I doing somthing wrong it’s win 10 on Ver 1.20

VideoPsalm link

6/6/2018 09:16:16 am

Hi Kurt,

To display a wide range of video formats (MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, etc.), a codec pack is required.
I recommend the "basic" K-Lite codec pack, downloadable for free here:
http://files2.codecguide.com/K-Lite_Codec_Pack_1375_Basic.exe

Does this work for you? Please let me know.

Additional read
Add beautiful images and video loops for free from the internet
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/add-beautiful-images-and-video-loops-for-free-from-the-internet

James Wills

7/30/2018 12:15:08 pm

Will videopsalm ever be able to be controlled by a midi signal, to go to the next liryc page ( verse one to verse two.) Ex. a certain note that only the program hears that will take place of pressing space bar to advance the slide, making it automatic, no person required to man the program.

VideoPsalm link

12/1/2018 02:08:57 pm

Hi James,

Thank you for your suggestion.
It makes a lot of sense.
I added it to the list of things to do, however I don't know when it will be implemented.

Kim

2/2/2019 12:56:21 pm

Is there a way to add a black gospel songbook?

VideoPsalm link

2/13/2019 02:20:27 pm

Hi Kim,

To add a new songbook, press the "Add songbook" button.

YouTube tutorial
8. VideoPsalm - Add a new song and edit lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysxraRUa5O4

Joseph

2/25/2019 05:12:47 pm

a question, how do I remove the footnote it has when projecting where it says and what it's called and in the songbook that is.

VideoPsalm link

2/15/2020 06:20:45 am

Hi Joseph,

Please let me know if the following article describes how to remove a footer:
How to edit the footer and header content or remove it
http://myvideopsalm.weebly.com/blog/how-to-edit-the-footer-and-header-content-or-remove-it

Jordan

2/14/2020 11:51:23 am

Is there a way to have a video associated with a song? we have many song videos that play the music and already have the lyrics on the video. I would like to have these videos searchable from the song database, but i don't need the lyrics put up over the video. Is there a good way to do this?

VideoPsalm link

2/15/2020 06:19:24 am

Hi Jordan,

Please make sure that you use VideoPsalm 1.23.
The article here at the top describes how to assign an MP3 to a song.
Additionally, it is possible to assign a video, very similarly.
Feel free to send me an email so that we can switch screen shots more easily (it is not possible here).

Julian

7/18/2020 08:48:16 am

Firstly, thanks for a really great product. It provides all of the features that we need and more.

While our congregations are not able to meet in the church, we have been using Video Psalm to present song words to our congregations through video conferencing which has been brilliant.

We are now looking forward to the time when some of the congregation will be returning to church and want to continue to connect with our members at home.

Although we are able to do this by configuring the default sound device to the one that we want VideoPsalm to use, and set the video conferncing software and all other devices to the other sound device individually. It would be much simpler if VideoPsalm had a feature that allowed the user to select the audio device to be used for its output. It appears it is possible to select the audio device in Window 10 "App volume device preferences" screen, but only for the output window (VideoProjector), but this is not the window that produces the sound!

VideoPsalm link

7/27/2020 03:06:31 pm

Hi Julian,

Thank you for asking to be able to select the audio output from within VideoPsalm.
I added this feature to the list of things to do, and it will be added in one of the next versions.

At the moment, try the following:
1. In the VideoPsalm options -> "Presentation screen" tab -> Unselect the "Display the presentation window icon in the taskbar" option.
2. Press "OK" to save your changes.
3. Close then restart VideoPsalm for the changes to be applied.
4. Add an MP3 to the agenda.
5. Play the MP3, so that Windows 10 lets VideoPsalm appear in its list of applications in the "App volume and device preferences".
6. Adjust the VideoPsalm output volume.

Instead of steps 1 to 3, close the presentation screen (click the "Present" button, or press "Ctrl+P"), play a sound, then open the "App volume and device preferences" to see the VideoPsalm control window in the list of applications.

Does this work for you?

Travis Samons

2/25/2023 07:02:50 pm

Is there any way to play a mp3 while a video countdown mp4 or mov file is playing? And have it like auto so I don’t have it os 2 items or separate programs?

VideoPsalm link

3/30/2023 02:31:21 pm

Hi Travis,

To play an mp3 while am mp4 or mov video file is playing:
1. Create a new song.
2. Add a single verse to it, containing a single space.
The space will produce an empty, single slide.
3. To the song, assign the mp3 audio, like described in the top article.
4. In the video gallery, import the video countdown: Top toolbar -> "Background" gallery -> Expand the "Video" gallery -> "Import videos" menu -> Follow the instructions.
5. Assign the video countdown to the song.

An alternative is to use the VideoPsalm integrated countdown in conjunction to a song.
Top toolbar -> "Message" tab -> "Clock" group -> "Countdown" button.
Before, select the right clock in the clock gallery.

These forums are not monitored.
To get a timely answer, write an email to videopsalm@gmail.com

VideoPsalm

How to assign an audio MP3 to a song

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