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*********************
* KARAOKE *
*********************
Version 2.50
User Manual
(c) 1992, 93 dgs software / music
an ExCiTe! production
Author : Davide Guida (DGS)
Address : Via Rodolfo Falvo 10, Napoli (Italy)
E-MAIL : progetto@csdux01.cised.unina.it
(see paragraph #9 for E-MAIL instructions)
Release Date : November 22nd, 1993
1. WHAT IS KARAOKE
Originally, Karaoke is a popular music game for discos or beaches allowing you,
'common people', to sing your favorite song while listening the original music
background. So any people can learn songs easier and faster, having fun in the
world of music. KARAOKE became very popular in Italy last year, due to a tv
show broadcast on Italia Uno(*) Network, showing people from all italian towns
trying to sing in front of tv-camera and to win a prize for the best karaoker
in the week.
My program KARAOKE is based on the same concept, but you should have a PC, a
sound card and a lot of .MOD music files to play: if you have a lot of popular
songs, and you know their lyrics, you can create a data file for this program
so you can sing over the module while your PC displays song lyrics.
(*) Italia Uno Network and its logo are registered trademarks of R.T.I. [Reti
Televisive Italiane]
2. HARDWARE REQUIRED FOR USING KARAOKE
In order to use KARAOKE you need the following hardware:
- PC 386/486, 16MHz or better. 640k RAM needed. No Expanded Memory reqyired.
- Hard disk with 400k space free.
- Sound Blaster (Normal, Pro or 16), Pro Audio Spectrum or Aria Sound Card.
- VGA Card, with at least 256k memory.
- Mouse recommended, but not needed.
NOTE: 286 users must download KARAOKE versions previous than 2.00. This
version supports only 386 and 486 machines. Karaoke v1.0 is available
via Anonymous FTP Sites.
In order to install KARAOKE, you must create a directory on your hard disk
and unzip distribution file (KARAOK25.ZIP) into it. Then, type KARAOKE and
press <ENTER> to run it.
3. HOW TO USE KARAOKE
KARAOKE is easy to use. You can play 15-channel SoundTracker Modules (.MOD),
31-channel 4-voice NoiseTracker modules (.MOD), Multi-channel FastTracker
modules (.8CM and .6CM), Scream-Tracker 2.0 and 3.0 files (.STM and .S3M)
and Otto Chrons' .AMF modules.
After the intro screen, the main menu will be displayed. Four options can be
choosen. You can select them by keyboard on by clicking the mouse on its icon.
<Device> : you can select sound devices and its parameters. A new group of
icons will be displayed, indicating all devices supported by
Karaoke. You can press function keys to select a device or click
on a icon. Select <Main Menu> or press <Esc> to come back to main
menu. Then, you can select sound parameters as if you click on
<Options> icon (see below for explanation).
<Song> : allows you to select a module and play it.
<Options>: allows you to set all parameters needed to configure your sound
card and device playback. First parameter is the frequency mix
rate (that is, playback frequency): values depend from sound card
and computer speed. Use WHICH utility in order to know possible
values for your card. SoundBlaster 16 and Pro Audio Spectrum Cards
can pump frequency rate up to 44,1KHz. Other parameters are the
master volume (in the range 1-63) and sound parameters like I/O
base address, dma channel and dma irq line. Default values for all
parameters are:
* Frequency - 16000 Hz
* Volume - 64
* I/O Address - 0220h
* DMA Irq - 5
* DMA Channel - 1
Note : I/O Address must be specified with its hexadecimal value.
<Quit> : exit to DOS. ALT-X is also allowed to perform this operation.
You can choose a module from your disk by selecting <Song> option and by
using the file requester. You can use arrow keys or click on buttons shown
on the right. Press <ESC> to abort the operation, or <Enter> to select a
module.
