What is Karaoke? Features of music centers with karaoke How to build a karaoke system at home
Karaoke has truly won the love and recognition of all age groups. This is a joint singing in the company of friends, and an opportunity to express yourself creatively, and even a way to compete with points and gifts. True, now for this it is not necessary to book tables in a karaoke bar or purchase and install a special system at home. It is enough to know, follow a few simple steps and enjoy your favorite entertainment.
Basic technical requirements
Speakers and a microphone must be connected to the computer. The output sound will depend on their quality, but it is quite possible to set up and sing karaoke with the cheapest microphone and non-professional speakers. For Skype users, this is more than familiar, and it will not be difficult for them to organize a home sing party. Now set up your microphone: right-click on the "Speakers" icon on the Start bar next to the clock. Select "Playback Devices", then click on the microphone, in its properties you will see that it is enabled. Open the "Listen" tab and check the box next to "Listen to this device". In the "Levels" tab, set the sound volume settings. Click OK. Try what you got: you should hear your voice through the speakers. After you finish using the function, uncheck the "Listen" checkbox to avoid unnecessary interference and noise. Various sound effects can be configured in the same place, in the "Speakers", the "Improvements" tab, for example, "Environment", "Voice pitch change". In the same window, the "Settings" list opens, where you can select any effect. Confirm settings. Microphone and speakers are ready.
3 ways to make karaoke at home
The first and easiest way is available to everyone without additional programs or devices. We need audio files, one of the options is the so-called backing tracks. True, most likely, there will be neither visual nor textual accompaniment. If you know the song well and don't make a mistake with the intro, you may well use them.
The second way is online karaoke on a computer. One of the most popular sites is karaoke.ru. A large number of a wide variety of songs, easy function management, a scoring system, contests for song lovers, a forum and even a map of karaoke bars. There are many similar sites - freekaraoke.ru, minuskaraoke.ru, karaopa.ru. The advantage of such a home karaoke is obvious: a high level of service and no software installation requirements. If the site does not have microphone adjustments, you can do it on your computer, as indicated above.
The third way is to install a karaoke player on your PC. This is the same player as your usual Windows Media and Winamp. There are a lot of players (GalaKar, vanBasco's Karaoke Player, KaraFun, GoSing Karaoke Player, Vocal Jam etc.) and most of them are free. They are necessary for reading karaoke files, which include accompaniment with superimposed lyrics. Programs have tools for adjusting the volume of the microphone, tone and pitch of the voice, tone, and much more. Some of them allow you to create your own karaoke file. The above-mentioned online karaoke service has the necessary software for installation on your PC.
The fourth way - buy karaoke discs. Insert the selected disc into the computer drive, and a full-fledged karaoke with a convenient menu-list and high-quality accompaniment is at your service. No additional downloads or installations required. You can take advantage of a variety of settings, improve your performance skills based on the results of assessments, and arrange small vocal competitions among friends.
Now you know, how to make karaoke on computer on one's own.
VLC Media Player is the best media player for PC, plays files of any format.
Google Chrome is the best and fastest browser for easy web surfing.
What's happened karaoke everyone knows. And here is the term backing track not familiar to everyone. backing track- it phonogram very similar and practically indistinguishable from the original composition, except for the fact that the backing track lacks any instrument, or most often vocals. backing track very similar to what is used in the usual karaoke, but is of higher quality. backing tracks can be useful in many cases. In which? Read below.
Are you a vocalist? backing tracks will help you at rehearsals, because you will be able to sing without musicians, since the mp3 backing tracks have excellent recording quality. You can also use our website download backing tracks for free and use them in your performances no matter whether it be bars, restaurants or even concerts. Soundtracks in MP3 format will save your money, as there will be no need to involve a musical group. In addition, the music in the compositions you perform will always be perfect, because minus never get off the beat. Free backing tracks give you the freedom to improvise, because unlike karaoke, there is no main voice accompaniment, and you can change the vocal part to your heart's content. Even if you only dream of a career as a great vocalist and don't know how to sing yet, our free cons help you learn how to do it. After all, you can train alone, and someone will not distract you. You will have no one to be ashamed of and by downloading backing tracks of songs you will start to sing much more boldly.
Are you a musician? It doesn't matter who you are, whether you're a guitarist, bassist, drummer or keyboardist. You can download backing tracks for free without registration and rehearse as much as you want. If you are a beginner musician, and while you play a musical instrument poorly, then you can download from us free mp3 backing tracks and make music on your own without more experienced colleagues. Well, if you are already an experienced musician, then you can download backing tracks nasharu and play along with your favorite bands, thanks to the fact that we have the largest catalog of backing tracks. In addition, if you like the music in any work, and the voice of the vocalist is very annoying, then you can download free backing tracks and enjoy your favorite music without unnecessary “interference”.
You love karaoke or just want to spend a fun evening with friends or family? Our phonograms will help you here, because we have a huge collection of backing tracks, which means that you are almost guaranteed to find on our website backing tracks favorite songs and you can download your favorite backing tracks for free. And unlike the usual karaoke, the quality of the backing tracks will be an order of magnitude higher. Download minus free and surprise your friends with your singing and high-quality sound.
Our site offers unique services, you can backing tracks free download. In addition, all of our backing tracks without registration. So choosing the one you like minus, you can download it without any hassle. Visit our website and see that we have a huge selection karaoke for amateurs and professionals.
