Every .kar file in your library was made by someone. A sequencer programmed the music, typed the lyrics and timed every syllable — and with a MIDI file, a text editor’s worth of patience and a karaoke authoring tool, that someone can be you. Making your own .kar file is the only fully legal way to add an obscure favorite to your collection when no file exists, and it teaches you more about how MIDI karaoke works than any amount of downloading. This beginner’s guide covers the principles and the workflow; it deliberately avoids ranking tools, because what matters is the method.
You will test your files in vanBasco’s Karaoke Player (v2.53, March 2004, Windows freeware), so install it from the Download page first. More song-craft guides live on the Songs & Resources hub.
What a .kar file actually contains
A .kar file is a MIDI file with lyrics embedded as timed events. The music is ordinary MIDI — tracks for drums, bass, piano and the melody — stored in the same format as any .mid file. The karaoke part is a stream of lyric events, each carrying a syllable or word and the exact moment it should be highlighted. vanBasco reads those events, displays the lyrics in sync and follows the melody on its piano keyboard window. Understanding that split — music as notes, words as timed text — is the whole secret. You are not “recording” anything; you are authoring data.
Step 1: start with a MIDI file you have the right to use
Begin from a MIDI file of the song: one you sequenced yourself, a public-domain arrangement, or a file whose creator permits reuse. Editing someone else’s commercial backing track and redistributing the result is not made legal by your edits, so keep your sources clean from the start — the rules in our legal sources guide apply to raw material too. For a first project, choose a slow, simple song with clear phrasing. Ballads forgive beginner timing; fast rap does not.
Step 2: prepare the lyrics as syllables
Type the lyrics out and break them into the syllables that will be highlighted, following how the singer actually phrases the line. Mark line breaks where the display should move to a new line — vanBasco’s lyrics window shows a few lines at a time, and well-placed breaks make a file readable from across a room. This step feels tedious and is in fact where good .kar files are won or lost: lyric preparation done carefully makes the timing step fast, and sloppy text produces files nobody enjoys singing from.
Step 3: align the lyrics to the music
In a karaoke authoring tool — a category that includes dedicated .kar editors and sequencers with lyric-event support — you play the MIDI and tap or place each syllable on its note, working phrase by phrase. The melody track is your guide: align each syllable to the melody note it is sung on. Work at a reduced tempo if the tool allows it, loop difficult phrases, and check beginnings of lines especially, because a line that lights up late throws the singer for the whole line. Expect a first song to take an evening; your fifth will take a fraction of that.
Step 4: test in vanBasco, then fix what the test shows
Open the finished file in vanBasco and sing it — yourself, all the way through, at full tempo. Note every place the highlight feels early, late or bunched, and every line break that arrives awkwardly. Then go back to the editor and nudge those events; small timing shifts of a fraction of a beat are normal finishing work. Also test the things vanBasco lets singers change: slow the song down, shift the key, and confirm the lyrics stay in sync, since lyric events tied to the music follow tempo and key changes automatically.
From .kar to karaoke video
Some creators want to share their work as video — a sing-along clip for friends or a channel — rather than as a raw .kar file. That is a different production step: the file is rendered with its lyrics into a video. If that is where your project is heading, a dedicated maker such as MyKaraoke Video exists for turning songs into karaoke videos.
Turn a finished song into a karaoke video — an option for creators who want a shareable video version once the file itself is made.
However you share, share only what you have the rights to share: your sequencing of a public-domain song is yours to publish; a commercial song’s lyrics and melody are not. Once your library of self-made files grows, keep it safe with the system in organizing and backing up your karaoke library, and read the format explainer if the difference between what you made and a plain .mid is still fuzzy.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be a musician to make a .kar file?
No, but you need a MIDI file to start from. If you start from an existing legal MIDI, your job is lyric preparation and timing — patient work, not performance. Sequencing the music yourself is the optional, harder path.
Why do my lyrics drift out of sync?
Usually because syllables were aligned to the wrong melody notes, or a phrase was timed at one tempo and the file’s tempo map changed. Re-check the phrase note by note in the editor, then test the fix in vanBasco at full tempo.
Can I sell or publish the .kar files I make?
Only when you hold the rights to everything in the file: your own sequencing of a public-domain or original song is publishable. A commercial song’s melody and lyrics belong to their writers and publishers, however the file was made.