Now the module will be loaded into memory (if you've enough RAM for it) and
played. But KARAOKE is not a simple player. If your module is called FOO.MOD
and if a file called FOO.KDT is present in the same directory, it can be
considered as a KARAOKE script file and used for displaying lyrics (see the
paragraph 4 for the file structure). If the .KDT file is not present, module
will be played normally as if it was played by a classical module player.
Screen will be switched to VGA graphics mode (640x350, 16 colors) during song
playback.You can stop music playback by pressing <ESC> or clicking left mouse
button: Karaoke will come back to main menu.
4. KARAOKE SCRIPT FILES
KDT script files contain lyrics. You can find some .KDT file together with
its .MOD file on several BBS or FTP sites. Script file is a simple text file.
There's an example on this KARAOKE release, to use with a .MOD, also included
in the package.
All lines with a '#' or a ';' in the first column are considered as comments
and will be ignored by KARAOKE. If no '#' (or ';') is present in the first
column, text line is considered as a timer, and following text line as a
lyrics string. The lyrics string corresponding to timer will be displayed
when song relative timer reaches specified value.
EXAMPLE: We have the following script file:
; SCRIPT FILE - EXAMPLE 1
00:05
That's only what I want
00:08
In this world
00:12
In this stupid world
00:16
Now that's time to go out
00:19
and tell you I love her....
First text row is a comment and will be ignored.
Second and third text row tells KARAOKE to display the string "that's only what
I want" when song timer reaches 00:05 value, that is, after five seconds song
has started. In fact, KARAOKE will display three rows at a time, but first of
them will be displayed in 'reverse' colors so it will be hilited. After three
seconds (00:08), lines will be scrolled, so that the hilited row will be the
second ("In this world"), the third and the fourth will be displayed using
standard colors (that is, song text is 'scrolled' one line up). And so on.
You can make your own Script Files. After you've listened a song and stored
right timings on a paper, you can create your script file by placing all
lyrics phrases corresponding to right timings. It could take a while, but you
can speed up this procedure, by using one of utilities provided with KARAOKE
(see par. 6)
5. LIMITATIONS
- KARAOKE needs a 80386 PC to run, then users having a 8086 or a 80286 should
to update their computer in order to use it.
- You can have several problems when you try to play modules larger than 350k.
Then, if no sound is heard, or a 'allocation error' message is displayed,
probably the module is larger than available memory.
- The maximum number of lyrics phrases in a song must be 500. I think that's
enough for most of the songs (A song having three verses, one bridge and
three chorus, uses about 100 phrases).
- Be sure lyric phrases aren't longer than 50 chars or text will go out of the
screen. Also, lyric phrases shouldn't be longer than 70 chars or system may
crash.
6. UTILITIES
Distribution disk contains also other programs you can find useful.
-KARGRAB.EXE : This is an event capture for KARAOKE. If you have lyric text,
load your module in this utility, then press space every time
you want to insert a new 'phrase' in the script file. When you
press space, current song time will be stored in a file called
like the module but with '.KTM' extension. When you've stored
up all song timings, press <ESC> key. Now, load .KTM file into
a text editor, them add all lyrics phrases manually. You can
save result file by using a .KDT extension. If you've already
lyrics stored in a file, you can use KARFC.EXE described below.
If some error will occur during playback (eg. phrases not cor-
responding to timings), verify your song text file and correct
wrong timings manually (using a text editor). If you are not
able to find an error cause on the song text file, rerun KARGRAB
and make the timing file again.
-KARFC.EXE : If you've a lyrics on a file, you can automatically merge it
to a file created with KARGRAB.EXE. The lyrics must have same
name of the timing file, but the extension must be .KLR. The
result file will have a .KDT extension, so that, if everything
goes well, you can use it directly with KARAOKE. If number of
timings don't correspond to numbers of phrases, something went
wrong, you can notice it if some phrase don't have a correspon-
dent timing in the .KDT, or vice versa. In such case, verify
where is the possible error position, then run KARGRAB again,
paying attention to THAT position. You can also backup old
.KTM file, so you can compare both files and reduce your work.