); also the device itself.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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Subtitles
Principle of operation
An uncompressed audio stream storage format widely used in the media industry. Its peculiarity is that a fixed number of bits is allocated for encoding the amplitude. This affects the size of the output file, but makes it very readable. A typical wave file consists of a header, a body with an audio stream, and a tail for additional information where audio editors can write their own metadata.
International karaoke song format is based on mp3 and text file.
A compressed audio file that uses free, non-proprietary Ogg Vorbis audio compression. The Ogg format is similar to the .MP3 format, but sounds better than an MP3 file of the same size, and can include audio metadata, including artist and track information.
UltraStar
One of the popular modern formats is filesets for the UltraStar program and compatible ones. This is a text file containing the title, author, version, style, language, background, lyrics (broken into pieces with their own height and duration), etc. of the song, as well as filenames with the cover of the song, the background used in the process of singing, and the composition itself. The last field is called "MP3" but is used for other file formats as well.
Players, home cinemas, etc.) have a karaoke function - a built-in microphone input and a mixer for overlaying voice on a soundtrack.
There are so-called karaoke machines, the meaning of which is to play phonograms without the presence of a vocal part in them, while simultaneously broadcasting a scrolling line of lyrics, an artist's clip, or background video on a video screen. Such systems are used both in karaoke clubs and at home.
Professional karaoke systems: AST, Evolution, Yourday are used in specialized karaoke establishments, contain a database of songs (karaoke is played without discs) and have the functionality with the necessary reporting for accounting and non-profit organizations for the protection of authors' rights, such as "RAO" (Russian Copyright Society), "VOIS" (All-Russian Organization of Intellectual Property) and the First Musical Publishing House (PMI).
MadBoy is considered a professional karaoke system, but does not have its own song database.
Among household (home) karaoke systems, brands are currently known:
Let's face it - we all love to sing. We sing in the car, in the bathroom (under the shower) and in the kitchen while preparing dinner, but nothing compares to the feeling when you hold a microphone in your hands and know that every eye in the room is on you! Karaoke is always and everywhere a great mood: in bars, restaurants, at a party, at home! Whenever a family or a cheerful company of friends gathers, live singing with KARAOKE is very useful...
According to the Karaoke myth, this incredibly popular activity was born 20 years ago in the city of Kobe in Japan. However, according to another opinion, Karaoke appeared even earlier than the 1970s on Mitch Miller's TV Show "Sing along with Mitch". According to this version of the birth of Karaoke in the 1950s and 60s, TV viewers watched the bouncing ball on the TV screen while singing along with Mitch and Company. Apparently, it was after this that the Japanese took this concept and transformed it into a form of commercial entertainment called "Karaoke". And since that moment, the popularity of Karaoke has spread far beyond the coast of Japan. Now it is a very popular entertainment all over the world.
Karaoke is audio and video. When playing a Karaoke video, the text of the songs is painted over on the TV screen or monitor against the background of the video sequence to the beat of the melody.
Audio Karaoke are phonograms recorded on a conventional audio carrier, with the lyrics written on a booklet that is inserted inside a disc or cassette.
Types of karaoke
The simplest karaoke machine consists of an audio input, a device for changing the tone of the music (not the performer's voice), and an audio output. Some low-end machines try to provide voice suppression so that you can enter original songs into the machine and suppress the artist's voice, but this is not very effective (see below). Most of the machines in use are audio mixers with a built-in microphone input and CD+G, Video CD, CD-ROM or DVD players. CD+G players use a special track called subcode to encode the text and images displayed on the screen, while other formats natively display both audio and video tracks. In a number of countries, karaoke with the ability to display text in video mode is called KTV.
Most karaoke music centers use technology to electronically control the pitch of the music so that users can sing along to any music source by choosing a tone that matches their vocal range while maintaining the song's original tempo. (Some of the first generation machines used cassettes, they changed the key by changing the playback speed, but they fell out of use long ago).
A popular karaoke game is to enter a random number and play a song while the players try to cover each other. In some karaoke centers, this game is pre-programmed and can be limited to the genre of the song, so that participants cannot play some unknown national anthem that none of them can sing. In parts of the United States and Canada, the game has come to be known as "Kamikaze Karaoke".
Many low-end systems (boom boxes, etc.) have a Karaoke mode that attempts to remove the vocal track from normal (non-karaoke) audio CDs. This is done by removing the recording from the center of the disc, taking advantage of the fact that most music discs have the vocal tracks in the center. This means that the voice, as part of the music, has the same volume on both stereo channels and no phase difference. To get a quasi-karaoke (mono) track, the left channel of the original recording is subtracted from the left channel. The crudeness of this approach is reflected in the often unfortunate result of removing the voice. The typical consequences are an audible echo of the voice track (due to the stereo echo superimposed on the vocals), and the sound of other instruments that are mixed in the center (drums, solo instruments) are also removed, reducing this approach to something more like a trick in such devices.
Karaoke VCD
The rise in popularity of video CDs in Southeast Asia is partly due to their low cost and tolerable quality, and partly to the popularity of karaoke. Many VCD players in Southeast Asia have a built-in karaoke function. If users turn off the voice of the performer and leave only the music, they can sing along with karaoke. In the past, karaoke VCDs were only released with pop music sets. Now karaoke VCDs are being released with music of different genres and styles. Cantonese opera karaoke VCDs are now very popular among the elderly in Hong Kong.
MIDI applications
A number of computer programs have been developed that serve similar purposes in typical karaoke machines, using MIDI hardware to create an accompaniment rather than a recorded track. The advantage of this approach is that it makes conversion a technically trivial procedure, and also reduces the amount of data needed to provide accompaniment to the point where it is easy to transfer it over the Internet, even over slow lines. The standard format used is *.KAR, which is an extension of the standard .MID type standard for MIDI discs, which can be played without modification by the MIDI player software.
