Karaoke Forums

Hi, I want to include a midi track to control stage lighting.
I will be recording the flash buttons from my dmx / midi controller into a midi file, which is easy enough to do. But.... how do I sync it to mp3+g playback....

I don't see the problem.  You want to play a midi file concurrently with an MP3+g file and there is nothing on the midi file but hardware control commands.  Right?  You don't need to build the midi file, just play it, Yes?  So...If I got that all right, I don't see the problem.  More data needed.

Yep, I just wrote a little quick and dirty program and there doesn't seem to be a problem even on '98.  I didn't send any system messages and I don't have a lighting controler but there doesn't appear to be an issue.  What's the deal?

Thankyou for taking a look. You have given me hope.
Ok more details.
I want to play a karaoke file. My playaer of choice is karafun. Could be anything.
I want to have a midi recorer already open and running. I use Cooledit pro.
When the music starts I will tap out the light show on my midi / dmx controller which is sequencing par 64's. (I may flash it in time with a drum roll) eg.
OK I will do that for every song I play.
During an evening, I will record some midi tracks. Other songs I may have previously recorded the midi track, so it gets played back with the karaoke track.
Eventually I have midi files for all the songs I play.
I build up a light show for every song.
Now...
How do I make the midi file automaticly Play back in time with the karaoke file.

I looked at Karafun (thank goodness they're not in the pro market) and I poked around at Microsoft and here's what I came up with.
Windows has some nice and easy midi implemetaion API calls for playing files and Karafun has a somewhat limited keyboard interface.  So I would build a little control program that sends the midi file to Windows, shift focus to Karafun and drop an X (Play) key command in the message loop.  Midi file is playing, Karafun is playing.  Unless of course you are playing a midi karaoke file and then just put the system commands in there but you already knew that.

Thankyou for that...
What do I need to learn in order to do that.
I am more on the hardware side of computers,
but if you can point me in the right direction I will learn how to do it.

I have never seen a program that will sync the mp3 player with light fixture software. That's one of the reasons why my lights are controlled by an external controller. I use Elation DMX Operator Pro. I like the pro because it has a separate 8 channels to control up to 16 Par Cans with two per channel (8 channels of control). Then I set the program to run according to the mic input on the beat of the music and it works great. I believe, but not sure 100%, both LightFactory and Freestyler will let you do that. And Freestyler is a free program. It's not fancy but if you want to do simple program to run just Par Cans, it should do the job.

I know that some light control programs will let you control the lighting based on the PC's microphone input. Maybe you can set it up that way so your light sequence changes from external sound, rather than using beat from mp3.  The time delay is small and no one will notice it.

Just a thought.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

e-mail me and I'll send you the little quick and dirty program that I wrote and you can see if it does what you want it to.  outintheweeds(at)hotmail.com I'll need to know what format your audio files are in.

Thankyou so much exweedfarmer.
I'm getting excited.

Thanks for your input eben. I do have the sound to light facility. It works nice.
I just have a problem where nice isnt good enough.
I use flash buttons and sliders. I play it like an instrument.
I get spectacular results.
Thing is... I cant sing, I cant dance. I have to make up for it somehow.

Ah, still waiting on an e-mail address Jerry....

I have actually sent you 2 emails.
The last one contained the following link
http://www.karafun.com/forum/karaoke-1134.html
My email is   jerryhamilton@fsmail.net
Seems there is a problem with nidi at the moment
at Karafun.

Well, it looks like Karafun will soon have the problem in hand.  Now that I have your email I'll send the little program along.  I recieved neither of your emails but that's life in the cybere-world.

My gear is not with me. Its in storage.
I am trying it with a music midi file.
I am using midi mapper.
When I hit button1 the midi file only starts to play.
I have mcafee running. Cant dissable it.
Done a reboot.
What else should I try...

Oh and its MP3 and CDG I am using

Okay, let me make sure I've got the facts right.  The only two apps up are karafun and my little one.  You have a song queued up and ready to hit play in Karafun.  Then you open my doo-dad, select the midi file (music in this case), click Button 1 which I apparently didn't rename "Play" and my doo-dad minimizes, the music midi starts to play, but the song queued up on Karafun does nothing.  Did I get that all right?

Yes, The file is not cued though.
It is in an open folder and selected.
Play would then play it.
I am running XP SP2

See if karafun will play the file when you hit the lower case "x" on the keyboard.  I just dropped an x into the message loop which is supposed to be the keyboard shortcut for "Play" in karafun.  We should really debug this thing via email rather than taking up the forum.

Are you receiving your emails.
Message sent was...
The way it appears to work is...
X can not start the song playing. only pressing play can do that.
For X to function, the song must already have been started and put in pause mode.
The karaoke graphics screen also has to be on top for X to work.
When your applet is on top X does nothing

I got your last email but I'm not on the net constantly.  My development machines are not even networked ususallyas they do tend to explode on a regular basis.  So it may take me a little while to respond.  I even have to go be a KJ shortly.

HEY EVERYONE.....

IT WORKS... EXWEEDFARMER ROCKS !!!!!!!