Using Textmode in lyrik.fm

Pick Textmode on the Style step: the whole frame becomes a screen of text characters, with your cover drawn in letters and your lyrics built from them as giant pixel words.

What it looks like

• A terminal screen. Your cover, or a moving world, is drawn in text characters: ASCII, blocks, braille-style dots or the letters of your song title and artist name. It's lit in your cover's colours on near-black.
• Giant words made of characters. Each phrase of two to four words is built huge from the same characters, and decodes out of scrambled symbols as you sing it.
• A typing prompt. Below, the line types out after a prompt, with a cursor that blinks on the beat.
• Held words widen, a character at a time.
• Drops flip the whole frame to a reversed version for a moment.

Best for

• Hip-hop, electronic, dance, indie, alt-pop, hyperpop and drill.
• Mid to high energy, roughly 85 to 175 BPM.
• Dark or cool covers: it glows like a terminal at night.
• Songs with drops and sparse sections: it draws your cover in letters in the gaps.

How to make it

1. On the Style step ('Pick a style.'), find Textmode. On a phone, tap the Style tab first.
2. Tap or click the card to see your clip (your first chorus, to start with) on the screen.
3. Choose a Font, a colour under Colour · from your cover, and a Lyric size.
4. Open More ways to tweak it (the More tab on a phone) for the background and Characters.
5. Press Shuffle for a new world and layout. Undo goes back.
6. Check both shapes, then press Download · from £4.99$5.99€5.99CA$8.99A$8.99.

Available controls

Control	Choices
Font	Geist, Martian
Colour	Our pick, Light, Main colour, Pop, Muted, Amber, Ice, Your colour
Lyric size	Small, Medium, Large
Background	Cycle, Your cover, World
Depth	3D, Classic
Characters	ASCII, Blocks, Dots, Letters
Energy	Calm, Normal, Hype
Ad-libs	Show, Hide

Font availability depends on your lyrics. Colour choices can depend on the cover, and the Ad-libs row needs marked ad-libs.

Textmode sets the big words in capitals and types the line below as you wrote it. The panel says 'Textmode chooses the capitals and where the lyrics sit for you.'

Tips for great results

• A cover with strong shapes and contrast reads best when it's drawn in characters.
• Try Letters to draw your cover with your song's own title and your artist name.
• Choose Large if the giant words look too fine on a phone.
• Tag your choruses so the big moments land where you expect. Drops are found from the music by itself. See How do I mark choruses, verses and repeats?

16:9 and 9:16

• 16:9 puts your cover to one side, with the giant words and prompt beside it.
• 9:16 moves on every other frame, so it survives the way social apps re-compress video. Ad-libs get their own row above the prompt. The lyrics stay inside the area TikTok, Reels and Shorts leave clear.

Languages

• The giant letters are drawn from a font that keeps accents.
• Songs with the hooked Hausa letters (ɓ ɗ ƙ ƴ) move to matching fonts.
• A character that can't be drawn is shown as its plain base letter, or left out. It never shows as an empty box.

Good to know

• Colour, size, ad-libs and energy carry across if you switch style. Textmode remembers its own font, background and characters.
• Shuffle gives every style a new take, not just Textmode.
• Previewing is free. Your first eligible clip is free too; other downloads use credits.

If something goes wrong

• The giant words are hard to read. Try a bigger Lyric size, the Blocks characters, or the Light colour.
• The preview looks blocky on a phone. If it says 'Simplified for your phone. Your download is full quality.', only the preview is simplified. See The preview is slow or choppy

Hidden extras

• The cursor blinks on the beat, a small touch that makes even quiet parts feel alive.
• On a computer, press S for a new world and F to switch shape.