Video game
The karaoke game was originally released for the Nintendo Famicom, but its limited processing power contributed to the small catalog of songs on offer, and therefore reduced replay value. As a result, karaoke games were seen as something of a collector's item until games began to appear on the enhanced DVD format. Created for the PlayStation 2 by Konami and released in North America in 2003, "Karaoke Revolution" is a video game console game in which one player sings by following on-screen prompts and scores based on melody, timing, and rhythm matching. Two more versions of the game soon followed, Karaoke Revolution Volume 2 and Karaoke Revolution Volume 3. While the original Karaoke Revolution was eventually released for the Microsoft Xbox in late 2004, the new version , which can also be played online, included the ability to download additional song packs via the exclusive Xbox Live online service.
A similar game, SingStar, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, is particularly popular in the European, Australian and Asian markets. List of other similar Dance Dance Revolution music games from Bemani's, Guitar Freaks, and Drum Mania.
Mobile phones and karaoke
In 2003, some companies began to offer karaoke service on mobile phones. It's still an evolving service and it's not yet clear if it will take hold, even with all the technological advances. However, some mobile karaoke providers, such as Karaokini, have begun to achieve commercial success. The Karaokeni service is being promoted through the Vodafone Live! in Greece and Malta.
Karaoke services on mobile phones are most often based on a Java utility that launches a text file with song lyrics and a music file in MIDI format.
www.web2txt.co.uk is the first company to offer a full mobile karaoke in 3gp (mobile video) which provides a better end user experience.
Karaoke on computers and on the Internet
Since 2003, many programs have been released to perform karaoke shows and play karaoke songs on PC. Instead of carrying hundreds of CD-G or LaserDisc discs around, a karaoke jockey can "rip" all their contents onto a PC's hard drive and play songs and lyrics from it.
In addition, new programs allow amateur performers to sing and listen to each other over the Internet in the presence of listeners from all over the world.
Alternative Devices
Previously, the CD+G karaoke disc format, containing lyrics on a specially encoded track, required special - and expensive - equipment to play it. However, prices for bar players have dropped, and some unexpected devices (including the Sega Saturn video game console) can read graphics. In general, karaoke devices equipped with video playback and sometimes recording functionality are often popular items sold in toy and consumer electronics stores.
In addition, there are programs running under Windows, Pocket PC, Linux, and Apple Macintosh PCs that can decode and display karaoke music tracks, although they usually need to be ripped from a CD first and then compressed. Recently, karaoke applications for mobile phones have appeared, mainly in Asian countries.
In addition to CD+G discs and software karaoke, karaoke players equipped with a microphone input are popular mainly in North America and some Asian countries such as the Philippines. Karaoke players equipped with a microphone input only need to be connected to a TV, and sometimes to an outlet, there are also battery-powered models. Often these devices are equipped with additional features such as tone correction and special sound effects. A number of companies offer karaoke content for download for a fee to add to the music library of karaoke players with a microphone input.
Music centers with karaoke function, reproducing CD+G discs and with a microphone input are also commonly used in the home. Recently, DVD karaoke discs have become the most popular media for home karaoke in North America. This was made possible by the presence of a large number of DVD players in American families, which gives users the opportunity to simply put in a DVD, rather than connecting new equipment.
Karaoke bars
A karaoke bar / karaoke restaurant / karaoke club or karaoke hall is simply a bar or restaurant equipped with karaoke equipment that allows people to sing in their company. This is the most common variant in North America. Many establishments offer karaoke weekly, and some even every evening. The latter usually invest more in both equipment and CDs, and are often very popular, so that the attendee has to wait an hour or more for their turn to enter the stage (this is called "rotation").
In Asia, the Karaoke Box (also called KTV or Noraebang) is the most popular type of karaoke venue. A karaoke box is a small to medium sized room that has karaoke equipment set up for a group of friends to rent for a set amount of time to have a more intimate and less public atmosphere. Some believe that the Karaoke box format was invented in South Korea.
Some traditional Chinese restaurants have so-called mahjong and karaoke rooms where older patrons can play mahjong and teenagers can enjoy karaoke. The result is fewer complaints of boredom from visitors, but more noise.
Origin of the word
The Japanese word for karaoke, カラオケ, comes from two words - 空 kara, "empty" and オーケストラ, ookesutora (a corruption of the English "orchestra" - "orchestra"). Together, these words form an abbreviation that literally means "empty orchestra". In the beginning, it was a slang expression for media in which live performance is replaced by pre-recorded music, and in this form it is written in the Japanese katakana syllabary. The term karaoke can be interpreted as "virtual orchestra" because you can choose the desired musical key and sing along to this music in the absence of a live orchestra.
Karaoke media
MASTER KARAOKE - Karaoke on various media:
Can be divided into Audio and video karaoke. The difference between video and audio karaoke is the ability to visually observe the text of the song being performed in the form of titles on a TV or monitor screen, which undoubtedly helps to perform more correctly. At the same time, various images or video fragments can be used as a background on which the titles of the lyrics appear, which visually makes the performance under Karaoke more attractive.
MASTER KARAOKE has been developing in Russia for more than 5 years. During this time, quite a long way has been covered from the first released Video-karaoke disc with 15 songs to the creation of more than 50 discs in DVD-karaoke format, including more than 100 songs.
