KaraFun and synchronized lyrics
Update
Since creating this page, the company that makes KaraFun has released, in addition to the standard basic freeware program, a non-freeware Studio version. This indicates to me that their interests do not lie in producing the best possible piece of freeware software as I had hoped. Indeed, some of the features I was hoping would make it into KaraFun (such as support for multiple lines being sung simultaneously) have appeared as Studio-only features.So, I'm not as enthusiastic about this anymore. I'll leave the old page up here for anyone interested, though.
Main content
I'm a pretty big fan of Japanese music (from actual J-Pop or from anime), and also of the Japanese language and scripts.
Following Japanese lyrics and singing the songs is, of course, the ultimate combination of the two! However, it's been a nightmare trying to find a program or plugin (for Winamp or Windows Media Player) which:
- Supports Unicode so I can enter Japanese lyrics in Japanese
- Provides the ability to sync the lyrics to the music, not just a line at a time or word at a time, but with a precision of one Japanese character
- Offers a stylish interface and decent looking fonts and text
- Is freeware
It seemed like an impossible task, but I recently came upon a program fitting these exact conditions in the form of KaraFun.
It suits me very well... my only problem with it is that it's not a Winamp plugin, which means
- I have to use it instead of Winamp for lyrics
- Other people have to download it in order to be able to use the synchronized lyrics files (I think they only work with this program). Luckily it's freeware so it doesn't really matter.
I'll be putting lyrics files up here as I make them. Unless stated otherwise, these files contain lyrics in kana/kanji, so make sure you can read Japanese (or at least are learning) before you download them!
Lyrics files
These files vary in size between very small (~5KB in size) and fairly large (if it's large it's probably because it has a background).
Obviously, to play the music in sync with the lyrics files, you'll need to obtain an mp3 (or some other format) of that music first - either by buying the CD or downloading it.
Ah, and obviously you'll also need KaraFun to play them. The link is above.
If you're having trouble finding a place to obtain one of the songs below, or feel like requesting another song to produce a lyrics file for, feel free to contact me (contact information is on the main page).
- Asterisk by ORANGE RANGE (long version, 4m59s). Bleach's 1st OP.
- READY STEADY GO by l'Arc~en~Ciel (long version, 3m49s). Fullmetal Alchemist's 2nd OP.
- Melissa by Porno Graffiti (long version, 4m33s). Fullmetal Alchemist's 1st OP.