@jeffrey: "i should end one beat earlier · and think start one beat sooner · can stone last an extra beat · some of the end like pass has extra syllables". The pass one was real and structural. The warp plays the slice's tail 1:1 after the last word, so whatever is left in the file after "pass" gets sung — and this take carries a SECOND utterance at 23.0 s, a whole extra note at +3.0 st that is not part of the line. That is the extra syllable at the end. The chart gains `end`: a source-seconds cap that stops both the last word's span and the 1:1 tail. Set to 22.45, just past her real "pass". Verified — the render now holds one +3.0 st note from 53.9 to 60 and nothing after it. Placement, all three: "i" ends on 16 (2 beats, 1.19×, her own speed rather than the 1.78× it was stretched to), "think" starts there on the bar 4 downbeat and holds 2, then a beat of air before the octave. Stone gains its extra beat from the rest that followed it — 3 beats, 1.70×, still under the hold line — and "just" keeps the bar 7 downbeat.