Types and definitions |
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This page is a google translation. Sorry, I have no time to translate it.
KARAOKE n.m. Entertainment consisting in singing on a recorded music.
Voila! At least, it is clear. I make you grace of the history and legend of karaoke.
Sometimes one describes me asthe "father" of karaoke on computer. May be? I work on the subject since 1992 and my first KaraDos software left at the same time as that Tune 1000, the inventor of the kar. In fact, I took up the idea of the first software on the subject made on Atari by Thierry Madillo. If there is a father, it is him, or the grandfather?
This agreement shows that technology was walls for that and that the spontaneous generation of the same idea in two places of planet is not a chance.
A midi file (mid) is the numerical transcription of a musical partition. It contains enter others, of the data called events which specify for each note to play information necessary (note, instrument, swiftness, time).
One should not confuse a file of the MIDI type which is a partition, with a file of the wav type, mp3 or wma which is digital representations of the sound.
It is often said that midi have a horrible sound. It is often true, but at the same time it is completely wrong. In fact, the sound depends primarily on the equipment which produces the sound. Make play any symphony with musicians with toys like instruments and you will think that the orchestra is bad. Midi, it is a little that. If your equipment (sound card or external expander) is of good quality, not problem, if not, beware your ears; -).
The first sound card its in synthesis FM (OPL3) style sound blaster made a bad midi feeling because of their catastrophic sounds of instruments. Listen to a good midi file on a Roland or Yamaha or other, and you will be amazed by quality.
A midi file can, in addition to the notes, to contain the words of the songs in events of the type LYRICS.
It is thus completely possible to have karaoké in a midi file. One also often finds mid files which in fact are formatted like kar files (see not according to).
There is also of different "standards" of encoding of the words in one MIDI. For example Soltron and XF-Chords.
SMF means "Standard MIDI Spins Format". It is the name of the standard of writing of the files MIDI (see an explanation ).
RIFF: It is not a format of file its, but a "container" of audio and video files multi-media. Although little used, this description is the base of the new audio and video current formats. It was developed at the beginning by Microsoft and IBM in 1991.
RMID (rmi): RIFF-based Midi Spins Format. This format, with the departure specified by Microsoft, then extended by midi.org contains data MIDI and DLS (Downloadable Sounds Files) a little have the manner of the MOD. This format obsolete and is replaced by the XMF.
eXtensible Music Format. It is downward RMID. This type of file can contain SMF (MIDI thus) and DLS. It is relatively recent (first specification in 2001) (see XMF definition ). XMF is not derived from language XML in spite of its name.
Origin: The Company Tune 1000
A file kar (kar) is in fact, a midi file, but whose words are standardized in events meta of the type TEXT.
The texts starting with @ are additional indications compared to the words.
Example:
@L specifies the language of the words
@I any additional information
@T information of title
@KMIDI KARAOKE SPINS information of copyright and type of file
Several lines of titles and information can be present. KaraWin extracts information from titles to post them.
The text even has a very simple format to him:
\ indicates a page break,
/a return indicates has the line
Format owner of real Orche and only read by this software. Like any format owner (has share those of Microsoft; -), it is on the decline.
It is in fact a file compressed MIDI. It is not possible to convert a st3 into kar or mid.
These files are of a hybrid format. They contain on the one hand the partition like one MIDI, and on the other hand, the sounds of the instruments to be played (samples). These formats fell a little in disuse and it is a pity well because the richness of creation and the sounds original with each file, the whole in a compressed ultra format made the happiness of a whole generation of type-setters. The power of the machines and the lowering of the cost of storage made them prefer the files its pure.
There are wonderfull software "trackers" to publish these files.
I do not know extension karaoké on these formats to share a software under back which have deserved success.
This file (wav) contains rough samplings of an analogical recording. That results in an huge list of figures representing the form of wave. On a stereo file, a figure represents the way of left and the following, the way of right-hand side. Small a heading describes the type of the wav like its sampling rate.
It does not have any compression of the data.
When you put audio Cd in your reader of cdrom on the computer, you see in the Windows explorer a succession of cda files
They are not really files with the Windows direction, but of the access points to the numerical samples.
Audio Cd are sampled at the speed of 96Khz, i.e. that each sample represents the value of the amplitude of the sound at one moment, and qu ' one needs 96000 samples to reproduce one second of music.
As for the files wav, it does not have compression with the data-processing direction. It is completely possible to numerically work over again a recording before placing it on Cd but it is another subject.
One enters the family of the compressed files its.
This great family breaks up into two:
The goal is the same one for all: to reduce the size of the files and they make it well.
There are strong chances so that you do not hear the difference between a format compressed or not if your equipment is correct without more. Moreover, the compressed format makes it possible to store a great number of files on Cd or key usb .
The ancestor published before the kar. Associated a midi file, this format makes it possible to synchronize the words on notes-on and note-off of a given midi channel. One can also choose the color of the characters as well as the size.
Compared to the kar, there are not thus badly advantages, but also the disadvantage of being a file separated, and only recognized by KaraDos and KaraWin.
This format inspired that of karakan, the well known editor of kar. A long ago, Jeff, the author, phoned one night to me whereas I was in full sleep. I all the same made a success of with him baragouiner in very approximate English that the txk were not "copyrighted".
The true inventor of format KOK is not that which one believes.
In fact it is Olivier GUEGAN who is the true creator of concept. It is the first which had the idea and wrote a software to create and read the kok which are simply verses of temporal reference and text to be posted at this time. There is a small nuance in the heading of the file which makes that old the kok and the new ones are not identical structure. What imports, KaraWin reads the two kinds.
or "CD+G" or "CD Graphics" or "Compact Disk plus Graphics"...
Format CDG is a curiosity. It is very widespread in the USA or Japan and very little in Europe. This standard is an extension published by Philips and Sony of the red book and is very badly documented.
It is the description of the graphic instructions used to post pixels on a screen. (see CD+G Revealed )
In audio CD, one finds instructions CDG in the "Subcode channels" (see the gravurecd ).
Associated a file mp3 or other, a file cdg contains these codes directly. CD being always sampled at the same speed, each under code thus has an implicit temporal reference. Graphics obtained has a resolution of 300x216 pixels 16 colors.
When you "ripp" a cd+G, one obtains a bin file which is the interlacing of the audio samples and the "subcodes".
KaraWin Pro can convert the bin into mp3+g or wav+g or ogg+g or wma+g and conversely to transform or create CD+G.
The words are in a textual file with extension LRC or txt.
It is a system with TAG, like HTML
Description on ( wikipedia ) and software of creation on http://www.neosafa-france.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=3 or KaraWin itself.
The problem of the LRC, it is that the words post line by line and not syllable by syllable. KaraWin interpolates the run, but it is not forcing not really effective.
One can put textual information (TAG) various in the mp3 such as the titles, author, date, album etc. and even the words as with the LRC. The definition of the format underwent several revisions, each one bringing its batch of improvements.
The words were the subject of an additional description in Lyrics3 . This format very good, but is unfortunately reserved for the mp3 and lack editors.
Formats OGG and WMA have also their own definitions of TAG for information and words.
One of the next challenges of KaraWin could be to develop an editor able to create and transform the words of these various formats.
To follow...
©Jean-Pierre.Cocatrix KaraWin