If you notice you forgot only one timing (it's the most pro-
bable case), you can backup your old .KTM file, rerun KARGRAB
(or KARAOKE directly), pay attention only to event you forgot
previous time and edit timing file so that time will be reduced
a lot.
-PLAYMOD.EXE : plays a module file in background mode on a fast computer. You
must specify a file name and a frequency mix rate on the command
line. Module will be loaded into memory, then COMMAND.COM will
be launched allowing you to work in DOS mode. Free memory can
depend especially from module length. Type EXIT to stop music.
Please don't use a Memory Manager with this utility. If one is
installed, your system may crash. Use a frequency mix rate in
the range 5000-16000, based on computer you have. You can use a
80286 processor in order to run this utility, but your computer
can hang if it's not enough fast.
7. HISTORY
Version 2.50 (11/22/93)
+ New Graphic Environment
- Removed PC-Speaker and LPT1 Device support.
Version 2.00 (05/31/93)
+ Changed Module Playing Routines
+ Added STM / 8CM / 6CM / S3M / AMF support
+ Added module informations on the screen
- 286 support is down (KARAOKE runs only on 386/486 machines now)
Version 2.00ß (05/01/93)
+ Karaoke's desktop is totally changed by using VGA graphic support.
+ Added a file requester in order to 'pick' a module.
+ Fixed some bug to PLAYMOD (v1.1 released).
Version 1.01 (12/02/92)
+ First release available via FTP
+ Fixed a bug in the timing counter
+ Fixed other minor bugs.
Version 1.00 (11/29/92)
+ First release.
8. LAST REMARKS
The program is totally freeware. You can copy and distribute it. If you're
interested to following releases, you can mail me. No part of this program can
be modified in no way. All KARAOKE features are copyrighted by Davide Guida,
except for playing routines, making part of Otto Chrons' DSMI package. KARAOKE
is available on cs.uwp.edu Anonymous FTP site. You can find it on some other
Anonymous FTP sites too, but you must look for it. You should find some .KDT
file in the /pub/music/lists/btl/mods directory, based on Debbie Gibson MOD
files uploaded here.
9. E-MAIL TECHNICAL SUPPORT
KARAOKE technical support is available also via E-MAIL, by writing to:
Davide Guida
progetto@csdux01.cised.unina.it
(it's good if you specified receiver name, 'cause this e-mail address belongs
to a programming team and NOT to a single person)
If E-MAIL fails, for some cause, you can TELNET to csdux01.cised.unina.it on
port 25 and use the SENDMAIL port directly. Here's the exact procedure (all
sentences after '>' must be typed from your terminal, all sentences included
in '<' and '>' must be substituted by true text)
telnet> open csdux01.cised.unina.it 25
Trying...
Connected to csdux01.cised.unina.it
csdux01 SENDMAIL port ready.
>MAIL FROM: <your complete e-mail address>
>RCPT TO: progetto
>DATA
><your mail>
>.
>QUIT
csdux01.cised.unina.it is mapped to numeric address 192.132.34.12
10. DGS PRODUCTS
- A Protracker Module collection is available by DGS. You can mail me in
order to know how you can have it. The collection contains some popular
songs. Also, a Debbie Gibson's module collection is available for her fans.
This collection is available on cs.uwp.edu (/pub/music/lists/btl/mods)
and info.brad.ac.uk (/misc/mods/debbie) anonymous ftp sites.
- The Postering Image collection is available by DGS. It includes a freeware
image viewer in order to display these images. You can find some image
also on cs.uwp.edu picture directories. They have .HS2 extension.
- MultiPlayer Professional Release 2.10 is distributed in the public domain.
It's a digital/fm/sample player for several sound devices. It requires 386
or 486 processors. LZH/ZIP/ARC/PAK archives are also used. A Virtual DOS
Shell is available during module playback.