Settings-MIDI-Karaoke-Plugin

MIDI Karaoke Configuration

Plays .mid, .midi and .kar files as karaoke tracks. QUP renders them through a built-in synthesiser and puts the lyrics on the same display CDG tracks use, so a MIDI file behaves like any other song in the rotation — including transpose, tempo, seeking and music-video backgrounds.

.kar files are Soft Karaoke MIDI files: ordinary MIDI with the lyrics stored in a text track. QUP reads those lyrics and scrolls them in time with the music.

SoundFonts

A MIDI file contains notes, not sound. A SoundFont (.sf2) supplies the actual instruments, so which one you load changes how everything sounds.

QUP ships with a General MIDI bank and installs it on first run, so MIDI files play out of the box with no setup. Swapping in a different bank is the single biggest change you can make to MIDI playback quality.

Bank — The SoundFont currently in use. Everything renders through this.

Add local .sf2 … — Loads a SoundFont file you already have on disk.

Add from URL … — Downloads a SoundFont from a link.

Load list / Download selected — Fetches a list of freely available SoundFonts so you can try alternatives without hunting for them.

Filter — Narrows the list when it's long.

Larger banks generally sound better and use more memory. Keeping two or three around and switching per venue is reasonable.

MIDI Mixer

Opens while a MIDI song is playing and shows the instruments in that file, so you can rebalance a track that wasn't mixed for karaoke.

Per-instrument level — Turn individual parts up or down. Useful when a lead line is buried, or when the drums are overpowering in a small room.

Guide vocal / melody mute — Many MIDI karaoke files carry the tune on its own channel. Muting it gives you a proper backing track; leaving it in gives singers something to follow. Which channel holds the melody varies between files, which is why this is per-song rather than a global setting.

Changes apply immediately, so you can adjust while a singer is performing.

Transpose and tempo

Pitch and tempo work exactly as they do for CDG tracks, using the same controls. Because MIDI is regenerated rather than time-stretched, transposing costs nothing in quality — a MIDI file shifted five semitones sounds exactly as good as the original, which is not true of an audio track.

Seeking, transposing and tempo changes are all gap-free: the audio doesn't drop out while the change is applied.

Notes

MIDI files sit in your karaoke library alongside everything else and queue the same way. Nothing special is needed to use them beyond having the files.

If MIDI plays silently, the SoundFont is the first thing to check — open the SoundFont panel and confirm a bank is selected.