Category: Tips

Posted on

Conversion MIDI to MP3, WAV and FLAC

Convert MIDI files to mp3, flac or wav

Would you like to convert your MIDI files to music files (MP3, WAV, FLAC) compatible with Windows Media Player, Winamp etc …?

Do you want them close at hand, so you can listen to them on any occasion, by recording them on a CD, a USB key, or your smartphone?

Do you want to share them with others who do not have Karaboss?

Needless to say that you want a quality conversion that uses your favorite Soundbank.

Do not search anymore !

The solution exists and it is probably already at your disposal!
If you have installed Coolsoft’s VirtualMidiSynth synthesizer, be aware that since version 2.2.0 it has included a MIDI file converter to MP3, WAV and FLAC formats!

How to do ?

When you launch Karaboss, VirtualMidiSynth is also automatically activated without necessarily being visible.

It is however visible in the taskbar of Windows.
Menu Midi conversion

Click on its icon, and the following menu will appear:

Click on the “MIDI file converter” menu
The following window is displayed:
Click on the “+” button to select the file to convert and choose the conversion format (mp3, flac, wav) from the drop-down list.

Midi Conversion Windows

WAV conversion is not a problem and works the first time.
Conversions to MP3 and FLAC, however, require downloading and adding conversion libraries.
These libraries are not included during the installation of VirtualMIDISynth for licensing reasons.
This installation is nevertheless easy and guided by VirtualMIDISynth.

Case of mp3 conversion
For licensing reasons, VirtualMidiSynth does not deliver the mp3 conversion library (LAME).
When you have chosen the MIDI file to convert and click on the “Start Conversion” button, the following message is displayed:

Midi conversion warning

Click on the “OK” button to display the LAME library download page (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php)
Download the zipped compressed file corresponding to your configuration (usually “LAME 3.100 64bit” if you are in Windows 7 or higher.

Unzip the file where it was downloaded, you should get two files “lame.exe” and “lame_enc.dll” and a directory “doc” that it is not necessary to keep.

Simply copy these two files to the “C: \ Program Files \ VirtualMIDISynth \ encoders” directory as shown in the message.

And that’s all, your encoder is ready to convert your MIDI files to mp3.
You will see that the conversion is very fast and that the result is of the same quality as that interpreted by Karaboss, VirtualMIDISynth and your sound bank.

Case of FLAC conversion

Proceed in the same way as for the MP3 format.

Posted on

How to Hear Your Microphone Through Computer Speakers

How to Listen to the microphone?

When you launch an application on your PC, a video, a mp3, or Karaboss Karaoke player, the sound is transmitted to the speakers.

Unfortunately, the sound of the microphone, remains inaudible …
And a Karaoke without any microphone…

Indeed, by default, Windows does not automatically output the audio through the computer’s speakers.

This is on purpose.

Why ?

It is not to complicate your life, but simply to prevent the microphone, capturing the crystalline sound of your voice, but also that of the speakers, does not create an infernal loop of amplification, which ends with a shrill sound, the effect Larsen.

The sound emitted by the speakers is picked up by the microphone which transmits it amplified to the speakers. This signal is again picked up by the microphone and re-amplified, and so on.

So avoid this on a laptop where the speakers and the built-in microphone are very close, but it is quite possible when using an external microphone and not directed to the speakers.

The solution ?

  • Right-click the speaker icon in the notification area.
  • Choose the “Recording Devices” menu, and the window below is displayed.
  • Select the “Registration” tab.
  • Select the active microphone (make it active if necessary) and click on the “Properties” button.

Select micro
The following window is displayed:

Activate micro
Check the box “Listen to this device”

And now you listen the sound of the microphone in your speakers.
Unfortunately, this manipulation, excessively simple, does not always provide the expected result.

Latency

You listen your microphone in the speakers, but the sound is offset by a fraction of a second. And in the case of Karaoke, it’s just unusable.

On recent versions of Windows, the activity “resident” (everything that runs in the background) is important (services, applications, anti-virus etc …) and sound management is not managed on a high priority.

I was able to successfully test one of the methods recommended by gurus sites: the installation of ASIO drivers.
I did not go so far as to install specific drivers for my motherboard, but the generic ASIO4ALL drivers available here.

After installation, the result was rather correct, but maybe it’s due to my configuration, and it will not work everywhere.

To go further in optimization for management of sound:
https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/209571729

Posted on

Which resources and useful links?

What are the best Karaoke download or karaoke files and other great places for singers or budding composers who want to learn about MIDI sequencing.

How to get MIDI or karaoke files?

Good question…Music Studio
A long time ago there was a lot of it on the net.
This time is over: We must now look long before finding his happiness and we often draw a blank.

The problem is that uploading a MIDI file for free comes up against legal considerations, with respect to the rights holders of the original work, and directly competes with the activity of many professionals …
– This is a copy of an original artwork even if the quality of the sound is certainly not at the level of the original one (To say nothing of the absence of the singer)
– This is the equivalent of a score in direct competition with that of the score editors.
– Sometimes these files are created and put on sale by professional musicians, so it is forbidden to put them online.
– Same for MIDI files that you have created yourself, except your own compositions.

In France, for example, the Code of Intellectual Property states that “any representation or reproduction in whole or in part without the consent of the author or the rightful assignees is unlawful, even for translations, adaptations, transformations or even arrangements that may arise from the artwork. ”

It is not the purpose of this page to make a judgment on the orientation of the internet, but it is clear that the “blessed” era of free internet is over and the merchandization of the MIDI file is a fact.

