A: Karaoke is a form of entertainment in which a live person sings a song with a pre-recorded accompaniment that can be played back by various karaoke devices called karaoke machines. Besides playing back the accompaniment the karaoke machines also display the song lyrics that light up in-time with the music. The word "karaoke" is Japanese for "empty orchestra". This great form of entertainment originated in Japan and is spread throughout the world. A typical place to see karaoke is a bar, restaurant, or a club where people come to have fun by singing pop songs. This web page will help you to turn your computer into a karaoke machine so you can have as much fun in your own home.

Q: What is MIDI?

A: MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is a standard by which various electronic musical instruments (such as keyboards, synthesizers, computer soundcards, etc.) can communicate with each other. MIDI can be also used to connect a computer to a musical instrument so that the computer can control the instrument. For example, the computer can play the whole song on an electronic instrument via MIDI. The information on how the song is played is stored in a MIDI file. Click here for more information on MIDI.

Q: What is MIDI Karaoke?

A: MIDI can be used to play the background music on an electronic musical instrument and at the same time display the song lyrics on the computer screen. A computer program can play a MIDI Karaoke File containing the song musical data as well as the lyrics that are displayed on a computer monitor.

Q: What are MIDI karaoke files?

A:MIDI karaoke files are Standard General MIDI files that have song lyrics built into one of the tracks according to a certain format. Using a program that supports this format, the lyrics can be displayed on the screen in synch with the music. This page contains a wide variety of karaoke files in singles and albums sections. There are several types of MIDI karaoke files.

Q: What are the different MIDI karaoke file types?

A: In the beginning there was only one file type: .kar. This file format was designed by Tune 1000 Corp. Even though this file format is now abandoned by the company, it is still prevailing file format in shareware/public domain market. There are numerous file producers that are making these files and just about every computer karaoke player supports this file format. However some karaoke player makers created their own file format that can be played just by their player. Here is the list of various file formats:

.KAR - MIDI Karaoke file type 1 (Soft Karaoke). The dominant in shareware/public domain market. Just about every karaoke player software on this page can play these files. Click here for detailed file format description. There are numerous shareware utilities written that allow making a .kar file from a regular MIDI file.
.MID + .TXK - KaraDOS. This is actually a combination of two files. The first is a MIDI file containing the music. The second is a text file with the song lyrics. This file format is used by KaraDOS player. The files of this type are available in the Albums section.
.MID - MIDI Karaoke file type 0. This is the new standard of Tune 1000 Corp. - the original designer of MIDI Karaoke. Tune 1000 has created numerous songs in this format. Check out their catalog. These files are not available on this page because they are commercial. Click here for more information on how to get these files. These files can be played by the commercial program Soft Concert made by Tune 1000. Currently the following shareware programs can play these files: GSPlay, Midi Songs Karaoke System.
.CRT - Soft Concert. These files are created with Tune 1000's Soft Concert program and are not compatible with any other program.
.ST3 - Star 3. This file type is only used by Star 3 Karaoke software. This file format uses a compression scheme that makes the file smaller than a regular MIDI file. Currently there are no files contributed to this page in this format.

Q: What hardware do I need to be able to use MIDI karaoke files?

A: You need a General MIDI synthesizer or a computer sound card to hear the music. It is highly recommended to use a wavetable synthesizer sound card as opposed to FM synthesizer. Wavetable soundcards have samples (digital recordings) of real instruments instead of their imitations produced by FM synthesis. Click here for more information on wavetable soundcards.

Of course you also need a computer with the sound card or with a MIDI adapter that is connected to your external instrument. You will use the computer monitor to display the lyrics of the song.

Q:What software programs can I use to play MIDI karaoke files to be able to see the lyrics?

A: This page contains numerous shareware programs that can play .kar files. The programs can be downloaded from the players section. There is a commercial program Soft Concert made by company Tune 1000 - the original designer of the .kar file format.

