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Frequently Asked Questions
  1. How can I add more Karaoke songs to vanBasco's Karaoke Player?
  2. With many songs I play, the lyrics are not displayed in the Karaoke Window. Why?
  3. How can I record my voice?
  4. When I make changes to the tempo or key of a song, how can I save the changes back to the MIDI file?
  5. I want to add lyrics to an existing MIDI file - how can I do this?
  6. Where can I find lyrics?
  7. Can I print the words of a song using your player?
  8. How can I print a playlist?
  9. Where can I download more skins?
  10. Can you add support for ST3 files to the next version?
  11. Does your player play Karaoke (CD+G) discs?
  12. How can I burn MIDI Karaoke files on an audio CD?
  13. Can I add my website to your search engine?


Question: How can I add more Karaoke songs to vanBasco's Karaoke Player?

Answer: One way to add more songs to vanBasco's Karaoke Player is to download some from the Internet. Karaoke files can be found using our MIDI search engine, for instance.

When you have found a website offering Karaoke songs, you need to download the Karaoke files to a directory on your hard disk first. This is done by right-clicking the linked Karaoke file in you web browser and selecting "Save as...". Once the download is completed successfully, inside vanBasco's Karaoke Player, you need to add the Karaoke file to a playlist. You do this by switching in the list on the right hand side of the Playlist window to the folder where you saved the downloaded Karaoke files. Select the ones you want to play and press "add".

Alternatively you can just double-click the Karaoke files from within a file manager such as Windows Explorer.


Question: With many songs I play, the lyrics are not displayed in the Karaoke Window. Why?

Answer: First of all, vanBasco's Karaoke Player will only display the words if the song file you are playing includes them.
Files with the .mid extension generally do not contain words. Files that do include lyrics are usually renamed to have a .kar extension. Use our MIDI search engine and look for results with Lyrics!.


Question: How can I record my voice?

Answer: Unfortunately, vanBasco's Karaoke Player does not directly support voice recording. However you can use any sound recording application to record your voice. There is no automatic synchronization though, so you need to start recording in the sound recorder first, and then click play inside vanBasco's Karaoke Player.

You also need to make sure that the Windows Mixer is set up correctly to record from the microphone and your synthesizer. To open the Windows Mixer, double-click the yellow or gray speaker icon in the system tray at the far right end of the task bar at the bottom of the screen. The Windows Mixer will now show the volume controls. Make sure that both the microphone and the MIDI synthesizer (the actual device name can differ) are enabled and set their volume to a reasonable level. From the menu choose

        Options -> Properties -> Recording -> OK

to switch from the playback to the recording settings. Make again sure that both the microphone and MIDI synthesizer are selected for recording. If you cannot select more than one source, you can try to find a channel that lets you record all you can hear, i.e. from all devices. Such a device is sometimes called "stereo output" or "what you hear", or something similar.


Question: When I make changes to the tempo or key of a song, how can I save the changes back to the MIDI file?

Answer: vanBasco's Karaoke Player cannot modify MIDI files. (Use a MIDI sequencer if you want to do this - there is a free one available called Jazz++.)

However, if you merely want to retain your playback settings for a particular file, you can store this information in the playlist. This is done by clicking "Save to List" in the control window inside vanBasco's Karaoke Player. Your settings will be remembered the next time you load the song from the same playlist provided that "Use from List" is enabled (also in the control window).

To get more information about using playlists, please consult the respective section in the online help system which is available by clicking the question mark button in the main program window of vanBasco's Karaoke Player.


Question: I want to add lyrics to an existing MIDI file - how can I do this?

Answer: Unfortunately, you cannot add or modify lyrics with vanBasco's Karaoke Player. However, there are dedicated Karaoke editors available, such as WinKaraoke Creator (freeware).


Question: Where can I find lyrics?

Answer: Try the following sites:
   LyricX.com
   sing365.com
   The International Lyrics Server


Question: Can I print the words of a song using your player?

Answer: You can copy the words to the Windows clipboard by choosing "Copy" from the Karaoke Window's context menu (right-click inside the Karaoke Window to get to the context menu). Then you can paste the lyrics into an empty document in your word processor and print from there.


Question: How can I print a playlist?

Answer: You can import a playlist file (*.vpl) into a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel and print from there. Here's how it works in general. (Details my vary, depending on the particular product you're using. For definitive information, please consult the documentation of your spreadsheet program on how to import data from text files.)

Start your spreadsheet program. From the File menu, choose "Open..." or "Import...". As file type, select "text file" or "comma-separated values (csv) file" or something similar, as available. Open the playlist file you wish to print, e.g. "Sample Playlist.vpl". All playlist files are located in the installation directory of the player, e.g. C:\Program Files\vanBasco's Karaoke Player. When prompted, specify that all fields in the file are separated by semicolons. After importing you can delete the columns that you don't want to print. That's all you need to do.


Question: Where can I download more skins?

Answer: A few additional skins submitted by users of vanBasco's Karaoke Player are available for download here. You can also use our skin editor to modify existing skins or to create an entirely new skin.


Question: Can you add support for ST3 files to the next version?

Answer: Unfortunately, ST3 is a proprietary file format and, as far as we know, ST3 file format documentation is not available, so we cannot support it :-((


Question: Does your player play Karaoke (CD+G) discs?

Answer: No, it doesn't - vanBasco's Karaoke Player plays MIDI Karaoke files only. However there are a number of CD+G software players available (try any search engine).


Question: How can I burn MIDI Karaoke files on an audio CD?

Answer: To burn MIDI files on a CD you first need to convert them to a .wav (WAVE) file. For converting MIDI to WAVE you basically have two options:

  1. Use a dedicated MIDI to WAVE converter. The one that is perhaps easiest to use is WinGroove.
  2. Record directly from your soundcard's MIDI synthesizer. (Note: not all soundcards support this.)
    First of all, you need to select your MIDI synthesizer as recording source: open your sound card's mixer device by double-clicking the speaker icon at the far right end of the Windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Make sure you are adjusting the recording controls and not the playback volume controls (select "Properties... " from the "Options" menu and activate "Adjust Volume for Recording"). Because you want to record the MIDI sound, and only the MIDI sound, you need to make sure that the MIDI synthesizer is the only category with a tick in its respective "Select" checkbox.
    Now open your favorite audio recording application. (If you don't have one, just use Audio Recorder which is part of the Windows Accessories.) Start recording there and then press "play" in vanBasco's Karaoke Player. Wait until the song is finished and press "stop" in Audio Recorder. Save the sound file.
Now you have a .wav file from which you can create an audio CD using your CD burning application.


Question: Can I add my website to your search engine?

Answer: At the moment, there is no facility for submitting URLs for inclusion in our search engine, unfortunately.

What you can do is make sure that your site is linked on as many MIDI-related sites as possible, by contacting their web masters. This will increase the chances that our search robot (and others, too) will find your site automatically on the next update.
Please note that our search engine finds MIDI files only when they are linked directly using a tag having the format <a href="song.mid">Song Name</a>. If you use zipped files or fancy JavaScript links, your files will not be found.