I just updated all my scripts related to the UltraStar Karaoke app, and released a band new Karaoke Lyrics viewer for REAPER to fit into this workflow. A good occasion to put the spotlight on these on ReaLinks!
So there is an open source Karaoke app called UltraStar. Its main feature is that you have pitch detection associated to a score system. This is fun for parties, and nice for practice!
The main advantage of an open source karaoke apps is the diversity of songs that the online community can bring. You could sing along Ariana Grande and then switch to Slipknot, before going back to mid 60’s french artist that no commercial karaoke app would have. The main inconvenient is intellectual properties considerations it rises about sharing MP3, some artists / labels being more or less tolerant with it. Anyway, you can do karaoke with free songs under Creative Commons and your own songs so I will let you explore these questions by yourself.
These apps come with either companion apps or built-in module to let you create your songs, but I found these quite clunky, with limited features set, and usage customization possibilities. It doesn’t prevent mapping songs, and the community is very active, but I wanted to do it in more flexible ways. In REAPER, I would be able to take advantage of advanced things like MIDI input, VSTi loading, batch processing, video display etc… So few years ago, I released a set of scripts to be able to import / export songs and lyrics in REAPER from / to UltraStar format. I wrote an article about it. 😉
Still, some parts of the process were not very comfortable and could be enhanced. Recently (two days ago), as Friops wanted to mapping another song, I made some updates and bug fixes to the main scripts (import / export), but I mostly needed a more comfortable way to see if the lyrics are in synced, cause watching text events in REAPER is really confusing. We needed a karaoke viewer… So I just made one!
This is one of the great things about REAPER: if you want a feature, you can maybe write it by yourself. Even if it is as advanced as a karaoke lyrics viewer. Sure it is not perfect, and some parts were kinda tricky to code, but it does the minimal requirements in a good way and took 1 day to make ! It is already pretty damn useful! 😎
I let you take a look at the original article if you want more practical information about mapping your song for UltraStar from REAPER. 😉
Happy mapping… and singing! 🎤
Note: A bit confusing at first, but there are different versions made by different groups of people. They fortunately share the same song format. Among these versions, there are UltraStar Deluxe, UltraStar World Party, Vocaluxe, and a brand new one in active development which is very promising, UltraStar Play. I recommend the first for now, mostly because I am used to it so I know it works nicely, but keep an eye on the last one!