Q Can I use a regular MIDI file player to play MIDI karaoke files?

A: Yes, however you will not be able to see the lyrics. If your MIDI player can not play files with an extension other than .MID, rename the MIDI karaoke files from .KAR to .MID extension.

Q: Where did the karaoke files on this page come from?

A: The files on this page are created by various people on the internet. Some of them sequence the music others take an existing MIDI file and enter lyrics to it to make it into a karaoke file. Check out the contributors section to see names of people who have worked hard to bring computer karaoke to everyone's home.

Q:Where can I get more MIDI karaoke files?

A: More MIDI karaoke files can be BOUGHT from Tune 1000 and their distributors, which are various music stores. For more information call Tune 1000 at 1-800-363-TUNE. Click here for the catalog of songs available from Tune 1000. The files obtained from Tune 1000 are NOT public domain and should not be distributed. The current list price for a disk with 10 songs is $24.95. Note that these file are not in .kar format. They are in MIDI Karaoke Type 0 format.

Q: What is the MIDI Karaoke Type 1 (.KAR) file format?

A: A MIDI Karaoke file is a Standard MIDI File type 1 that contains a separate track with lyrics of the song entered as text events. Load one of the MIDI karaoke files into a sequencer to examine the contents of the tracks of the file. The first track contains text events that are used to make the file recognizable as the MIDI Karaoke file. @KMIDI KARAOKE FILE text event is used to for that purpose. The optional text event @V0100 denotes the format version number. Anything starting with @I is any information you want to include in the file.

The second track contains the text meta events for the lyrics of the song. The first event is @LENGL. It identifies the language of the song, in this case English. The next couple of events start with @T which identifies the title of the songs. You can have up to three events like these. The first event should contain the title of the song. Some programs (ex. Soft Karaoke) read this event to get the name of the song to be displayed in the File Open dialog box. The second event usually contains the performer or author of the song. The third event can contain any copyright information or anything else.

The rest of the second track contains the words of the song. Each event is the syllable that is supposed to be sung at the time of the event. If the text starts with \, it means to clear the screen and show the words at the top of the screen. If the text starts with /, it means to go to the next line.

Important note: There can be only 3 lines per screen in a .kar file for Soft Karaoke being able to play the file correctly. In other words, there can be only two / (forward slashes) beginning each line in a line of lyrics. The next line has to start with \ (back slash).

Q: How can I make a MIDI karaoke file from a regular General MIDI file?

A: There are a number of programs available at other related programs section of this page. Each one has it's own unique user interface. You may also use any other music sequencer software that supports text events to make karaoke files.

Q: How can I extract lyrics from a MIDI Karaoke file?

A: Several programs allow saving lyrics in a separate text file. These are: Midioke.

Q: Can I display the song lyrics on a TV?

A: Yes. You need to get a VGA to TV converter. These devices cost starting from about $150 and can be obtained in a computer hardware store. They plug into your VGA card output port and have a video out port. You can also connect a monitor to the device to see the image on the monitor and on the TV at the same time. Once of such devices is Tvator made by Antec Inc.

Q: Why do I get Track Overflow errors in Soft Karaoke software when I am loading some .kar files downloaded from this page?

A: Some karaoke file producers make karaoke files that do not conform 100% to the Soft Karaoke MIDI file standard. This is probably because they do not have Soft Karaoke to test their files. Other players might not have a problem with these files. The solution is either to edit the file so it conforms to the Soft Karaoke standard or to use a different player. The Track Overflow error occurs when a file has more than 3 lines per verse. The file needs to be edited to have at most 3 lines per verse. That means that there can be at most two / characters in a row to separate lines. The next one should be \.

Q: Why does the music sound so cheasy? I can't put my voice to this lousy accompaniment.

A: Most probably you are using an FM soundcard. See this for more info.

Q: What are some of the wavetable soundcards?

A: Here is the list of WWW links for more information about various wavetable soundcards.