Main Window
The main window is the heart of the player. Here, you specify which
song to play, select which outputs to display, and also access some
special functions like "shuffle" or "scan". The main window mimics to a
large extent, video or music tape players and works pretty much the
same. You can be intuitive about getting around this window.
To load a song, create a playlist
or double-click the sound file in Windows Explorer (or drag & drop
onto a window of the player). A new playlist identified as "(default)"
will be created. If there is already a playlist entitled "(default)",
its contents will be replaced (if you want to keep that playlist, simply
rename it via the Playlist Window so
it won't be overwritten later).
Player Control Buttons
- To play, click the PLAY
button. While playing, this button will become a PAUSE button, for temporary stops.
- To 'rewind' to an earlier part of the song while playing, select
the REW and don’t release the
click until you have ‘rewound’ enough. You can judge that by observing
the visual display of the song counter and the time/total values.
- To skip forward to a later part of the song, select and hold down
(click delayed release) the FWD
button.
- Alternatively, you can move around in the song by dragging the
little blue timing bar along the time scale underneath the main play
buttons.
- The PREV and NEXT buttons refer to earlier and
later songs in a playlist of songs.
- STOP stops the playing of
the song or playlist. If you push PLAY
then, playing will start in the beginning. (Use PAUSE if you want to stop play
temporarily and then pick up where you left off.)
Other Windows
The bottom line of the Main Window contains buttons which are used
to open or close the other windows of vanBasco's Karaoke Player. The
following windows are available:
- PLAYLIST - The Playlist Window can be used to create,
delete or modify playlists.
- KARAOKE - The Karaoke Window shows the song lyrics.
- OUTPUT - The currently
playing notes of a song are displayed in the Output Window. You also can turn off
channels there.
- PIANO - The Piano Window shows the notes of all
channels on a big piano keyboard.
- CONTROL - If you
want to change the volume, speed or key of a song, use the Control Window.
Player Mode Buttons
These are toggle buttons to select on or off. Red means ON, black
means OFF:
- AUTOPLAY causes
dragged-and-dropped files to play instantly.
- SHUFFLE causes random
re-order of the songs in the current playlist.
- SCAN
allows you to listen to just a single frame of each song (usually in the
beginning of the song, by default ranging from 00:10 to 00:20; can be
configured via the Setup Dialog). This is very useful for trying a
series of files.
- REPEAT is actually a
three-state option allowing to either repeat the current song, loop the
whole playlist, or don't repeat.
Misc Buttons
- Search (the magnifying
glass, located in the upper right) -- clicking this icon will take you
to the web page of vanBasco's MIDI Search, an Internet search engine for
MIDI and Karaoke files.
- Save As... (the disc to
the left of the magnifying glass) -- allows you to save the current file
to a local drive. Note: Using this button will save the original MIDI
file. Any changes made in the output window, such as muting a channel,
or changing the tempo in the Control window, will not be saved.
However, you can save these changes to the playlist from within the Control Window.
- Options (the note in the
upper left corner) -- opens a menu which will allow you to access the
setup dialog, toggle the playlist and the additional display windows,
open the help file, etc.
Click the file name (or press 'Q' on your computer's keyboard) to
bring up the quick select window. Here, you can easily navigate to any
song in the current playlist, which is very convenient for on-stage
usage, for example. There are three ways to do this:
- use the mouse and just click a file
- use the cursor keys
- you may enter the song number (provided that the song position
display is activated)
- you can type in the first few characters of the song name
Once the desired song is highlighted, simply press the Return key to
load that song. If you don't want to make any selection, you can dismiss
the Quick Select Window by pressing Escape (Esc).
By the way, vanBasco's Karaoke Player can also be controlled via
several other keyboard shortcuts.