The most famous video karaoke formats common in Russia:
The media used is a Video CD disc. Today, it can be considered an outdated format for domestic video viewing. The Video CD format was developed in the mid-90s of the 20th century in order to replace the already outdated analog format for home video viewing (VHS). VCD is a standard size CD that implemented support for the digital video stream compression standard in MPEG1 format, which was qualitatively different from analog VHS. But a full-fledged 1.5-hour movie in good quality could only fit on 2 discs, which was due to the limitation of the media capacity of 650 MB. You can play such a disc on special VCD-players, a computer or on DVD-players that support this format. In the future, support for the VCD format began to be built into all DVD players, and today all DVD players produced can play Video-CD format discs. Despite the limited capacity, the VCD was almost perfect for Karaoke. On one such disc, you can fit about 20 songs of a standard duration of 3.5-4 minutes, which means more than an hour of sound in total. In addition, discs of this format have a song selection menu function, which is a necessary condition for Karaoke.
The quality of arrangements on Karaoke VCD discs immediately became a distinguishing feature from the widespread Midi format used by LG Electronics on its karaoke discs, since instead of a very limited set of electronic sounds synthesized by a karaoke device chip, it became possible to use real live instruments for recording arrangements of songs with quite acceptable compression quality. At the moment, the Video CD format is dying out, as it has been replaced by a newer digital media format - DVD.
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)
A new generation of CDs that can hold a much larger amount of data, which allows you to record video and sound in significantly better digital quality than previous formats. It was developed in the late 90s and began to develop at a rapid pace, replacing VHS and Video CD. With the transition to DVD for Karaoke, many additional features have become possible. First of all, this is the ability to record several times more songs on one disc than on a VCD. At the moment, quite a lot of Karaoke discs with 100 songs have already been released.
In addition, it became possible to use various options for the sound of phonograms on a karaoke disc and switch between them - a standard arrangement with a “voice” prompt, an arrangement of “Pro” without a “voice” prompt, an original soundtrack of a song, an arrangement of “Karaoke +” with the voice of a professional performer and various mixed options. It has also become possible in DVD-Karaoke to “turn on/off” the titles of the lyrics of the song and even change the video sequence. Now you can use not only standard stereo sound, but also 6-channel surround sound Dolby Digital 5.1
At the moment, almost all of this is used in the production of Karaoke discs in DVD-VIDEO format, and additional advantages can be the use of thematic video sequence, the use of original clips as a video sequence, an attractive animated menu for choosing songs, and even various options for filling in the titles of lyrics.
LG Karaoke
Special karaoke discs produced by LG Electronics to complete its Karaoke players. As a rule, such discs contain a large number of songs and are not designed to be played on DVD players from other manufacturers. Until 2004, compact discs (CD) were used as a medium, and MIDI was used as a recording format for phonograms. On the new Karaoke disc, which was released in 2004, a DVD disc has already been used as a medium, and phonograms are recorded in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. The new generation of disks and devices is incompatible with the old technology, ie. Old discs cannot be played on new LG Karaoke units and vice versa. At the moment, several discs have already been released in Russia.
The main feature of LG Karaoke is the ability to change the key and tempo of songs during playback. It is possible to set points for performance, as well as the ability to hold competitions for the best performance of songs under Karaoke.
Discs in LG Karaoke format, released at different times:
MIDI discs Karaoke
New Karaoke DVD Format (WMA Recording Format)
On the discs of the new format, in addition to all the advantages of the previous generation discs, it is possible to enable / disable the back vocal function. An interactive menu has been implemented to search for the desired song by title or artist.
Samsung karaoke
Relatively recently, Karaoke devices manufactured by Samsung (DVD-OK) appeared in Russia, and along with them discs in the Samsung Karaoke DVD format, as well as discs from LG that are not intended for playback on devices from other manufacturers. In a fairly short period of time, Samsung has released a whole line of Karaoke machines and various versions of Karaoke discs. In Russia, 5 different discs have already been released with a different number of versions and a set of functions. As a standard, all discs provide such functions as changing the key and tempo of the sound of phonograms, enabling / disabling the function of scoring for performance, an interactive menu for finding the desired song. As a format for recording phonograms on all discs, the Midi format is used.
Versions of SAMSUNG Karaoke discs (DVD-OK), already released in Russia at different times:
In discs of version 3,4,5, in comparison with versions 1,2, the function of enabling / disabling back vocals was added (there was no back vocal in previous versions), the function of transliterating the text of foreign songs into Russian text, as well as the function of changing the sound volume " voice prompt.
Disc compatibility, despite the fact that all use Midi technology, is quite complicated:
1.Version 1 disc can be played on devices that came with version 2 disc, but is not backwards compatible.
2. Discs of the first versions 1,2 cannot be played on devices designed to play versions 3,4,5 and, accordingly, vice versa.
3.Versions 3 and 4 are not compatible with version 5.
Terms karaoke
Minus>
arrangement of the original soundtrack without the performer's voice, only music.
Arrangement
phonogram in the form of Karaoke, created on the basis of the original phonogram of the song. It can be created by removing the voice from the original work, or by reworking the original work.
Credits
text or graphic information displayed on the screen over the image. In karaoke, captions are used to display lyrics on the screen. Typically, karaoke titles use two lines of titles that change as the song plays.
Background footage
dynamic or static images placed under karaoke titles and used as a background when performing karaoke songs. As a video sequence, short video plots on any topic are usually used, which makes it possible to make the performance of songs visually more interesting.
