User interface
Main Window
On the top you see common Windows interface items -- menu bar and toolbar.
Left side of the window is occupied by the soundtrack panel. It displays a waveform of the current soundtrack, and on top of it labels that correspond to the synchronized words.
Right side of the window contains the shortcut bar. It contains shortcuts to most frequently used commands. Shortcut bar changes with context -- if you do not need it any more you may close (to display it again use Shortcut bar command from View menu). To leave the shortcut bar visible, but to disable animations, select Preferences from File menu and uncheck Animate shortcut bar option.
The main area of the screen is taken by the lyrics editor. It consists of two parts -- preview window on the top (you may close is with Preview toolbar button 
) and lyrics area below.
Preview window displays the CD+G preview of the current part of the lyrics -- this is how your song will look on the TV screen. If your computer is slow, rendering preview make take a long time and your work will be uncomfortable. To avoid this either hide the preview window or disable automatic updates (clicking Update button will render the preview at the current cursor position).
Lyrics area allows to edit the lyrics text, insert CD+G events, and adjust synchronization of the words.
Soundtrack Panel
Soundtrack panel contains a waveform view of the soundtrack and on top of it displays synchronized lyrics labels.
File details
Top of the soundtrack panel contains the name and the length of the current soundtrack file. Also current cursor position and zoom are displayed.
Zoom
Zoom corresponds to the number of samples shown by one pixel. Zoom 1000 means that every pixel on the waveform display represents 1000 samples. Karaoke soundtracks have frequency of 44100 samples per second, so at zoom 1000 44 pixels represent one second of music.
Use the arrows to modify the zoom. Higher values will show more of the screen on the file, increasing the density. Lower values will give more detail.
Preview bar
Preview bar is displayed on the left. It represents an entire file. The current part of the soundtrack is represented by a window on the preview bar.
Click anywhere in the preview bar to position the cursor.
Use arrows to move back and forth in the soundtrack.
You may extend the visible window by dragging its edges (see image above). It has the same result as changing zoom value.
Click at the bottom of the visible window and drag it to move the window.
Cursor
The horizontal yellow line is a cursor. It represents current position in the file. When you play the music the cursor will move. Click anywhere on the waveform or on the preview bar to move the cursor to the new location.
Labels
Labels are synchronized words. The horizontal red lines are start and end points. Label is attached to the start point.
Soundtrack panel can be used to adjust the start and the end of the word. This can be done in many ways.
To move the entire word click on the label and move it up and down. The word's duration will not be changed. The duration of the previous and the next word will be modified accordingly. You may not move the word earlier then the start of the previous word, and later than the end of the next word.
In this example you see mouse pointer on label 'good'.
To move the end of the word and the beginning of the next word position click and drag the word boundary (the red horizontal line).
In this example end of word 'a' and start of word 'good' would be adjusted.
To move the start/end of the word without moving the end of the previous/next word hold down the SHIFT, and then click and drag the word boundary.
Only the beginning of the word 'good' would be moved.
Only the end of the word 'good' would be moved.
To place a cursor over the label boundary keep the CTRL key down and click as if label was not there.
Shortcut Bar
Shortcut bar contains shortcuts to most frequently used commands of Karaoke Creator. Shortcut bar changes with context -- if you do not need it any more you may close (to display it again use Shortcut bar command from View menu). Shortcut bar is especially helpful when you start learning how to work with Karaoke Creator.
Lyrics Editor
Lyrics editor allows you to edit lyrics, synchronize them, and to insert events in the text that control how your song will look like.
Lyrics editor is a simple text editor window with additional color information that describe word's synchronization status.
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Grey text represents lyrics that are not synchronized |
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Brown text represents lyrics that are already synchronized |
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White text represents an active word during synchronization process.
During playback white is used to sweep the words. |
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When lyrics are synchronized lyrics editor displays one more information -- the current word. It is represented by the underline. To change the current word simply click it. The current word's label is automatically selected in the soundtrack panel.
There are several ways to provide lyrics to Karaoke CD+G Creator. You may:
- Type the lyrics in
- Import lyrics from a text file
- Import lyrics from a MIDI karaoke file
- Paste the lyrics from the clipboard
- Search for lyrics on the internet
The Lyrics Editor allows you to synchronize lyrics with music. For more information, please see the Synchronizing lyrics section.