Richard Stibbons
Getting the best from the Karaoke files
The Karoake files are designed to play using an excellent free Karaoke player called Van Basco which is available from :-
Configuring VanBasco for the best display.
Bring up the player, click on note icon on upper left, click on Setup.
1) Pick your output device, (probably midi mapper or microsoft wave table - whatever gets you a good piano sound)
2) uncheck "start from first note". (important - if left checked it may chop off the first words in the file.)
3) Click on the Karaoke tab:
A good setting for larger lyrics is Serpentine, full stretch, center lyrics, vertical position-top. If you don't have Serpentine, experiment by clicking on all the fonts available to find one which has large characters and fills out the screen as much as possible.
If you have a picture that is appropriate for background, you can brouse to it and use it for the karaoke background too.
After you have your settings on that screen hit Apply and OK.
Remember that you can double click on the karaoke screen and it will go to full screen. Another double click will return it to original size.
There is sometimes a minor, though frustrating, technical problem. The files are designed to play specifically on VanBasco and have a .KAR extension. However, as you download them, Windows figures out that they're really MIDI files in disguise so it changes the extension back to .MID without even asking. This means that on most computers they play using the Media Player rather than VanBasco.
The best way round this is to set VanBasco as your default MIDI player . Alternatively, you can download all the files in the ZIP package and use the MIDI player of your choice.
Sample of full screen VanBasco display