For the uninformed, let's explain: karaoke is a Japanese abbreviation of the words "carappo" (the first syllable "kara" is taken here), which means "empty", and "okesutura" (the first syllable "oke" is taken), meaning "orchestra". In the literal translation, karaoke means “empty orchestra”, and karaoke singing is understood as singing to a recorded instrumental accompaniment, which is the melody of songs originally recorded without the singer’s voice, or songs, the singer’s voice from which was artificially removed using specialized software.
The trendy entertainment called “karaoke”, which originated twenty years ago in Japan, has long won many supporters around the world. Russia was no exception: lovers of singing actively demonstrate their talents in karaoke bars, karaoke restaurants, special karaoke clubs and karaoke halls, where you can demonstrate your vocal abilities to a wide audience and which differ from the usual ones only in the presence of a professional equipment and appropriate environment conducive to singing.
Areas of application of karaoke
Karaoke-singing arose as a fun and at first glance, even today it does not have any utilitarian claims - with the possible exception of ridding the neighbors of the noise, since many lovers of home singing have migrated from apartments to karaoke rooms.
Let's try, however, to look at it from a slightly different angle. Karaoke contains ample opportunities for both entertainment and other purposes. If we talk about the entertainment side, then you can not only sing your favorite songs under karaoke, but also use karaoke as the basis for holding discos, holidays, evenings of rest, etc., which is important, for example, for DJs. The arsenal of their capabilities can be significantly expanded through various competitions and games, such as “Who will sing the least out of tune”, “Guess the melody”, “Who will parody the famous artist funnier”.
Other aspects of karaoke singing are of no less interest, but here one should carefully approach the choice of equipment and software. Karaoke opens up wide prospects for beginner talents and for all those who sing well and want to record popular hits in their own performance: recording discs with popular songs in your own performance will be much cheaper than contacting a recording studio. Singing along with karaoke can be useful for anyone who needs to develop their voice and musical ear, since karaoke programs give a more or less objective assessment of your performance, carefully monitoring all your mistakes. There is another interesting direction: experts have come to the conclusion that karaoke singing helps in mastering a spoken foreign language, and therefore the corresponding exercises have already begun to appear on some educational CDs for children.
Karaoke on the computer
If you want to perform in front of a fairly large audience, then you have a direct road to the karaoke room, where both professional equipment and an interested audience will be at your service. Plus, it's perfect for a party with friends.
And if you are completely satisfied with your home audience or do not need listeners at all, then you can easily arrange the same karaoke room within the walls of your own apartment. There are several options for home karaoke: you can buy a music center with a built-in karaoke player, get a household karaoke player or buy Leadsinger radio microphones, or you can get by with a regular computer by creating a library of karaoke files and installing specialized software.
Karaoke file formats
Usually a karaoke file is a midi file with the MID, KAR or ST3 extensions, containing the music notation of the piece. An important feature of karaoke files is that music is recorded not in the usual digital form, but in the form of scores (sequences of commands) for various instruments, the sound of which is imitated by a computer sound card. In addition, karaoke files contain song lyrics that are synchronously displayed on the monitor screen. This greatly facilitates the process of singing: on the one hand, you do not need to memorize the lyrics of the song, and on the other hand, it is much easier to get in time, because the words that should be sung at one time or another are indicated by a contrasting color.
Creating your own collection of karaoke files is not difficult - a huge number of them are scattered across the Internet, and first of all, you should look at http://www.karaoke.ru/, where there are thousands of songs, including Russian performers.
If the karaoke file for your favorite song could not be found on the Web, then there is a second option, which is not so simple and fast: you can use specialized programs that allow you to create karaoke files.
Program types for karaoke
All karaoke programs can be divided into three groups: karaoke players, karaoke file editors and various utilities designed mainly for converting and organizing karaoke files, but the first two groups of programs are most widely used.
First, about karaoke players or karaoke players. Theoretically, you can play karaoke files on a standard Windows player, but in this case you will not feel all the advantages of real karaoke players. The difference between the latter is that the text of the song being played scrolls across the screen during playback, and the syllables or words that need to be sung at a particular moment are highlighted in a different color - this is a standard karaoke prompt that makes it easier for deaf performers to get in time (which in karaoke singing is considered quite acceptable). If desired, all this can be supplemented by a video sequence that scrolls during the performance of the song. In addition, karaoke players have other functions: they allow you to change the tempo, volume and key, display words both in a separate window and in full screen, etc.
Listing the karaoke players offered on the computer market today is a thankless task, because their list is very large, so we will focus only on the most interesting and at the same time popular ones. The most famous program is GoSing Karaoke Player, but Russian karaoke lovers mostly prefer vanBasco's Karaoke Player. Both programs are still free to this day. A more professional solution is also the very popular but already paid Karaoke Kanta Player app. And if we talk about learning to sing, then for Russians, the paid domestic Vocal Jam program may be the best solution.
The second group of karaoke software, as noted above, consists of karaoke file editors. Here the choice is not as wide as among karaoke players, but you can also find a program for every taste and budget, from professional programs aimed primarily at studios to free editors with a minimum of functions. For Russian users in this group, the leader is the free domestic program Karaoke Maker, which can be an excellent choice for home users whose requests do not go beyond singing with the whole family in moments of relaxation. In the West, home users for creating karaoke files prefer the free Karaoke 5 program, which successfully combines the capabilities of a karaoke player, editor and organizer, and the inexpensive winOKE program. However, Karaoke 5 has problems with recognizing the Russian font, so it is not presented in this review. As for professionals, they should first of all pay attention to such software products as DART Karaoke Studio, PowerKaraoke Plus and Karaoke Builder Studio.
