Getting started
Load a midifile.
Karoakefiles and midifiles are the same, the only difference is
the extension .mid for midifiles and .kar for a karaoke file. The
ability to add lyrics is defined in the MIDI standard. For some
reason however it has become custom to give midifiles with lyrics
the extension .kar instead of .mid. Select menu Files/Open
midifile. Press the play button.
Adding lyrics.
If there are lyrics in a file that you loaded, then they will
become visible in the large display in the lower part of the
screen. Most midifiles won't have any text.
You can type the text in the text edit window or copy and paste
it from the web browser or a word processor. Use hyphens (-) to
dis-tin-guish the syl-la-bles in the words. The hyphens will not
be visible in the Karoake display but each syllable will
highlight at a separate time. When you press any key while
playing only one syllable will be processed. You can also place a
backslash (\) at the start of each first line of a verse, while
playing only one verse will be displayed at a time.
When you have entered the text then set the cursor before the
first word, select mode is words and press the play button. While
playing press a key (any key) in the exact tempo that the words
and syllables should be sung. Each word is highlighted in the
text edit window when it is inserted with the key. When the song
is stopped the Karoake display and the events list will be filled
with the words of the song. Press play again and the text in the
Karaoke display will highlight at the appropriate time. Check the
Half Speed option to reduce the tempo while inserting the words
for more accurate timing.
Other option are to insert complete lines instead of one word at
a time (mode is lines) or to insert one character at a time (mode
is characters). Character mode is specially for languages like
Japanese and Chinese where there are no spaces between the
characters.
Adding chords.
Besides "Words" "Characters" and
"Lines" there are 2 other operating modes:
"Chords" and "Chords and lyrics". In mode
Chords only the chords (in Yamaha's XF format) are displayed. You
can insert the chords in the same way as words. In mode chords
and lyrics, to insert chords and lyrics you must have sepaparate
lines of chords and lyrics in the editor. The line with chords
must be placed above the line with lyrics. Each chord must match
a word or syllable and the first character of the chord must be
placed exactly above the first character of the word. Place the
cursor before the first word (not on the chordline) and press the
play button. Each time you press a key the word will inserted
together with the chord that is above it and the next word will
be highlighted. At the end of the line, the chord line will be
skipped and the first word on the lyrics line is highlighted.
You can also add chords by right clicking on a lyric and choose the "Attach chord" option.
Valid C chords: C, C6, CMaj7, CMaj7(#11),
Cadd(9), CMaj7(9), C6(9), Caug, Cm, Cm6, Cm7, Cm7b5, Cmadd(9),
Cm7(9), Cm7(11), CmMaj7, CmMaj7(9), Cdim, Cdim7, C7, C7sus4,
C7b5, C7(9), C7(#11), C7(13), C7(b9), C7(b13), C7(#9), CMaj7aug,
C7aug, C1+8, C1+5, Csus4, C1+2+5
Substitute C with C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, Bb or B.
Chords with a different bass tone are written as slash chords:
C/E
Edit menu
Contains options to clear the editor, extract chords and/or lyrics form the karaoke file to the editor, clear chords and/or lyrics form the Karaoke file.
Save the file.
Select menu File/Save as and save it as a karaoke file.
The Playlist.
Select menu option Window > Playlist. On the left side of the
window you can browse thru folders and files. Click on a file in
the left filelist and click on the Add button to add a file to
the playlist on the right. The file will be inserted above the
hightlighted file in the playlist. Click on a file in the
playlist and click on the Remove button to remove a file from the
playlist. Press the Play button to start playing all the files in
the playlist starting with the highligted one (or double click on
a file in the playlist). A complete playlist can be saved and
loaded with the file menu options. The Add button can also be
used to insert background pictures in the playlist to play each
song with a different picture. When a playlist is selected in the
filelist then the Add button will add all the files in that
playlist to the current playlist.
Double click action in the filelist: if the selected file is a karaoke file then play it, if it is a picture then show it, if it is a playlist then add its files to the playlist, if it is a folder then add all the karaoke files inside it to the playlist.
While playing in full screen you can use the keys p for play/stop, a for pause/resume and f for fullscreen (in Linux F8, F9 and F10). Any mouse click will exit full screen mode.
There are 4 options to add background pictures:
1.Define a default picture in the Preferences menu
2.Add pictures in the playlist
3.Load a picture while playing by double clicking it in the
filelist or press the activate file button in the remote control
4.Insert pictures in the eventlist, insert a
marker event with the value "picture:mypicture.jpg"
where mypicture.jpg must be present in the same folder as the
midifile, otherwise its complete path should be specified