The purpose of this page is to list the different possibilities and give some links that point to files still free of charge.

Google search:

It is usually enough to launch Google by doing a search on “Midi Files” or “Karaoke Files” to get good results.

We then come across sites that offer self-service files, others that require the creation of an account, and finally there are sites that offer, for a small fee, files created by professionals and therefore good quality (you can even order a file if it has never been put in MIDI format)

List of links to sites that offer Karaoke files for free download:

Registration required

Others

The lifetime of sites that offer free MIDI files for download is often short … There is no guarantee that these links will exist in a few months. Thank you for pointing out those who died.

Some interesting sites to consult for singing, to equip yourself:

The Sound Banks (Soundfonts)

Technical stuff: structure of a typical karaoke (.kar) file

We find everything in nature: files whose lyrics have syllables in “text” format, others in “lyric” format, sometimes they are not syllables, but whole lines, or conversely letters entered one by one!
No standard obviously, and thus charges to the MIDI reader to adapt itself progressively to the discoveries of exotic files ….
But here is what we would like to expect 🙂

Others sites:

Backing tracks

That’s it, and if you have, you too, some good addresses, feel free to share them.

Posted on

How to improve quality of MIDI sound?

Improve the sound of Karaboss with a new synthesizer and a SoundBank

Improve MIDI sound is easy:  a small software and a file containing sound samples,  both freely available on the Internet.

What is a MIDI file?

The files used by Karaboss are called MIDI files.
A MIDI file is not a classical music file. It contains no sound, unlike a WAV or MP3 file.
Indeed, the MIDI file is closer to a score. It contains the notes to play and the names of the instruments that must interpret them.

The importance of the synthetizer

A MIDI file being only a “score”, it is necessary that an application interprets it. It means reads the score, plays each note using the right instrument.
All this at the good height, the good duration, and often several notes at once, and several different instruments at a time.
It is not Karaboss which takes care of it, but a synthesizer. (you have to know how to delegate in life)

The sound reproduction of a MIDI file will therefore depend on the capabilities  of the synthesizer responsible for interpreting it. And there, no miracle …
If the rendering can be “correct” for the “happy few” owners of a specialized and expensive sound card, it is frankly poor for the common people having only the basic software synthesizer provided by Windows.

Double-click on a MIDI file and you will see that what you hear is unlikely to enhance the incredible range of your voice.

Change it!

In order to improve the quality of the MIDI sound, it is better to replace the synthesizer provided by Windows by another synthesizer, and by chance, there are others particularly effective, and … free!

The best current choice, in my opinion, is the software named VirtualMIDISynth from Coolsoft, available at the following address: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

This software is free, effective, installs very easily, and is made forget: once installed, you will have nothing to do, it will start alone, in the background, as soon as you double-click on a MIDI file, or launch Karaboss.
VirtualMIDISynth installs as a new MIDI output device under Windows, so its use is totally transparent, and best of all, it can also be used from any application or video game that will improve its sound!

It also has a particularly valuable function that lacks to the basic Windows synthesizer: Soundfonts!
Indeed, a synthetic sound has no chance to compete with the sound produced by a real instrument.
The synthesizer VirtualMIDISynth is able to produce the sound of real instruments instead of synthesizing it, thanks to its ability to use SoundBanks. And that changes everything…
In short, nothing but hapiness!

The SoundBank

Your synthesizer will be able to replace sounds synthesized by the sound of real instruments through a SoundBank.

A “SoundBank” is a single file (extension .sf2) containing samples of sounds from real instruments.

The more sounds the file contains, the bigger it is, and the more it consumes resources on your machine, but on the other hand, the more the sound is likely to be realistic … (but as often, the size is not enough)

So there is a compromise to find, as always 🙂

Wich one?

You will use either a specialized bank for an instrument (grand piano or electric guitar Fender Telecaster for example), or a generalist bank that contains the samples of the 128 instruments of the General MIDI (GM) standard.
Note the term (GM) that indicates the coverage of all instruments, such as Arachno Soundfont Bank (GM) or SGM Bank V2.01 (GM).

The parameters that come into play:

  •  The size of your SoundBank, the possibilities of your machine
  • Your feeling compared to the rendering of a SoundBank (all tastes are in nature)
  • The style of music you listen to (classical, pop, rock, jazz etc …)
  • The size of your wallet can also be a criterion if you opt for a paid SoundBank. The free SoundBanks always have a weakness somewhere, otherwise it would be too simple.

In the family of free banks, my favorite SoundBanks are

But many others exist of course (see Google “Soundfonts” or “sound banks”)
I have tried many others, sometimes much larger, but for now, nothing to do, I stay on it, despite their weaknesses on some instruments like the acoustic guitar.

Shortly, I stay looking for the ideal solution, SoundBanks GM, or assortment of specialized banks, free or paid.

In order to complete the sound reproduction of your Karaboss Karaoke MIDI player, you will need to download and test different SoundBanks, and indicate in a few clicks to your new synthesizer VirtualMIDISynth which one to use.

Synthetiser

All this is perfectly explained on the VirtualMIDISynth website. (This one also offers a lot of links to SoundBanks)

For a better understanding, look at this video on Youtube  

That’s all for this time.
And no more excuses now if your Karaboss software continues to emit sounds worthy of a child’s organ.