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.

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.

3 . Download a SoundBank (Soundfonts)

Download a sound bank (SoundFonts) to emulate real instruments

Why a SoundBank?

Nothing beats the sound of a real instrument. A computer program, as sophisticated as possible, will never render an instrument in a perfect realistic way.

The sound banks, as they contain samples of real instrument, can get you closer to the most realistic sound for your Karaoke player.

More informations on how to improve MIDI sound

Which one?

The sound banks proposed on this page are my favorites and the one I use almost always.

They contain all the 128 MIDI instruments, so you will have no any other manipulation to do once downloaded and set up in the VirtualMidiSynth synthesizer.

Where can I find others?

There are many others available on the internet, some are general, they contain the 128 instruments of the MIDI standard (GM), and others are specialized for a single instrument (piano, guitar etc …).

Share your experience

If you use SoundBanks, do not hesitate to share your experiences, otherwise, start with the one I propose and make your own idea.

Notes:

Downloading a sound bank (SoundFonts) only makes sense if you have downloaded previously a synthesizer capable of managing it. This is the combination of the two that will allow you to significantly improve the sound reproduction of your MIDI songs.

The SoundBank (SoundFonts) is a creation of E-mu.
A SoundBank contains samples of many instruments.
These samples are in .wav format and are organized as MIDI instruments for use by applications that use this format.

2 . Download a synthesizer

Replace the basic Windows synthesizer with the excellent VirtualMIDISynth from CoolSoft

As you may have noticed, the sound reproduction of MIDI files is often disappointing.
This is due to the poor performance of the basic Windows synthesizer responsible to “interpret” your MIDI files.
Fortunately, you can significantly improve the sound quality by replacing it with another synthesizer, free, more powerful, and especially able to manage “banks of sounds” that contain samples of sounds of real instruments. (which is not the case of the synthesizer provided by Windows)

As explained in this article, in order to significantly improve the sound reproduction of MIDI files, you better replace the basic synthetizer provided by Windows, responsible for “(massacre) interpreting” your MIDI files, by another more powerful synthesizer, and especially capable of managing “sound banks” that contain sound samples of real instruments (which is not case of Windows one)
For more details, read this post.

The solution I use consists in replacing the basic Windows synthesizer with the VirtualMIDISynth synthesizer developped by CoolSoft.
But that’s not all, as explained above, you will have also to download a sound bank.
A sound bank is a file containing samples of sounds of real instruments.
A new synthetizer and a Sound Bank will change your mind about the sound quality of MIDI files.
Do not hesitate, the improvement is radical.

  • To go to the Coolsoft website and be sure to get the latest version of VirtualMIDISynth, click here.

Note :

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!

A guided tour

An overview of the main Karaboss functions

When the application is launched, the Karaboss explorer is displayed. It positions itself on the last location used in the previous session.

You can launch a MIDI file directly by double-clicking on it, edit it, and add it to a playlist.
This home page also provides access to Karaboss’ main functions. Guided tour :

The “HOME” button :

allows you to re-center the explorer at the root of your song library.

The search engine :

search your song library, looking for any string in the name of your files.

The explorer (this page):

navigate through your library of music files and start playing a karaoke file by double clicking on it.

The playlists manager:

manage lists of songs and organize your parties in advance.

The “ARTISTS” button:

launches a search on web services on internet and allows to find all the recordings of an artist as well as the words (essentially in the Anglo-Saxon world)

The Karaoke MIDI player:

Accessible by double clicking on a file in the explorer or via the “PLAY” button that starts playing a music file (.mid or .kar). If the file has lyrics, the karaoke window will be displayed automatically.

The score editor (MIDI sequencer):

Accessible via the “EDIT” button that opens a file in edit mode or the “Files”> “New” menu that opens a new MIDI file in creation.

The virtual piano:

Even if you can not read the scores, learn to play the piano with falling notes!

The virtual guitar

Learn to play guitar faster with notes displayed in real time on a guitar neck.

Chords

Karaboss now recognizes chords in MIDI files..

Screen captures of Karaboss

Screen captures of Karaboss

Some screen captures of Karaboss in action: the home page with the file explorer and all its functions, the karaoke window, the playlists, the score edition, the virtual piano and demonstration videos.

 

The explorer

Explorer

 

The karaoke player

Karaoke Window

Karaboss Player

 

The virtual piano

Piano Training

Videos Youtube :

Play guitar

Virtual Guitar

Video Youtube

The score editor (MIDI sequencer)

Classic mode

Enter notes

Piano-roll mode

A small introducing video