Karaoke players
GoSing Karaoke Player 2.71
Developer: i.Tech Tecnologia da Informacao
Distribution size: 305 KB
Distribution method: freeware
Price: is free
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
GoSing (Fig. 1) is the world's most popular karaoke singing software for computers. It is compact, extremely easy to operate, accessible to the widest range of users and is perfect for home parties.
The program is compatible with KAR, MID and MK1 formats and has only one context menu that allows you to load and run karaoke files, change the graphic background-intro and determine the font of the lyrics displayed on the screen, which is quite enough for singing with the family.
vanBasco's Karaoke Player 2.5.3
Developer: vanBasco Software Ltd
Distribution size: 796 KB
Distribution method: freeware
Work under control:
VanBasco's Karaoke Player is one of the most feature-rich free karaoke players out there, and as such may be of interest even to professionals. In addition, the program has a friendly interface, which makes it attractive to inexperienced users.
This karaoke player is designed to play KAR files as well as standard MIDI files with MID, MIDI and RMI extensions. The application features a multi-window, well-designed, ergonomic interface: each window can be opened or closed, and the settings of some windows can be completely changed by the user at will. In total, up to six windows can be opened in the program:
- Main Window - the main window designed to control all other windows (Fig. 2) and to change the program settings. In order to facilitate the search for the desired songs, you can use the button to call the search engine in the browser window;
- Karaoke Window - a window that displays the lyrics of the song being played. The window is fully customizable: you can adjust both the window size and the text display features (font, text size and color, number of lines, etc.) (Fig. 3). The output of the lyrics of the song is very comfortable: the two current lines that need to be sung are displayed at the bottom, and the next two are displayed at the top. This is very convenient in order to manage to get in time with the melody even in the absence of hearing, and in case of ignorance of the words of the song;
- Control Window - a control window for changing the volume of the sound while adjusting the tempo and tone. If desired, the sound settings can be saved in the current playlist, and in the future, modified settings will be set automatically when a given song is selected;
- MIDI Output Window is a panel for displaying MIDI data of a KAR file in real time, which allows you not only to visually evaluate the contribution to the melody of each instrument, but also, if necessary, turn off unnecessary instruments or make some instruments leading, and save the result in the same or in another KAR file;
- Piano Window - a piano window that displays the notes being played in real time in sync with the playback of the backing track. This window may be useful in the practical study of vocal art;
- Playlist Window (Fig. 4) - a window of the selected musical repertoire, or a playlist, designed in the form of two panels: on the left - the songs selected for this playlist, on the second - the working folder of the disk. Any playlist can contain up to several thousand songs located in various folders on your hard drive, and the playlist editor allows you to easily add new songs to a specific playlist, sort the list of songs in ascending and descending order, create new playlists, rename and delete them.
Rice. 2. Opening the MIDI Output Window from the Main Window
Vocal Jam 2.0
Developer: Sergey Danilov
Distribution size: 7.72 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price: 300 rub.
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP
Vocal Jam is rightfully considered the best domestic karaoke program for singing on a computer (Fig. 5) and is of interest from a variety of points of view. Providing excellent opportunities for those who simply love to sing along with karaoke, it is at the same time a simple and convenient educational tool for anyone who needs to develop their voice and ear for music, and will also help those who want to record hits in their own performance.
The program has many advantages. Thus, an objective assessment of singing in points will be useful to all those who improve in the art of singing and at the same time will allow organizing comic karaoke competitions, and constant and objective monitoring of performance with a prompt display of mistakes made will improve the performance level. The improved sound makes it possible to make high-quality recordings of famous songs in your own performance and will eliminate the need for recording studios, where these services are very expensive. The vocal recording mode will record singing or backing tracks in standard WAV format (16 bit/44.1 kHz). It is possible to make several attempts and save all the options, and then listen to them and choose the best one, and using the usual CD burning procedure, if desired, you can even create a real audio CD with songs of your own performance.
The unique technique allows you to quickly learn to read notes and develop an ear for music, and the solfeggio course, which you can practice on your own, is based on many years of Russian practice and includes a large number of examples based on folk songs, romances and the classical repertoire.
It is impossible not to note the simplicity, convenience of working with Vocal Jam and its versatility:
- keyboard control of song input, tempo and key - this allows you to quickly move from song to song; in addition, at the moment of singing of one performer, it is possible, by a simple combination of keys, to prepare a program for the next performer;
- separate adjustment of the parameters of each of the 16 MIDI channels;
- reflection on the control panel of the time interval remaining until the end of the song being performed;
- the ability to use both still (BMP and JPEG formats) and video screensavers (AVI format);
- quick search for the right songs (Fig. 6) to maintain a fast pace of change of speakers at karaoke parties;
- the ability to change the design styles: Studio, Video or Standard;
- automatic recording of the performance of the speakers, which is useful in the learning process and interesting in the company, because both the singers themselves and their friends like it, especially in the presence of comic situations;
- the ability to record video files in AVI and MPEG formats based on karaoke files and create entire video karaoke albums on CDs;
- support for a large number of file formats (from conventional KAR and ST3 to MID, MP3, AVI, etc.), which allows you to always have an extensive repertoire of songs at hand, since the necessary files in popular music formats (for example, WAV and MP3) are much easier to find than karaoke files.
KaraokeKanta Player 4.6
Developer: Ilusion Software
Distribution size: 1.04 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price: 39.45 euros
Work under control: Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP
KaraokeKanta Player is a very popular in the West, but practically unknown to Russian users player for playing karaoke files in KAR format and standard MIDI files.
