Lyricist is from Virtual Studio Systems and designed to help you organize your lyrics, and put them into writing so others can use them. There are SOOO many features I’m going to keep my commentary to none, and just comment on the features.

Songwriting Tools
It’s a great tool if you are writing your lyrics as there is a built in Thesaurus, and a Rhyming dictionary to help you when you’re looking for that one word that is slipping your mind. You can set up formats for your verses, chorus, and bridges. Once this is done, highlight your text and click a button and the formatting is taken care of. So if you want the chorus to be bold, set this up as a style and apply it with a click of a button.

Flexible Views
There are four different views to use once you have your lyrics on the page. You can add chords in the chord view, just show the chords changes in the arrangement view, and show the chords “Nashville style” in the Nashville view (think I IV V instead of A D E). I was surprised how easy it was (especially in the chord view) to make my own sheet music to hand to a guitar player. It was very easy. The one VERY COOL feature was the ability to add chords, and then later TRANSPOSE the music. This was very fun to watch the chords change to the new position.

Guitar/Piano Chord Tools
Speaking of guitar chords. This is where things get crazy. If the chord you are using is not one of the 4000+ listed, you can edit the chord charts to show your own “custom” chord. Not sure what to call the chord? Use the chord wizard, and click on the shown guitar neck to show the notes you are playing. The wizard shows you the chord name you are playing. If you’re having a hard time explaining to the keyboard player what to play there is a tool where you click on the guitar neck, and it shows the keys on the keyboard (and vice versa). This is great for the piano player who “kinda” plays guitar or vice versa. I had lots of fun with those toys.

Easy Organization
You organize your songs in albums. This is a great way to organize your lyrics. You can also copy/move lyrics from one album to another. You can also export them to an RTF file so you can email your lyrics to others. The best part is all these songs and views are stored in a single file making backing up your system a breeze.

Connectivity
The software is also tied to song writing web sites and even has a link for you to copyright your songs. You can link your songs to an mp3 of the song, and click on a button to play it. If you have other software you use, you can set it up to launch from inside Lyricist (pretty cool!)

The Only Down Side
The only thing I was surprised is there is no manual (at least not in the download version). However, the internal “Help” system is very detailed. Likewise the software is pretty user friendly (I had the hang of it in about 10-15 minutes, then I Was off and running). If I was VSS, I would copy the help files and paste them into a PDF manual.

Pricing
At 39.99 this software is a good value. At first I thought it was a bit high until I realized that if I bought a chord wizard, thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, it would probably cost more than that. For more information and screen shots, go to http://www.virtualstudiosystems.com