Oh how I love puns. If you were paying attention to my last post, I was working on a karaoke song. Not singing one (I do that several times a week), but creating the file.
Why? My friends and I are big fans of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog by Joss Whedon & Co. It was a musical released to the internet during the 2007 writer's strike, and stars Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser/How I Met Your Mother/sheer awesomeness fame), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), and Felicia Day (The Guild). Watch it somewhere online, it's really good if you're at all geeky and/or like musicals, plus all 3 episodes put together are about 45 minutes long. Here's a trailer:
Anyways, as you might know we are also big fans of singing karaoke at bars...so one day we got to talking about how it's too bad that none of the great songs from Dr. Horrible have ever been officially released for karaoke. Which got me thinking...as long as I could find a version of the track that lacked vocals, as well as an application that allowed me to create karaoke format files, I'd be able to figure out how to make Dr. Horrible karaoke a reality.
As luck would have it, after a bit of Googling I came across a website by a Moses Lei that featured synthesized, vocal-less versions of all of the tracks from the musical. I also found a karaoke authoring application called DART Karaoke Author, which seemed fairly simple to use. (Sidenote: I haven't exactly gotten permission from Moses Lei to use his track. But I did send him an e-mail and have yet to receive a reply either way. And I assume that in the spirit of creativity and non-profitness, that by default he would be okay with this. Also I assume Moses Lei is a he).
So after about 5 hours' worth of aligning words to music (and typing all the lyrics out, because apparently copy/pasting doesn't work in modern applications anymore), I have a slightly buggy karaoke file for the song Brand New Day. When I say buggy, I mean some of the lines don't get highlighted on the right cue, even though I've set it up properly within the program. I have no idea how to fix this, I've tried everything obvious in the program and even a few unobvious things. After working with it for a sizeable amount of time, I think the program itself is pretty bare-bones and just plain bad, and I really wish I could have found a more professional karaoke authoring tool for as cheap as I got this one (that is, free). Maybe I'll do this project over someday with a better tool. But the file works fine for the most part, and if you are a fan and know the song well, you won't need the right cues.
So I present to you first, the original song in its full glory:
Now onto the karaoke version. First, if you want to play karaoke format files on your PC, you need a karaoke player application. If you don't already have one, a free and easy one can be found here: Link to Free Karaoke Builder CD+G Player.
Once you have that installed (it's a small, compact application) you will want my (and Moses Lei's) creation, the actual karaoke file: Sendspace Link. You'll need to unzip the file using Winzip or WinRAR (if you don't know what these are...seriously?! go away) and make sure both the CDG and MP3 files are in the same directory, otherwise you will not hear the music. Then you have to play the CDG file. If you have a karaoke player installed (such as the above linked Karaoke Builder CD+G player), it should automatically open in that program.
And that's week 8. Despite the imperfections, I consider this project a success. It took me a really long time to sync all the words up with the music and I know there's room for improvement even, which has definitely given me a new appreciation for the jobs of those that do this for a living.
Also, I know this post is late and it's week 9 already! There will be a week 9 update soon...rest assured I HAVE been busy working on this week's project: it involves one of my FAVORITE activities: exercise.
No comments:
Post a Comment