The program has a spectacular and very rich interface (Fig. 7) with a complex menu structure (unnecessary can be hidden) and requires DirectX 8.1 and higher to work. KaraokeKanta Player allows you to connect any background of your choice during performance and supports full screen mode.
Rice. 7. Singing Karaoke with Karaoke Kanta Player
By analogy with karaoke systems in karaoke centers, KaraokeKanta Player allows you to add an echo effect to the sound of your voice: laughter, screams of the audience, etc., which creates the feeling that you are singing not in your living room, but in a large hall in front of the audience. Moreover, the latest version of the program makes it possible to imitate duet singing even if there is only one performer. To do this, a file of the same song is first created, but with the voice of another artist, which is saved in MP3, WAV or WMA format (the favorite singer performing this hit can also act as another artist). The karaoke file then plays in sync with a recording of a song made by another artist, giving the illusion of a duet being sung. In this case, the voice of the second singer can be muted or amplified at the request of the user.
KaraokeKanta Player provides a convenient way to organize songs into playlists, which can be grouped into folders and subfolders, which makes it easy to classify thousands of files. It supports the creation of many playlists that can be added, deleted, renamed, moved karaoke files between them, etc. Right in the program environment, you can rename any song, while renaming a song in a playlist will automatically rename this song in other playlists. -sheets, if it is repeated repeatedly, as well as the corresponding file on disk.
KaraokeKanta Player is ideal for multi-singer karaoke parties as it automates the process of finding, selecting and downloading songs as much as possible. In particular, you can create preliminary lists of karaoke files to play and play them in a certain order without intervention from the DJ, so that performers can change each other without the slightest delay. Advanced search for songs in playlists allows you to quickly browse thousands of songs and find those that contain a particular word. Thus, you can search for songs by the artist, if his last name appears in the title of the karaoke file, or by any other word that appears in the title of the song. It is possible to search for songs for the next artist directly during the performance of the previous one. Songs can be selected not only by their names, but also by their unique numbers (as is customary in real karaoke bars), which also speeds up the search and download process.
The program is convenient not only for the organizers of the karaoke singing, but also for the performers themselves. For them, on a special information panel, the duration of each song, the time of the beginning and end of its singing, as well as the time remaining until the end of the performance, are recorded. The control buttons allow you to stop the performance at any time, go back a few steps and try to perform this or that verse more correctly, which is useful in the learning process. You can, on the contrary, interrupt the performance of a song and immediately go to the next one, etc. It is worth noting the new technology for displaying text, which allows you to use not two colors, as is usually customary for karaoke players, but three: one is for the currently executing syllable, the second is for the syllables of the given line that are being performed at the next moment, the third is for next line. This allows performers to accurately hit the beat and see before their eyes the line of text that will need to be sung after the line being performed.
Karaoke Editors
If you could not find a ready-made karaoke melody for your favorite song, then if you wish, you can create its karaoke version yourself. As a rule, to create a karaoke file, you need to find a MIDI file with the musical accompaniment of the song, the lyrics of the song in a text file, which will then need to be divided into syllables in a certain way, and a program for creating karaoke files. With the help of karaoke editors, you can also do independent creativity and put a suitable, from your point of view, text on some melody. Programmatically, karaoke editors are usually very easy to learn, and the purely technical formation of karaoke files in them is a simple process. However, this does not mean at all that anyone can handle the creation of files for karaoke - we should not forget that for a successful result, in addition to the elementary ability to work on a computer, at least minimal musical knowledge is required, without which even the simplest splitting of a text file into syllables may turn out to be unable to.
Karaoke Maker 2.1.1
Developer: Mikhail Leontiev
Distribution size: 549 KB
Distribution method: freeware
Price: is free
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP
Karaoke Maker is a compact, simple and free package for creating karaoke (KAR) files from MIDI files in the MIDI-1 format. If the source file is in a format other than MIDI-1, then you will need to convert it first using the conversion utility included in the delivery (you can use any midi editor).
The program supports the Russian interface and has detailed instructions for creating karaoke files, and therefore can be an ideal solution for Russian home users. For Russification, download the file KarMaker_RUS.zip (http://www.karaoke.ru/soft/karmaker_RUS.zip, 72.3 KB) and unpack it into the Karaoke Maker installation folder.
In general, the process of creating a karaoke file is extremely simple and with the help of the wizard it is carried out in several steps:
However, in practice, things can turn out to be somewhat more complicated. For example, a track with a melody may not exist at all, and then the process of creating a karaoke file will be very difficult; for a successful breakdown into syllables, you need to have an idea about the performance of this song and initial musical training.
Rice. 9. The result of splitting the lyrics into syllables
winOKE 3.12
Developer: RMC Software
Distribution size: 2.3 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price:$30
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
winOKE is a handy program designed for amateurs to create spectacular karaoke files with original graphics and animations, called karaoke presentations for their original design. It has a very compact interface that does not take up much space on the screen (Fig. 10) and at the same time a wide range of features typical of professional programs. Among these features are full-screen playback mode, adding slides and animations, both included in the delivery of the program, and in the form of specially prepared animated GIF files, various effects for text (Fig. 11), etc.
The program allows you to create karaoke based on a variety of music files, since it works with CD-audio, WAV and MP3 formats, understands KAR and lRC and allows you to add lyrics to them, ensuring synchronization of text and music. If necessary, you can remove vocals from music tracks using VoiceSuppressor, although this option exists only for files in the WAV format (Fig. 12). The appearance of a karaoke presentation is fully customizable: you can adjust the speed of text and music, color, word highlighting, background, etc. In addition, the program allows you to save design settings in templates for further use when creating other karaoke files and supports batch processing files.
Karaoke Builder Studio 3.0.145
Developer: Karaoke Builder
Distribution size: 4.148 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price: 99 euro
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
This handy professional tool is designed to create karaoke discs by synchronizing text and music files and burning finished files to CD. With the help of this program, the process of converting independent music and text files into karaoke files can be simplified to the limit and automated as much as possible. Karaoke Builder Studio is an excellent choice for professional karaoke studios, and its user-friendly and intuitive interface and advanced help system, combined with an affordable price, make this program attractive for home users.
With Karaoke Builder Studio, ordinary karaoke performers can save their performances on CD, beginners can improve their singing skills, and professionals can use the program to burn their own high-quality CDs.
The procedure for creating a karaoke file involves the following sequence of actions:
- creating a new empty project;
- downloading melody without voice in WAV, MP3, KAR, WMA, MID, AVI, etc. formats;
- loading lyrics from a text file (Fig. 13) or by importing from a KAR or MID file;
- synchronization of the text with the music by breaking it down into syllables and indicating where and when this or that line is sung (Fig. 14). It is worth noting that the text can be edited even after synchronization without losing the results, and the synchronization process itself can be suspended in case of an error, return to the required number of steps and continue working;
- saving the karaoke file in CDG format, and the entire project in native KBP format, so that it can be edited if necessary.
Other features of Karaoke Builder Studio include the addition of a slide show (Figure 15) with over 70 special transition effects, watermarking, support for over 20 text styles with the ability to add shadows and color schemes, and a variety of text formatting options.
If desired, the created CDG karaoke files can be converted to AVI video files, and during the conversion process you can choose the appropriate background, which will be the first step to creating your own video disc.
DART Karaoke Studio CD+G 1.4.9
Developer: DARTECH Inc.
Distribution size: 11.07 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price:$149.98
Work under control: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
DART Karaoke Studio is a professional solution for creating karaoke files based on a wide variety of sources: MP3 or WAV files, audio CDs, etc. The program allows you to select a music source, remove vocals from it, add lyrics, synchronize it with a piece of music, play the processed music signal in parallel with the playback of the text, record the voice and get a personal professionally prepared disc as the output.
The program has an attractive and intuitive interface and comes with detailed help information and a demo video that makes it easy to learn, so it can be of interest not only to professionals, but also to karaoke lovers.
DART Karaoke Studio is a set of closely related applications:
- CD-Recorder Basic - capture any analog or digital music signal;
- DART DeVocalizer (fig. 16) - removal of main vocals from MP3 or WAV files. It should be borne in mind that the vocal removal algorithm is based on cutting out the central region of the sound panorama, so this operation will not be effective for mono sources where there is simply no such panorama, and may not work correctly with MP3 files due to the use of compression algorithms in them (for example, instead of removal may simply be a strong muffling of the sound of the singer's voice);
- DART Karaoke Author - import, editing and synchronization of text (Fig. 17);
- DART CD+G Track Generator - creating custom graphics;
- DART Karaoke Player (Fig. 18) - the organization of singing under karaoke with the ability to record a hit on a CD in your performance.
in DART Karaoke Author
in DART Karaoke Player
PowerKaraoke Plus 1.2.27
Developer: DOBLON
Distribution size: 4.4 MB
Distribution method: shareware
Price:$149
Work under control: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
PowerKaraoke Plus is a professional tool for creating karaoke files from WAV or MP3 files. The program interface is extremely simple and consists of a command menu, three windows (music, text editing window and text preview) and two toolbars (main and taskbars). Mastering the program does not require much time, so it can be recommended not only to professionals, but also to novice users.
If you have a melody file of a song without words at your disposal, then the process of obtaining a karaoke file is extremely simple: just open the melody file, import and synchronize the lyrics of the song (Fig. 19) - this operation is carried out manually by ear, and then create karaoke based on it -file (Fig. 20). The karaoke file is created in the BIN format, which is supported by the karaoke player built into PowerKaraoke Plus (Fig. 21). Playback is possible both in windowed and full-screen modes, and when saving a karaoke file, all the features of its playback can be determined in advance. The program settings allow you to add arbitrary images in BMP, JPG and PNG formats, which will be shown when playing a karaoke file, and set the optimal text display option with the ability to add various effects to it.
Rice. 21. Playing the created karaoke file
However, in practice, lyrics with words are usually the source material, and in such cases, the artist’s words must be removed from the song beforehand, for which PowerKaraoke Plus has a special vocal removal operation (Vocal Remover - Fig. 22), which can provide good results, but far from always - it all depends on the characteristics of the distribution of vocals in the file. As a rule, it is always possible to remove the voice if it is recorded in one track, and never if the vocals are mixed in a non-standard way. Also, using original WAV files rather than MP3 files as source files gives better results because the compression applied to them changes the internal structure of the file. However, it's always worth experimenting with the Vocal Remover settings, as acceptable results can be achieved with certain settings. When changing the vocal removal parameters, you should not immediately start the file conversion operation - it is better to first listen to the expected result, and if it turns out to be unsuccessful, then you can continue experimenting with the settings.
The purpose of the Vocal Remover function is much broader than voice removal. Using this operation, you can mute the singer's voice and, based on the file created in this way, form a karaoke file, singing to which will look like singing in a duet with the main performer, which is very interesting.
In addition to the main task of creating karaoke files, PowerKaraoke Plus provides the ability to convert files, including in batch mode.
